Rugby League's TV deal

[DIEHARD]

Foxtel could miss out on NRL: Gallop

NRL boss David Gallop says Foxtel risks being frozen out of rugby league's next broadcast deal if it isn't prepared to pay full value for the rights to the competition.

Responding to a pay TV executive's comments that talk of a $1 billion-plus deal was "confusing", Gallop said every NRL game could end up on free-to-air television.

"We need to receive value and recognition for the fact that over 70 per cent of the top hundred shows on Foxtel are rugby league games," Gallop told AAP on Wednesday.

"Clearly, if we don't believe we're getting the appropriate value for that, we'll explore other options."

Consolidated Media Holdings (ConsMedia) executive chairman John Alexander said on Tuesday there were "question marks about some of the sporting costs".

ConsMedia is a part owner of Foxtel and Premier Media Group, the producer of Fox Sports.

"I don't think there is any appetite at Fox Sports to hand vast additional cheques for no extra value," Alexander said.

"Unless (current free-to-air broadcaster) Channel Nine has got much deeper pockets than we all believe, then I think the prices that have been talked about with the NRL remain confusing."

NRL clubs were recently told a five-year deal from 2013, worth $1.4 billion - significantly more than the AFL's $1.25 billion - was a possibility.

The deal will be negotiated by rugby league's incoming independent commission, expected to take control of the game on November 1.

Gallop said Alexander's comments represented good old fashioned haggling.

"It's not surprising that any buyer in any market is going to play down the price, but we look forward to demonstrating our value to the broadcasters when we get the chance," Gallop said.

By "extra value", Fox Sports could mean more than the current five games screened live on the network.

More games could mean more teams but Gallop said recently expansion was unlikely until 2015 as the existing 16 NRL clubs reaped the benefits of the new deal.

The AFL contract includes all nine games being shown live each week on Foxtel from 2012, when the GWS Giants complete that league's latest round of expansion.

The Nine Network currently screens three NRL games a week, but only one live in NSW and Queensland.

Nine boss David Gyngell has suggested more ad breaks, at scrums or drop-outs, to increase the value of the rugby league product.

http://www.nrl.com/

[DIEHARD]

NRL Finals prove a ratings winner

As national ratings figures for the 2011 Telstra Premiership Finals series climb 14% above 2010, Storm players have gone out winners with Melbourne television audiences.

Nine?s decision to go live with the Storm v Warriors match paid huge dividends for GTV, which collected the city?s biggest audience share of the night of 22.8% as the telecast won all but one quarter hour in Melbourne, attracting a peak of 390,000 viewers and an average of 274,451.

The match drew 1,835,791 viewers across all Australian markets, reaching 618,768 in Sydney, 274,313 in Brisbane and a further 662,869 on the WIN and NBN networks.

It also recorded a further 200,000 viewers in New Zealand.

After three weeks of the 2011 Telstra Premiership Finals Series, the overall audience increase has reached 14% with an overall average of 1,492,761 per game.

?It?s another reminder of how much Rugby League is a part of people?s lives and of its value to broadcasters,? NRL Chief Executive, Mr David Gallop, said today.

?This has been a gripping Telstra Premiership Finals Series and the prospect of Manly against the Warriors has excited sports fans across Australia and New Zealand.?

Friday night?s Telstra Premiership Preliminary Final between Manly and Broncos drew 1,682,619 viewers with 589,908 in Sydney, 412,029 in Brisbane and 664,413 across WIN and NBN.

NRL

[DIEHARD]

Numbers add up for NRL clubs in pursuit of more cash from rights
Roy Masters

NRL clubs have been handed a big weapon to bludgeon co-owners News Ltd and the ARL with their demand for a doubling in their annual grants: TV audience figures for this year have eclipsed the AFL by 15 million, sending a clear message that the teams who put on the show deserve the same $1.25 billion broadcasters recently paid for AFL rights.

NRL cumulative TV audience numbers for the year, based on OzTAM data, were 128 million, compared with AFL's 113 million, a 2 million rise in both codes on the previous year's figures.

Huge NRL viewing numbers in regional NSW and Queensland are the critical difference, both in terms of the size of the audience and its growth potential for pay TV.

Advertisement: Story continues below Regional free-to-air figures for the NRL the past two years were 38 million. The AFL's were 23 million this year, in areas where it has no teams in major centres of the size of population of the size of Newcastle, Wollongong and Townsville.

The AFL can boast it has superior free-to-air capital city figures, based on its national spread of teams, with 71 million viewers this year, compared with 57 million in the NRL, which is essentially a two capital city game, with matches live into Sydney and Brisbane and televised after midnight in Melbourne.

