An open letter to Channel Nine
Roar Pro By Ghost Crayfish, 9 Feb 2012 Ghost Crayfish is a Roar Pro
- Tagged:
- Channel Nine, English super league, NRL, Rugby League
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3,855 readsDear Channel Nine, I write to you as one of many frustrated rugby league fans. Please hear me out.
This letter is not about the infuriatingly poor quality of your NRL commentary team, nor is it focussed on the laughably tired format and tone of your Footy Show.
I don’t even intend to complain about your match sheduling that only seems to pay attention to 10, at best, of the 16 clubs. I will not focus on your pathetic, deplorable coverage of rugby league (at NRL, State of Origin and international levels) outside of New South Wales and Queensland.
Your conduct in that regard, particularly, is a heinous farce for which I hope the NRL punishes you dearly when broadcast rights are soon negotiated. However, as promised, this letter will leave that alone.
So what is the point of this letter, you ask? Moving past the grievances all sensible-minded rugby league fans have with your network, I can now move on to my current gripe: your coverage of the English Super League.
It has bs been bugging me for years, the question that floats into my mind at the most inoportune moments. Why did you buy the rights, only to broadcast the games in the post-midnight hours of Sunday and Monday nights?
While it’s clear from much of your programming decision-making in general that your executives are quite clueless when it comes to understanding how society functions, or what concerns most ordinary intelligent people, I’d have thought that it obvious that no one will be watching delayed sporting telecasts in these hours.
While the cocaine-infused lifestyles of your best and brightest programmers might suggest otherwise, I can confidently guarantee that the majority of working Australians are, in fact, asleep at these times.
If you could explain yourself, providing an answer to the question which has so long haunted me, I would be eternally grateful. I am tired of this vexing riddle constantly drifting into my thoughts!
I have devoted years to this conundrum – losing women, friends and the respect of my work colleagues in the process – but still I am none the wiser. Despite the advice I once heard in a martial arts film about how a warrior must “understand their enemy” before engaging in battle, I write now to concede that I have no idea how you operate.
What goes through your mind, Channel Nine? Your network now has three channels, including Gem and Go. Is this really the best you can do?
I hope you will enlighten me, though after years of disappointment at your hands, I won’t hold my breath.
Yours, resigned to failure,
Ghost Crayfish
- Explore:
- Channel Nine, English super league, NRL, Rugby League
February 9th 2012 @ 6:27am
Boomshanka said | February 9th 2012 @ 6:27am | Report comment
Living in Melbourne we see the worst of a channel continually sucking up to the dominant sport down here (one they apparently have no rights to).
Along with the hoarding of the domestic competition, we do not even get the highlights package of the ESL. ie it is well and truly buried.
The executives think they understand the people, what we want or what the advertisers want us to see. Truth is, as demonstrated in the recent Excess Baggage fiasco (which has been shunted to their digital channels after miserable ratings despite a $20M dollar marketing exercise), they have no idea.
Like you, I’m looking forward to Nine being punished severely for their lack of attention to Australia’s number one rating sport.
February 9th 2012 @ 7:39am
Meesta Cool said | February 9th 2012 @ 7:39am | Report comment
You guys do not understand that Channel Nine do research and find that people want to watch repeats of repeats, Senseless American funny shows (that are not funny) ,Soapies and now Reality shows. You and I want to watch ANY game of Rugby League, but we are the minority and in this case the minority don’t get their own way!. —
This year I am looking forward to 2 1/2 men repeats, Skippy movies and Farmer wants a ***k again instead of a live game at a reasonable time. ONLY KIddin’!
Yeah Channel Nine must go.. but will they?.. don’t think so!!. — Not whilst Meesta Gallop is in the negotiating chair!..
February 9th 2012 @ 7:46am
Stu said | February 9th 2012 @ 7:46am | Report comment
Chanel 9 have absolutely no interest in growing the game of Rugby League. This will only increase the value of the game which, in turn, will increase the value of the next tv deal. Unfortunately, the muppets in Sydney that run this game are only concerned with there little backyard which means less audiences and less cash for clubs and players.
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February 9th 2012 @ 8:06am
oikee said | February 9th 2012 @ 8:06am | Report comment
If by now you have not realised that 9 do league no favours, they really dont want the game to succeed, i thought Eddie at 9 would be the biggest clue. Anyhow, you bring up a good point, a good question. So here is what i am going to do.
Why is it i only watch Elephants when they are rampaging through a shopping mall or crushing pedestrians on a busy street.?
Why dont we question women who spend 500 dollars on a frock, handbag or new pair of shoes, yet if i spent 500 on red at the casino i have a problem. ?
