0
New list of sports broadcast rights to change TV
ADELE FERGUSON
November 2, 2009
Any changes could have a big impact on market value and revenues, writes Adele Ferguson.
WITHIN the next four weeks the Federal Government is expected to hand down a shorter list of sports and sports events governed by anti-siphoning rules that will broaden pay TV's access to those not being shown on free-to-air television.
The new list is also expected to allow free-to-air networks to run some sports events from the anti-siphoning list on their new digital channels. The list now covers 12 sports and 1300 events, including rugby league, AFL, some cricket, tennis and the Olympic Games, that must remain exclusively on free-to-air TV.
The review of the controversial anti-siphoning rules prompted a record 330 submissions, including the Australia Competition and Consumer Commission, the free-to-air networks, pay TV, and numerous local and foreign sports codes.
The stakes are high. Besides being a political hot potato, any changes to the list could have a profound impact on the market value and revenues of pay TV operator Foxtel, sporting bodies such as the AFL, and the free-to-air networks.
In Britain, exclusive sports programs are the major force behind pay TV subscriptions. BSkyB's subscribers more than doubled when it first won Premier League rights.
The Federal Government is considering how to adapt the list, introduced 15 years ago to ensure that events of national importance and cultural significance are freely available to the Australian public rather than being "siphoned off" to the pay television industry.
The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, said that since the anti-siphoning scheme was introduced in 1994, the scope and nature of television broadcasting in Australia had changed. "Australians are enthusiastic viewers of sport on television, and the review will allow all interested parties and members of the public to have their say on how the anti-siphoning scheme should work leading up to digital television switchover and beyond," he said.
Free-to-air TV networks, including Seven, Nine and Ten, have been lobbying the Government to retain the list and allow them to run listed events on their new digital channels, including ABC2, Ten's One and Nine Network's Go channel. Under existing rules, listed events must be shown first on the main free-to-air channels.
Others, including sporting codes have put in an unprecedented number of submissions, calling for a relaxation of sport broadcast rules to enable them to sell some of their rights to pay TV.
Foxtel, half-owned by Telstra, 25 per cent by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and 25 per cent by James Packer's Consolidated Holdings, wants a shortened list based on a "use it or lose it" basis that TV networks traditionally do not broadcast 77 per cent of the events on this list. It also rejects old TV's lobbying to use their digital channels to premier listed events.
The ACCC weighed into the heated debate with a submission released late last week, recommending that the list be "substantially shortened" by cutting the number of sports covered and including only the finals of events. It also warned that the anti-siphoning scheme should not be extended to new media such as internet TV and mobile TV.
Foxtel chief executive Kim Williams told businessday he hoped there would be some meaningful reform out of the review.
"But we will see," he said. "The way the list worked in the early years was brutal and was used as a brutal club to smash us on the head."
Over the years the list has been reduced, but he said it had had a big impact. "As a sector, we operate on the premise what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, so we are stronger and more resilient and we have learnt to do something the old TV networks don't do well, and that's compete."
http://www.smh.com.au/business/new-l...1101-hrnr.html
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by jargan83