Furthermore, the AFL televises four games a week free-to-air compared with the NRL's three, although rugby league's massive State of Origin ratings are included in NRL totals.

However, the popularity of the NRL on pay TV has been the biggest driver of growth, with the total Fox Sports audience rising from 29 million to 33 million this year.

AFL pay TV numbers have also increased, up 3 million, but from a lower base of 16 million to 19 million.

Not surprisingly, of the top 100 programs this year on Foxtel, the NRL had 68 and the AFL had 12.

When these audience numbers are compared with the broadcasting fees paid, it's little wonder NRL clubs, with 14 making a loss this year, demand increased grants from a far better broadcasting deal.

The AFL plans to gatecrash the start of next year's NRL season, holding its own launch in Sydney, as well as next month's draft, while scheduling a stand-alone match between the Swans and Greater Western Sydney at ANZ Stadium ahead of the rest of the AFL competition starting.

NRL clubs argue the AFL's aggressive tactics are essentially funded off the Foxtel subscriptions paid by NRL watchers in NSW and Queensland, including the $1 million to $2 million contracts paid to code jumpers Karmichael Hunt and Israel Folau, and the Gold Coast Suns' Gary Ablett and the Giants' Tom Scully.

It's hard to counter the argument when the NRL will receive $42 million for Fox Sports broadcasting five matches a week live next season, while the AFL will receive $130 million.

While NRL free-to-air rights holder, Channel Nine, has admitted it must pay more than its current $45 million a year if it is to fight off competition from Seven and Ten for the 2013 rights, the message from monopoly pay TV networks, Foxtel/Fox Sports, is that it doesn't have to substantially increase its NRL fee.

Foxtel boss Kim Williams has used a number of arguments over the years to justify the larger AFL payment: higher capital city ratings (ignoring regional numbers); bigger crowds (don't people buy pay TV to watch games at home?); a superior family image (wasn't the AFL's top player manager photographed in his underpants with a 17-year-old girl?) and finally, ratings aren't as important as subscription numbers.

Foxtel has been told to reach half of all homes within the next five to seven years, before the completion of the NBN broadband roll out.

With subscription numbers in Sydney over 30 per cent and in Adelaide and Perth lower than 20 per cent, it's true the AFL states have more growth potential.

In fact, Foxtel only needs a further 95,000 new subscribers to return the fee it paid the AFL.

But NRL clubs ask: Does this justify paying the NRL peanuts, particularly when the pay TV sport network was built on the popularity of the NRL?

Still, if Williams persists in this argument, insiders see a window of opportunity with Foxtel's potential takeover of Austar, the regional pay TV carrier.

Based on the huge regional free-to-air audience for the NRL, industry chiefs see an opportunity for rural viewers transferring to pay TV. If Foxtel takes over Austar's 762,000 subscribers and drives a campaign in rural NSW and Queensland to sign up more households, Fox Sports might be forced to pay as much for the NRL as Williams gifted the AFL.

For the NRL to receive as much in free-to-air rights as Seven paid for AFL, it must create more advertising opportunities.

There are about 80 commercials in an AFL match, which is divided by quarters, compared with 34 in the NRL, with two recent NRL Saturday evening finals matches lasting as long as one AFL final.

However, Nine staffers are exploring the potential of game stoppages creating more space for commercial opportunities.

Rugby league's representative program also has the potential to widen the gap with the AFL, which has no mid- and end-of-season representative games of consequence.

A Test match on Sunday against the Kiwis and the forthcoming Four Nations series should build on Australian and New Zealand's viewing numbers, particularly with the exciting finals form of the Warriors increasing New Zealand's audience by 29 per cent this year.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/l...#ixzz1agw1nbv2

[Smakked]

Well final bids were due yesterday and apparently no where near 1 billion like predicted, seems we are looking at 800mill max . Not a good sign as i think to many clubs were relying on the extra cash but it doesn't look like it will happen.

[Smakked]

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/nr...-1226349264546

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/medi...-1226348183510

http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/...-1226349264546

[DIEHARD]

Nah that is only the start of the dance. Let's see what Seven and Ten offer.

But as Kevin Rudd would say, they had better not rat **** us!

[Toads]

There is a feeling in the television industry that Seven paid too much for its AFL rights. ($1.253 billion)

Seven got robbed by both the AFL 'n V8 Supercars when the penned the deals. I'm fairly confident they've learnt something from those experiences, and I'd be very surprised if they're still in the race for the NRL deal.

EDIT: Not only that, I can't see how they could fit the NRL in on top of telecasting commitments of both the AFL and V8SC. Even with their 3 free-to-air channels. If they could work that, it'd be an absolute miracle..