Why is it we have to hit rock-bottom before we can get better. ?
Why is it some people can give up smoking and drinking while others struggle. ( i put this one in because i did this myself, not a drop for 2 weeks and gave up smoking 3 months ago).
But, these are the hard questions i have decided to start asking this year, no more walking over eggshells and pretending we dont know what is going on.
There is no way in the world we can except rugby league on pay tv not being shown live into every state in Australia. Your paying to watch the game so you should be able to watch the damm sport, do they do this with any other sport, ask yourself this question, the hard questions need to be answered this year, no more MR nice guy.
February 9th 2012 @ 8:08am
Paul said | February 9th 2012 @ 8:08am | Report comment
That artical was brillant. Channel 9 has no idea of what people want. I am praying and hoping they loose the rights of rugby league in Australia, the footy show is the worst thing on tv. Thanks to the person who wrote that artical it has made my morning.
February 9th 2012 @ 8:56am
Paul said | February 9th 2012 @ 8:56am | Report comment
I agree 100 percent
February 9th 2012 @ 11:25am
HardcorePrawn said | February 9th 2012 @ 11:25am | Report comment
If Nein were to lose the rights to NRL, they’d still persevere with the League version of the Footy Show. Not having any rights to AFL hasn’t stopped them from wheeling out Sam Newman and his cronies year after year…
I hate Channel Nein, I really do. I will never forgive them for their treatment of the Rugby World Cup and have boycotted their shows ever since (which to be fair, is not that hard considering it’s all just repeats of the same duff shows).
This odious network is screwing fans of many sports, not just those of an oval ball variety. Anyone care to wager that they’ll stuff-up the Olympics coverage this year?
February 12th 2012 @ 3:24pm
Grimmace said | February 12th 2012 @ 3:24pm | Report comment
Agree with you HP, re RWC.
Do Nein buy the rights to an event/sport in order to prevent someone else from being able to show it? A type of buying out the competition?
February 13th 2012 @ 12:21pm
soapit said | February 13th 2012 @ 12:21pm | Report comment
in case of the RWC i think yes, thats pretty much exactly what they did. whether it was planned beforehand or just when they realised there was a clash who knows.
the ARU really stuffed up by not get something in writing about getting live telecasts of the matches. the NRL will surely have to look at this when the next deal get negotiated.
February 13th 2012 @ 1:46pm
HardcorePrawn said | February 13th 2012 @ 1:46pm | Report comment
I’m not usually one to side with FIFA, but they do at least have the right idea when it comes to selling the broadcasting rights to their World Cup: All matches have to be shown uninterrupted by ads and must be broadcast live, unless there’s a clash, as is the case when the last group games are played. And even then, the two games still have to be shown, either on another channel or by a delayed telecast, or both. Networks that just want to cherry-pick the big games and their own nation’s matches are just given a flat refusal by Sepp Blatter and his cronies.
Although, can you imagine what a mess Nein would make if they did ever get the World Cup:
“The 2014 FIFA World Cup! Exclusive on Nein! Eddie McGuire & James Brayshaw bring you all the action from Brazil (although they won’t be there, they’re actually in a studio in Melbourne) as our Socceroos take on the world!
We’ll be showing all of Australia’s group games (delayed, and on Gem, or maybe Go, you’ll have to keep watching as we won’t know until at least 2 minutes before kick-off), some involving Brazil, a few featuring Spain, and some English ones as one of the girls in the office fancies David Beckham! It doesn’t matter that he probably won’t be there as he’s getting quite old now, he’s the only soccer-er we know so we’re mentioning his name in this ad!
We’ll then show the entire knockout stages at a special time for soccer fans: 2.30am. On Gem. Or Go. Maybe, if we can be bothered, and if there are no infomercials for the ab-master 3000 that we’ve got scheduled instead. Or if the teams are from places we don’t really know or care much about, like Uruguay, or France, or Cote D’Ivoire, is that even a country? Not according to spell-check…
Our roving correspondent Karl Stefanovic will be submitting daily reports from the thick of the action in Brazil, via Skype, provided he can get decent network coverage there, we’re not sure if he will, we don’t know, and truth be told haven’t really bothered to check. We just felt that he deserved a holiday in Rio and have sent him there with a laptop. One of the old ones that we have’t got around to throwing out yet, we’re not giving him a decent one, not to go to Rio, have you seen what the crime rate is like there?!
So, keep your eyes on Nein! And Gem and Go… It’s Carnival Time!”
