A bit of a read but:
I don’t care what code you follow and I don’t care what part of the country you come from. For years we’ve been sold a story by the free to air networks. They’ve lobbied governments, spent millions on advertising and preached from the hilltops that access to high quality sports coverage should be available to all Australians.
Yet it seems they are indeed just words. For when the push has come to shove, Channel Nine has failed its sporting audience time and time again.
Firstly, Nine has failed to fulfil its promise of HD coverage of all major sporting events. When GEM was announced, the promise made to fans was to cater for women’s programming and high quality sporting coverage – a fact it still advertises on its frequent TV spots and website.
Furthermore Nine were the main network driving the push behind 3D technology. Yet like HD sports coverage, Nine has left fans in static once again. Could it be that this was just a push organised in conjunction with a major electronics retailer in order to flog their stock of expensive 3D TV’s?
It is officially recognised under the Wide World of Sports flagship that cricket and rugby league are the network’s regular recurring priority sports. Yet this year Nine’s inconsistent programming policy has seen rugby league fans left in the wilderness.
Times for State of Origin games outside of New South Wales and Queensland altered with every match. The Rabbitohs vs Broncos game was denied coverage in Perth. When quizzed, Nine officially announced that the Federal Government had turned down their request for digital coverage - a request Senator Conroy’s office later denied receiving. Nine’s retort? It was the fault of their subsidiary, Win TV. Again though this still doesn’t explain why Win TV Perth would falsely claim to have made an official request.
The coverage of Storm games in Melbourne this year has also been substandard.
When a handful of Sunday matches have been aired, they have so as a last minute decision (or made to appear as such) with only a few days notice and little to no advertising. In addition, last week’s Storm vs Dragons match up was also denied live coverage. Nine’s official response: it affects the home gate, so the game was shunted to 12:30 am (despite being promised to be played before midnight).
Now this week’s game has also been blocked by Nine. And there’s the rub, for this game shapes up to be a potential grand final preview, a top of the table clash and a Storm away game to boot. Seemingly having run out of their litany of excuses, Nine has taken the religious route and is maintaining a vow of silence. However the fans are no longer silent. Having come out of the woodwork, the Channel 9 & Wide World of Sports facebook and twitter accounts have taken a major hammering. Whilst it seems that messages are being deleted and users have been banned from posting, it also appears the growing tide of anger is unmanageable from a public relations perspective. Nine’s plan at the moment seems to be to simply let time pass, let this round pass and pray that the anger subsides.
But the fact remains that this has been an ongoing problem with Channel Nine and it won’t be long before the fans are duped once more. Perhaps they should spend less money on anti-subscription fear campaigns and more on providing access to high quality sports coverage for all Australians.
