Sports on TV review

[Fernbay]

.... Just in case any arm chair warriors give a rats arse about sport on TV

For god's sake man! if your cricket or football is that god dammed important to you, then put down the beer, get out of the lounge chair, go down to the oval and actualy play some of the stuff for real instead of yelling at the idiot box

Sport on Television – Review of the anti-siphoning scheme
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On 20 August 2009, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, announced the release of a discussion paper 'Sport on Television: A Review of the Anti-siphoning Scheme in the Contemporary Digital Environment'.

This paper is intended to stimulate public debate about the scheme and inform the Australian Government's considerations of the effectiveness and appropriateness of the anti‑siphoning scheme in the contemporary digital television environment.

Members of the public are encouraged to obtain a copy of this paper and submit their comments on the issues raised. A copy of the discussion paper is available via the link below.
Submissions close 4pm Friday 16 October 2009 (AEDST).

Discussion paper and issues for comment

[NoService]

there seems to be a fairly good mix of late you can watch the ashes on fox or sbs the footy on fox or 9 the afl on fox or 7 the soccer on fox or sbs.

having said that id still like to see 9 have a sports only channel and 7 bring back c7 to give onehd a bit of competition and that in turn would make fox sports take notice thats its not a one way street.

NS

[BShifty]

With Melbourne likely to get the new Super 15 side it would be nice to get the rugby at a civilised time. Whats the purpose of 7 Digital 1,2 & 3?

[Jason_dinAlt]

I feel sorry for those who cant get a decent fta terrestrial signal to watch the AFL finals live, for years fox have been excluded from this and the only option was FTA or Aurora with a dreadfull picture. Last nights Pies v Crows was live here on Sc10 but not live on ONEHD

Hopefully with this review that will be addressed

[gordon_s1942]

From what I remember reading about the 7/Prime, 1,2,3 bit was to have 500 cameras at a sporting match/car race/ jock strap throwing competition so you could go from one idiotic camera angle to another.
Except for the metrop areas, ONEHD and 10SD dont simulcast programs.
Rough titty for us Regionals !!

[allstarnz]

living in a country where no such scheme exists I can see the up and downside to such an arrangement.

The real upside to an anti-siphoning law is that it allows everyone to be able to see events on 'national significance'. This means that even if you don't have access to pay TV you can still see a decent whack of top quality sport. But there is a downside to this however. As free to air television is funded by advertising, and not subscriptions, the coverage is geared so. This will then mean that you are bombarded with advertising after every goal, over, or try. When rights cross over, this can also lead to coverage been put on delay, as there is no space to show it live (ie in SCTV Central market, live AFL will override test rugby).

The advantage of a pay TV operator showing such an event is it will usually be live and have fewer ads. The model that Sky seem to use (and I assume Foxtel) is that they will no interupt an event with advertising, which usually means advertising is limited to before, after and during 'intervals'. Also more channels means events of significance are always played live. The down side of course is that the cost to subscribe to such services is beyond what some people can afford. An additional bonus is that pay TV don't work on a prime time TV model either. A huge annoyance I used to have when TVNZ had the rights to F1 was Malaysia, China etc would be on 3-4 hour delay, as it clashed with the news and Sunday night programming.

Which model is better? I don't know. As I am in a position to be able to afford it, I prefer to pay for better coverage. I get annoyed when big events are given to free to air broadcasters, only for them to bombard you with ads and delay the coverage because it fits their schedule better.