[DIEHARD]

True, but Im sure they would be keen to give NINE some medicine!

[DIEHARD]

A dedicated Rugby League channel would be fantastic.

It'd mean more dedicated shows and hopefully more NSW and QLD league as well as English league and more money going to those comps.

But... dead set, WTF dont we have a dedicated channel and friggin AwFuL was one. Rugby League was torn apart on the alter of pay television, we fought a civil war over it.

[DIEHARD]

And bloody AFL got FOX SPORTS 1... And we are shunted to FOX SPORTS 2. It's a slight on our sport. While they have FOX FOOTY. And you can even get dedicated foxtel remotes in your favourite AFL team colours.

[Toads]

I agree on all points, Diehard. A dedicated footy channel definately be an added bonus.

[DIEHARD]

I agree on all points, Diehard. A dedicated footy channel definately be an added bonus.

I also enjoy the chooseday night and classic replays. More of that would be on the menu with a dedicated channel.

[Smakked]

Anymore word on this, seems that everyone is saying we wont get 1bill deal?
I work for Foxtel now so i am trying to suss out whats going on :P

[DIEHARD]

Big names turn out in force as TV deal looms

A NEW $1 billion television rights deal may be finalised before the end of the month, with members of the ARL Commission's negotiating team understood to have continued meeting yesterday to consider offers from broadcasters.

As revealed in yesterday's Herald, the ARLC received formal bids last Friday from the Nine, Seven and Ten networks, as well as Fox Sports.

It was reported that Nine and Fox Sports tabled a joint bid of $1.1 billion over six years, while Seven and Ten presented separate five-year bids.

Among the heavy hitters who turned up to present the bids for their networks were Lachlan Murdoch and James Warburton (Ten), Kerry Stokes (Seven), David Gyngell and Jeff Browne (Nine), Ian Frykberg (Fox Sports), Patrick Delany (Foxtel) and Kim Williams (News Ltd).

It is understood talks continued over the weekend and the ARLC negotiating team of chairman John Grant and fellow commissioners Ian Elliot, Gary Pemberton and Peter Gregg were at the game's League Central headquarters again yesterday.

ARLC interim chief executive Shane Mattiske was unavailable for comment yesterday but the Herald was told that officials were privately satisfied with the way the process was running.

However, it is believed the ARLC want to increase the number of free-to-air games but the Nine/Fox Sports joint bid is based on maintaining the status quo of two Friday night games and a Sunday afternoon match on Nine and the other five games on Foxtel.

The ARLC is thought to be keen on a Saturday night match being shown on free-to-air and possibly Monday Night Football.

If necessary, the rights could be split up between the broadcasters to ensure as many games as possible are shown on free-to-air television.

Seven is known to be extremely keen on State of Origin and the fact that Stokes, who resides in Western Australia, made the effort to personally present the bid on behalf of the network shows how serious they are about winning the rights. However, Nine and Fox Sports have a ''last right of refusal'' clause in their current NRL broadcast deals and will have the opportunity to outbid any network that has tabled a larger offer.

The Australian Financial Review yesterday reported that the incumbent free-to-air and pay TV broadcasters had made a joint offer of $1.1 billion over six years, which equates to less per year than the $1 billion five-year deal the ARLC had been seeking.

Nine and Fox Sports believe they can table a bid that mirrors the current arrangement, also over six years, which provides three free-to-air matches and the other five on Foxtel.

According to the newspaper, the ''first and last rights'' provision has been the cause of tension between the broadcasters and ARLC, with both sides engaging lawyers to test the strength of the clause.

Both Nine and Foxtel are believed to have lost up to $50 million each on their recent Olympic Games coverage, while Foxtel's deal to secure the rights to all AFL matches has not been the success the pay TV broadcaster was hoping, with subscribers reportedly up by just 20,000.

Meanwhile, a decision on the NSW Origin coaching job may be made after the candidates meet today with the NSWRL board.

Brad Fittler, Laurie Daley, Trent Barrett and Daniel Anderson will each make presentations to the board, who are seeking a replacement for Ricky Stuart after he stood down from the job earlier this month.

Officials told the Herald that it has not yet been decided whether the board will make a decision today or take more time to choose the new coach.

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/

[DIEHARD]

The last decent TV deal for RL I saw was in 1991 but then it all was for nothing when TEN went bust. Nine swooped in and has been feasting on us ever since.

Apart from the money we deserve and hopefully expansion.... I want to see money and contra dedicated on a marketing blitzkrieg to boost our crowds and memberships.