The season is upon us with Richmond and Carlton slugging it out tomorrow night in front of a sellout crowd at the 'G. And in a great move for Victorian footy fans, Ten is showing it live into Melbourne.
In Queensland, however, it's a different story. Free-to-air viewers won't get to see it until 11.15pm, and as it's not a public holiday on Friday the viewing audience will be in the asterisks.
Okay, it has to be acknowledged that we in Queensland are getting a much better deal now than in the days of the Fox Footy Channel. Fox Footy was prevented from showing Friday night footy live into the northern states under the terms of the then broadcasting agreement, and it was only due to a public outcry that the agreement was hastily (and begrudgingly, in Nine's case) adjusted to allow Fox Footy to show the matches from 9pm.
Prior to that, Seven's coverage was rarely started prior to 11.30pm, unless it was a Brisbane game in which case you were treated to a match from about 10pm.
Now, however, Queensland gets six or seven matches live on average, with same-day replays of the other two. If you don't have Foxtel, you can get three live games a week and same day replays of two others.
But here's where the funny business starts. Seven Qld prefers to avoid splitting its signal as much as possible, so Queensland and NSW always get the same Sunday afternoon match, regardless of whether that match is live on Foxtel anyway. So this weekend we're being treated to a Sydney match simulcast on Fox Sports AND Seven, with the latter taking the Fox Sports feed and crossing back to their own studio at halftime and fulltime.
So what happens to the match that Seven was supposed to show on Sunday afternoon? Well, Seven's contract specifies that they have to show their contracted matches either live or a same-day replay. So you'll find the Sunday game they were meant to show being scheduled at 11.59pm Sunday night. Yes, a minute to midnight. Can you get any more cynical?
But of course, we're now living in a digital, multi-channeling age. It should be possible for both Seven and Ten to show matches on Seven HD or the new ONE channel live, therefore enabling them to maximise their ratings (those Elvis movies are great, aren't they?) and still allow AFL followers in the northern states to get their live footy fix on FTA, without making them stay up until the wee hours.
Think again. The Federal Government's anti-siphoning legislation, originally set up to make sure that networks couldn't buy up sports rights and not use them, and also prevent Foxtel from buying everything, actually prevents the networks from showing regular-season AFL matches live on a multi-channel platform without them having first been shown (or simulcast) on the standard channel.
Is that not completely mad? The Government's been crying out for ways to accelerate the switchover to digital television for years. Here's a sure-fire way to drive sports fans to go digital, and it's not permitted. It's a complete absurdity.
Over the last few weeks, Seven has been showing NAB Cup games live on Seven HD into the northern states. If not for this misguided, outdated legislation, this could be happening again.
If this seems as stupid to you as it does to me, contact your local Federal MP! The anti-siphoning legislation needs to be updated for the digital age. There's absolutely no good reason why footy fans in the northern states should be denied live or near-live coverage of every match and it's about time this was recognised.
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