Comments on: Conroy’s anti-siphoning review set to king hit subscription TV

By: BM-dog

BM-dog — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:59:33 +0000

“Confining the list to genuinely national events would be a good start, as it would mean removing rugby league and rugby union and minority sports like golf and motor racing.” If we were to take RL and motorsports off the list, it would mean that Foxtel would be able to lock up State of Origin, the NRL Grand Final and the Bathurst 1000, which are all amongst the most important sporting events in the country, and restrict them to people who are willing to shell out $60 a month for Fox Sports. If one believes at all in the principle behind the anti-siphoning list then there’s no doubt that RL and the V8s need to be on it.

(More broadly, asking the govt to decide which sports are ‘genuinely national’ and which are ‘minority’ would open a massive can of worms.)

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:48:45 +0000

John I honestly think the Rudd government doesn’t give a damn what Rupert thinks. The readership of newspapers is falling and orders of magnitude more people watch news programs on FTA TV than read a newspaper. Not to mention that News Ltd has basically been running an anti-Rudd campaign for the past year. I actually think if anything the incredible bias that News Ltd has shown against Rudd makes it even more likely his government will screw over Foxtel.

By: John Ryan

John Ryan — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:29:31 +0000

I dont think uncle Rupert will be overly impressed,wonder how long before the NEWs Papers jump on Conroy boots and all.
I personally think Conroy is a bloke who has risen far above his position,an machine man who should have been kept out of anything,hes a dangerous fool,a blinked ideological dummy,and I,m a Labour voter.
When he started to talk about Censoring the Net he lost me

By: Bernard Keane

Bernard Keane — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:05:09 +0000

David Howe - yep, author error there.

Should have read “they can only do so if the event has screened on their primary channel or is screening at the same time.”

Apologies for being even less coherent than usual.

By: MD

MD — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 05:30:59 +0000

I think the list should be reduced to a small number of geniunely important events, with ‘mutual obligation’ on the FTA networks to actually provide proper coverage (i.e. not delayed or highlight packages). The limitation on using multiple channels should be lifted.

However, you don’t do the argument any justice by reverting to one-dimensional stereotypes with lines like: “The “cultural” word is out of place anyway since the list contains nothing but events featuring slow-witted but well-paid athletes running around chasing things.”

Firstly, sport is also cultural. Secondly many events on the list (like the olympics) feature very low paid and often highly intelligent athletes (our last olympic team was almost 50% made up of uni graduates including engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc). There’s more to the world of sport than the high profile ball sports and most of them sacrifice a lot to do it, which makes it worse when the TV networks don’t show their events because they have a paid informercial to run instead…

By: Tim Villa

Tim Villa — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 05:24:34 +0000

@David Howe, I’ve been struggling to figure out that sentence myself.

By: jose carreras

jose carreras — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:03:15 +0000

John Reidy, “… are the FTA providers that important?”

Yes because that is where most Australians get their news from. If you piss off the FTA companies they can destroy your political chances.

By: John Reidy

John Reidy — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 03:50:18 +0000

Allowing the FTA channels to show events on their HD channel is significant.
This would mean a take-up of HD set top boxes, if produced in bulk they could fall to less that $100. The expensive part of HD TV is the display, not the receiver.

The proposal to extend it to the internet is unbelievable, are the FTA providers that important?

By: David Howe

David Howe — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 03:49:28 +0000

“It is clear from the paper that the Government is inclined to remove the restriction on free-to-air broadcasters showing listed events on their digital multichannels — currently they can only do so.” WTF?