SMH wrote:It's super but you need Fox to see it
By Philip Derriman
Saturday, March 5, 2005
http://www.rugbyheaven.smh.com.au/artic ... 80481.html
Here is a sobering statistic for anyone who imagines Super 12 rugby is drawing a mass audience: of Australia's 7 million households, only 1.6 million are plugged into the Super 12 broadcaster, Fox Sports.
In other words, people in three-quarters of the nation's homes could not watch this weekend's Super 12 matches even if they wanted to.
This is a cause of great aggravation for the many rugby followers among them. It's also a pity for the game itself, since it means rugby is failing to reach the bulk of its potential audience in the first half of the season. You may be a rugby diehard, but unless you have pay TV or access to a pub, club or friend's home where Super 12 is screened - you go without.
By all accounts, the Australian Rugby Union receives more complaints about this issue than almost any other. People want to know how rugby authorities allowed such a situation to develop. Didn't they realise that by selling Super 12 lock, stock and barrel to a pay-TV operator they were making it all but impossible for a sizeable proportion of the game's followers to watch it? Why didn't they ensure that at least some of the games were screened free-to-air? The matter isn't as simple as that, of course. It's true that a decade ago Channel Seven did show some Super 10 matches.
But the times were different. The players weren't paid and the ARU could afford to accept the modest rights fee Seven was prepared to pay.
Everything changed after 1995. Rugby went professional, Super 12 was created and pay TV had arrived. The ARU had to fund three fully professional Super 12 teams, and it found it could do this only with pay-TV money, which, in turn, meant giving the operator exclusive rights.
It wasn't a case of the ARU having a valuable new product, Super 12, and deciding where it would be screened. Without the pay-TV deal, it wouldn't have had the product in the first place. So the ARU can be excused on the basis that, financially, it had no alternative - it had to accept the pay-TV money, with all the limitations this entailed. Yet the fact remains that a significant proportion of rugby followers cannot watch Super 12, clearly an unsatisfactory situation.
The ARU agrees. Last year, while a new broadcast deal was being negotiated with News Ltd, it explored the idea of combining some free-to-air coverage with the Fox coverage. One plan was to have Waratahs' match replays screened free-to-air in NSW, Brumbies' replays in Canberra and Reds' replays in Queensland.
But the figures didn't add up. The ARU is understood to have been told that unless it gave exclusive rights it would have to take a 30 per cent cut in pay-TV revenue, and it could see no prospect of recovering this from free-to-air broadcasts. Is all hope gone? Might some kind of a deal allowing even limited free-to-air coverage still be possible? After all, it would arguably be in Fox's own interest to attract more people to Super 12 by broadening the exposure with some free-to-air replays. According to someone who has stitched up several big TV sports deals, a deal on Super 12 would need to have something in it for all parties.
"Free-to-air stations don't want networks," he said. "Queenslanders want to see the Reds and so on. You're talking about a replay in one territory - and that's not worth a lot of money."
So should a deal be possible? "Of course. Think outside the square. Maybe the ABC replays it and therefore there's no damage to commercial interests. Maybe SBS replays it, and there's some sort of barter deal with Fox over sponsorship. Somebody should be sweet-talking somebody in Fox. If two sides both want the deal, the deal can be done."
Kind of puts into perspective the popularity of Rugby's Super 12 comp in Australia.
Also those leaguies out there who claim rugby league on Fox is a wonderful success, think again. Only 1.6 million Australians are actually able to view Fox Sports and its rugby or rugby league coverage, and that is of course assuming they are actually tuning in.
My bet is, it wouldn't be anywhere near those figures watching the rugby codes on Fox each weekend with the other Foxtel channels and FTA TV eating away at that 1.6 million potential viewers figure. A real sad state of affairs for both union and rugby league fans one would think.