Seven gives Brisbane AFL fans the flick with delayed match broadcasts
by Margaret Wenham
From: The Courier-Mail
August 12, 2011 6:08PM
CHANNEL 7 is at it again - denying live footy to fans in Brisbane.
Tonight it's a replay of last year's grand final - Collingwood and St Kilda - that's being relegated to 11.30pm.
Instead, and once more at 7.30pm, we'll be treated to that boring bastion of home shows Better Homes and Garden on Seven, that screamingly dated, repeated to death and cringe-worthy Are You Being Served on 7Two and on 7Mate Pimp My Ride, and words fail me on that one.
Tonight's game, it obviously needs to be pointed out to the crew up on Mt Coot-tha, is between the top-of-the-ladder and the St Kilda mob who have clawed their way it up to sixth spot having, it seems, regained their sensibilities and footy skills after the psychological battering the team took earlier this year courtesy of the twinned Kim Duthie and Ricky Nixon scandals.
Most of the rest of Australia will get to see this game on free-to-air live or on an hour's delay, including some parts of Queensland - notably the Gold and Sunshine coasts.
Smartly suited AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou should be made to relocate to Queensland to see what we footy aficionados here - where the AFL is supposedly trying to build the great game's profile - have to put up with, courtesy of the last broadcast deal his outfit negotiated.
He can afford the move. It'd be drop in his $2.2 million-a-year salary bucket.
Another example of the nonsense was Channel 10 last Saturday night televising the predictable Pies-Port rout instead of what we all knew would be the match to watch between Essendon and Sydney.
In three weeks' time, the final round of the AFL's 2011 season will be played out.
On the Friday night, September 2, Collingwood is playing Geelong - first and second on the ladder.
At this stage the AFL's broadcast guide shows Channel 7 has scheduled this match - likely to attract yet another sellout crowd to the MCG - to also be delayed until 11.30pm.
What will we be offered instead? The Strip reruns? Kazakhstan's Got Talent?
I can feel a great rage stirring in me.
Margaret Wenham edits The Courier-Mail's Viewpoint and Focus sections and loves footy
