Rugby League TV coverage before 1998

[nrlnrl]

Who can remember TV coverage of rugby league before 1998 ?

I'm pretty sure games were on Ch9 from '92 & ABC had a Saturday afternoon game ( they had this for decades apart from a brief period in the 80's when CH9 had it )

Ch10 had a Sunday game from ? in the 80's to '91 ( feel free to fill in the blanks here ).

I think Channel 7's Big League ran from the 70's to the early 80's.

 

[nqcowboy87]

im not sure but ive got the big league 1995 season highlights tapes. there was at least two channel 9 games eacxh round and an abc match mostly the abc was the reds games and the rest where not televised. in fact i remeber in 1998 some games wherent televised like hindmarshs debut (correct me if im wrong)

 

[Green Machine]

ABC had Saturday’ up to 1995 (except 1983). They also had a Saturday 6.00pm replay and that stopped sometime in the early 80’s.
Channel 7 started doing a replay of the Sunday game from 1975 to 1982
Channel 7 used to do all the rep footy. I can remember watching Sunday interstate games on the ABC from Lang Park. Channel 9 did either 1975 or 1977 World Cup/World Series with Ron Casey. If rep games were on a Saturday, they were also on the ABC.
Channel 7 used to do the Wills Pre-season Cup as well. That ended when Canberra and Illawarra came in (season too long).
Channel 10 did the midweek from 1974 till it ended in 1989.
Channel 7 lost the Sunday replay rights at the end of 1982.
Prior to 1983, Channel 10 did a Saturday night replay for a couple of seasons.
Channel 10 did Sunday’s from 1983 to 1991.
Channel 9 took over Saturday’s for one season in 1983.
Channel 9 also took over tests and State of Origin from 1983 to 1989.
Channel 10 did the full Kangaroo Tour in 1986 and Hollywood and Zorba did a simulcast for Channel 7 of the Tests. No one did the games from France.
Channel 10 started doing Monday nights in the second half of the season in 1985. This continued until 1987. Monday nights was to take over when the Mid Week cup finished mid season
In 1988, the Monday night games were moved to a full season of Friday night games.
When Channel 10 went broke in 1990, Channel 9 took over all the rights.
For 1991, Channel 9 on sold the Friday and Sunday rights to Channel 10. They sold the Tests to Channel 7 for 1991 to 1993 and took them back in 1994 because they were rating too well.
The Midweek Cup moved to preseason in 1990 and Channel 10 covered it.
In 1991, Channel 9 only wanted State of Origin. In 1992, they took the Winfield Cup rights back,

 

[nrlnrl]

thanks very much for the detailed answer - was that from memory, the net or other ?

 

[Green Machine]

Memory.

 

[nrlnrl]

awesome effort


when you have 5 or 10 minutes to spare, please make a list of the different games that each of those channels showed

 

[Green Machine]

I thought I did.
I heard great interview with Kevin Humphreys on 2SM a while. They got onto the subject of TV contracts and he mentioned that prior to 1972, TV would give the Rugby League what they thought the rights were worth and cover what ever games they wanted to cover. He said that Bill Buckley had told them that League would tell them what they were to pay and the FTA commercial networks walked away. In 1973, the ABC were given the rights to the Saturday game and the Sunday replay. He said that the Commercial TV Stations put on public front that they were going to wait for the League to come crawling back. In 1974, the first cracks appeared when Channel 10 negotiated to cover the new mid-week Amco Cup. Humphreys said that the Channel 10 contract for midweek football was the most lucrative TV contract in his time in charge of the League. He said that they purposely designed the midweek cup to be 4 quarter football to suit advertisers. In 1975, Channel 7 signed up for the Sunday replay,

 

[innsaneink]

Slightly o/t

Does anyone know the ratio of days (9 Fri niters, FOX supa sat, 9 Sun, MNF)the games are played at Bluetongue, and wether broadcast by fox or 9.

 

[nrlnrl]

sorry, poor attempt at humour -

just impressed by the detail of your answer

 

[Cockadoodledoo]

sorry, poor attempt at humour -

just impressed by the detail of your answer

lol... I got it and thought it was pretty funny actually

 

[bileduct]

When was the Sunday night 43 minute game farce?

 

[Canard]

In Brisbane in the Eighties you would get the NSWRL game (the "Sydney" game) on Sat afternoon on ABC and the BRL ("Brisbane" game) on Sunday afternoon.

That continued right up until 1988 when the Bronx came into the NSWRL.

For about 3 years from 95 in NQ the Cowboys had there home games shown on WIN delayed at about 9.30 on Saturday nights and sometimes later on Sundays.

 

[Green Machine]

When was the Sunday night 43 minute game farce?

When Channel 7 and Channel Ten had the rights, they did a full Sunday night replay. Channel 10 went to a 2 hour show in 1988, with the dressing shed interviews. When Channel 9 took over in 1992, they refused to move 60 Minutes from the 7.30pm-8.30pm timeslot, so Rugby League was jammed in between 6.30pm-7.30pm until second half of 1996, when they moved it to a Monday Night delayed telecast. In 1998, they moved it back to Sunday for the 4.00pm-6.00pm timeslot,

 

[Paulie Jay]

When was the Sunday night 43 minute game farce?

That was the early 1990s on channel 9. You couldn't really call it "coverage"...

... on the othe hand, you could fit four games on a 3hr video tape.

 

[LazyDreamer]

When was the Sunday night 43 minute game farce?

Vivid memories of the Moose calling the 40-odd minute replay, and wasn't he ch7???

 

[LESStar58]

Anyone remember Channel 9 broadcasting SUper League games in 1997? Kind of sh*tty IMO.

 

[Loudstrat]

C7 with the Moose had hour long telecasts. Complete with the classic "Shaft" soundtrack, with the match winning try stop-started to coincide with the music at the end. The GF was the only game televised live.

 

[duylm]

Can anyone recall circa 2000 Channel 9 dabbling in showing a few saturday night fixtures, like at 8.30? Or did i just imagine this:?

 

[Perry Como]

That was the early 1990s on channel 9. You couldn't really call it "coverage"...



Was it legal cutting 37 minutes of the sunday night replay? Surely KP was pushing the envelope to get away with that one and I suppose the ARL agreed to it so that just says it all about them.

7 games on a sunday in 95 and only 43 minutes of one game covered



For me it's a good enough reason to shaft channel nine/arl and go with a broadcaster that shows all the games live as murdoch proposed and delivered

 

[RedAndWhiteThommo]

I think Moose also did the Channel 10 night games - was it Monday night? I recall one night he objected to the night football mascot "Whacka the Emu", claiming that league didn't need such gimmicks. He then said he was going to come back with a 303 and shoot it!

Gotta love the Moose!