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in challenging financial times. Last year we
renegotiated the Rugby League in a $1bn dollar deal
over five years, and this June we secured TV and
digital rights in an historic five‐year broadcast deal
with Cricket Australia for around $500m. You just
wonder when the actual value of these rights will meet
what the expectations are from the governing bodies.
Is there a limit to what people will pay?
While there is competition and testosterone they will
get away with it to a degree. Itʹs more of a business
decision now where we are saying ʹWhat else could we
do with that money?ʹ In the Australian market, sport is
the only thing that is growing. Year on year with the
Rugby League we are up 8% – not very many things in
FTA television are growing so that makes it attractive
to us and to all our competitors.
When you look at it week to week, weʹll pay the
same rights for an Olympic Games as you would for a
year of Rugby League – thatʹs 34 weeks, three games a
week, plus State of Origin. If you look at it from a
financial point of view, thatʹs going to give you a lot
more eyeballs than 16 days of Olympics. Even though
we were very proud to do the Olympics – for London
we won the third best broadcast awarded by the IOC
with a crew of 300, coming third after the BBC and NBC.
What about adding new sports?
With the Rugby League, 63% of viewers are men, 49%
of viewers are aged 25‐54 and 28% are 16‐39. It would
be nice to have more women watching, to have more
younger people watching. So you are very aware of
that when you are making TV. But the fact that netball
is the second or third highest participation sport does
not necessarily translate to it being a ratings success.
Itʹs a very educated audience that we have, they want
the best. As for diversifying into other sports –
Australians in the 60ʹ and 70ʹ dominated world tennis
but tennis now hast lost its gloss in our market. People
still watch Wimbledon but they wonʹt sit up and watch
it like they once did. It needs a local hero.
Your 'State of Origin' coverage has won you acclaim: is
there a winning formula?
The most important thing is the event itself. Donʹt mess
around with that too much and try to be too clever. Let
the game be itself. The next important thing is
storytelling. The secret is telling the story as it unfolds
in front of you and not just pointing cameras.
It is important to have commentators who are and
sound like individuals. And it is important for
commentators to convey light and shade. Itʹs an awful
thing to be up all the time and sound like something
exciting is happening when there are periods when
nothing much is happening ‐ then you just have to
back off. That way, when something exciting does
happen, everyone is excited because it is real.
I loved some of the things that the BBC did at the
Olympics, the late night chats. Every day that you
watch TV in different parts of the world, you can pick
up things that are absolutely outstanding. We can all
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ISSUE 2 2013
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THE CHANNEL