*Shudders*
February 9th 2012 @ 10:14am
Juan Patain said | February 9th 2012 @ 10:14am | Report comment
Channel 9 doesn’t know what people want, but that’s beside the point. The fact is that they simply don’t care what we want. Channel 9 and every other channel to a lesser degree are subject to the whims of those who run them. With execs and most production coming from Melbourne then all they are going to care about is Victorian rules, and less about what actually rates well, or that they have the rights to.
Every media organization has a particular agenda that they want to push, and whether it’s a political one, or a pointless one, they do it because that’s what the people with the money want.
Most media moguls might know how to run a business well, but that doesn’t mean they will necessarily appoint someone to appoint another person to make programming decisions based on any real sustainable logic. All the moguls care about is profit and if the idiots below them can ditch a successful show and replace it with something equally successful they simply won’t notice or care, unless it interferes with their political or social agendas.
February 9th 2012 @ 10:18am
db swannie said | February 9th 2012 @ 10:18am | Report comment
Ch 9 knows excatly what it is doing.
1.It is trying to drive down the value of the next rights by using the RL doesnt rate in the Southern states line.by no promotion,or when they do show it they dont announce it till a few days before so that most people dont know its on(tv guides are already printed)
Sadly for them the RL community know excatly what they are doing.
2.There seems to be a common theme running throughThe powers that be in ch 9 ,.EX AFL types .who it would seem put that sports interest first & supress any other to the detriment of their station.Which leads to the puzzling question….. WHY promote another rival sport & horde the one you have..???
3.Any criticisms or hard questins asked via,WWOS,or CH9″s facebook sites are deleted & the person banned from posting.
They know what they are doing,its just they think that DG will sign up with them again…
Bad luck.He will not be in charge of the negotiations…
& if people think that CH10 are going bad,wait & see where this mob end up when they lose the rights…
February 9th 2012 @ 10:29am
Hoy said | February 9th 2012 @ 10:29am | Report comment
I have said before on this site, the Channel 9 coverage of the Rugby World Cup was bad. I rang to complain and was put through to the “programming department”. My question was, with three channels, why the couldn’t play the League live on one channel, followed by the rugby replay, then the rugby live on another channel followed by the league replay?
It was answered by a rather non-plussed bloke who couldn’t give two flying f’s what my query was and didn’t even try to apologise, or expalin. He was borderline rude to me. He was obviously not used to actually explaining the thought process to public simply by his defensive and rude nature.
His explanation was anti filtering laws, and said he didn’t understand it, and I suggested he try to understand it, so that when people ring up, he could explain the reason the channel didn’t do what seemed like the obvious thing to do, and instead, looked like they were hoarding all the sport they could, and weren’t showing any of them.
February 9th 2012 @ 10:42am
Will Sinclair said | February 9th 2012 @ 10:42am | Report comment
Could be worse – Channel Nine bought the rights to the biggest event in the rugby union calendar – the Rugby World Cup – then buried the games to protect their investment in the NRL Finals.
It was a complete disgrace.
February 9th 2012 @ 10:51am
Boomshanka said | February 9th 2012 @ 10:51am | Report comment
Channel Nine didn’t even show the NRL final series into Melbourne (with the exception of one semi and the grand final – before rudely cut off at full time – no presentation post match analysis – nothing).
I’d say they are also protective of their executives self interests in that other game the play down here.
Oddly enough, we got better FTA coverage of the RWC than Sydney – Go figure???
February 9th 2012 @ 10:55am
Gucci said | February 9th 2012 @ 10:55am | Report comment
This is brilliant! And it’s not just sports, it’s about everything. Have people seen the paper say they’re axing the show Excess Baggage. It’s apparently doing poorly. D’uh! I don’t know how or who makes decisions on programming, but surely as much financial and private equity stuff that goes on in the background, the fundamental is still the same: a TV station is only good if people watch their stuff. In a restaurant, a chef can’t just dish up some weird thing and hope that people will like it; the chef would have done his market research to know what people like first. Why is it that TV stations keep coming up with stuff that just isn’t entertaining to watch?
February 9th 2012 @ 12:57pm
HardcorePrawn said | February 9th 2012 @ 12:57pm | Report comment
I appreciate that this isn’t really sport-related, but I’m constantly amazed at how often the commercial networks rip each other off too:
one starts up a new locally made cop show, the others start similar cop shows a few weeks later;
Ten has a reality show about weight-loss, Nein starts up a reality show about weight-loss;
Ten has cooking competition; Seven starts up a cooking competition;
Seven has a high rating drama about a family’s travails; Nein starts up a (probably low-rating) drama about a family’s travails.
And so it goes… and that’s not even going into the shows that get poached from rival networks because they can’t be bothered making their own stuff and/or taking a risk with something new themselves.
They’re not just scraping the bottom of the barrel, they don’t even have a barrel anymore.