All eyes focused on Canberra as TV shake-up looms
ROY MASTERS
March 23, 2010
NRL fans will be guaranteed live free-to-air TV coverage of three league games a week, all finals matches and State of Origin and Kangaroos fixtures should expected changes to the anti-siphoning legislation be passed. The amendments will outlaw a media conglomerate using an internet provider to buy all screening rights and split them between pay TV and online coverage.
Channel Nine shows three games a week, but under the existing legislation Telstra could make a single bid for all rights and share them with its Foxtel partners. This could mean Foxtel, half owned by News Ltd and James Packer's CMH, would show pay TV games and Telstra BigPond would stream games online. Kerry Stokes's Seven network could televise Origin matches, but fans who do not have Foxtel or Big Pond would be denied free-to-air coverage of weekly matches in the NRL's Telstra premiership.
However, the federal government, concerned at the prospect of this monopoly bidding for sports rights, is expected to include the internet in its anti-siphoning legislation, categorising it with pay TV, preventing hoarding of matches whereby subscribers would pay for games streamed online.
''It would be bizarre not to include the internet in the legislation,'' one source said, suggesting free-to-air coverage of three NRL games a week, together with all finals and State of Origin and Kangaroo matches, will be enshrined in the legislation to be announced within the next month.
News, which holds the management rights to Foxtel and Fox Sports, has indicated it does not want an increase on the five NRL games it now screens a week.
While the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, could override this, listing, say, six games a week for free-to-air TV, he recognises it would lower the return in rights fees to the sport. However, News' long-term first-and-last option over NRL and rugby union Super 14 screening rights is seen as a frustration to the federal government's anti-siphoning ambitions, particularly in an environment of constant technological change.
News, which owns half of Fox Sports and a quarter of Foxtel, holds NRL first-and-last TV rights until 2022 and is understood to have negotiated an extension until 2027 as a condition of its exit from the game. Nor has News paid for these rights, as Channel Seven did with AFL rights.
''It seems rugby league is all wrapped up,'' one government source said, appalled that the ARL would concede long-term rights to a powerful media entity whose control over first-and-last rights basically frightens away less wealthy competitors, lowering the bid and the fee received by the sport.
Furthermore, long-term ownership of the most popular product on pay TV - NRL games dominate the top 100 programs each year - is a powerful disincentive to another pay TV operator to enter the industry. This is why Canberra is closely monitoring the arrival of Fetch TV, a subscription TV service delivered via a broadcast signal over broadband, rather than from a satellite or streamed from the internet.
Backed by a Malaysian billionaire with widespread TV interests in Asia, it has the potential to challenge Foxtel and the regional service, Austar. Subscribers could potentially buy only NRL games, rather than be committed to a package of Foxtel programs they rarely watch.
It's possible fans of a particular rugby league team, such as the Dragons, could subscribe to Fetch's program of NRL matches involving only St George Illawarra.
Sensing this, some NRL clubs have become pro-active with their websites, with the Titans being the first sports club in Australia to stream an in-house produced show for a weekly half hour on Brisbane's Channel Nine, while the Dragons are hoarding exclusive internet content.
With NRL rights expiring in 2012, Fetch could entice Channel Ten to ditch AFL for NRL, given Ten's dissatisfaction with its current share of AFL programming. Its Saturday night coverage in Sydney is regularly out-rated.
Channel Nine joined with Foxtel to deliver the Vancouver Winter Olympics and will share coverage of the 2012 London Summer Olympics, but Stokes' investment in Foxtel and Fox Sports, via shares in Packer's CMH, threatens this relationship. Seven has made it clear it will have no business association with Fetch TV. It is negotiating with Foxtel for AFL rights. Seven boss David Leckie is a rugby league fan but government sources suspect he is interested only in State of Origin football.
Nine's Melbourne boss, Jeff Browne, said: ''We are interested in being there every week for the rugby league fan, not just the three nights of State of Origin football.''
