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Racing in Victoria will be streamed on free-to-air as early as Monday, following the VRC agreeing to terms with Racing Victoria, which subsequently sealed the deal with Seven West Media.
Channel 78 will show a simulcast of Racing.com’s coverage with the channel to officially launch on August 29th, on Memsie Stakes day at Caulfield.
Seven will transmit beam Victoria racing on Channel 78 across its national metropolitan network in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
The deal in place is for five years, broadcasting 24 hours a day.
The one piece of the puzzle not yet solved is Sky Racing. Racing Victoria are yet to secure a deal to return Victoria racing back on to Sky Racing’s wall-to-wall channels available in pubs, clubs, and on Foxtel.
The full press-release from Racing Victoria is below.
Racing Victoria (RV) has announced that the Victoria Racing Club (VRC) has today formally committed to the Seven West Media proposal for the future broadcasting of Victorian thoroughbred racing.
The VRC joins the Melbourne Racing Club (MRC), the Moonee Valley Racing Club (MVRC) and Country Racing Victoria (CRV) in committing to support the Seven West Media proposal.
With the industry’s media rights now aggregated, RV has today signed an agreement with Seven West Media to showcase Victorian thoroughbred racing nationally via a new, dedicated free-to-air channel, which will be integrated with a suite of streaming and digital services at Racing.com.
RV Chief Executive, Bernard Saundry, said, “This is an historic day for the industry with all the Victorian clubs now united in committing to support the Seven West Media proposal. This paves the way for the Victorian industry to achieve its future goal of ensuring that Victorian thoroughbred racing can be viewed in every lounge room and on every mobile phone across Australia.”
Seven West Media had proposed to launch its showcase free-to-air programming on Channel 78 on 29 August 2015 to coincide with the first Group 1 of the season – the Memsie Stakes at Caulfield.
In announcing the signing of the agreement, Mr Saundry stated that Seven West Media would now come to the rescue of punters, fans and participants by implementing an interim broadcast of Victorian thoroughbred races.
Seven West Media will begin broadcasting this week on its free-to-air Channel 78 to re-transmit the existing Racing.com coverage of Victorian thoroughbred racing as an interim measure whilst it commenced preparations for the launch of its premium coverage on the channel in late August.
Seven West Media will be able to transmit Channel 78 across its national metropolitan network in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Seven West Media will begin testing the Racing.com vision feed on Channel 78 this week.
With the agreement now in place, Seven West Media will be in a position to negotiate with its affiliates and with Foxtel with an aim of maximising the coverage throughout Australia at the earliest opportunity.
Mr Saundry thanked Seven West Media on behalf of the industry for moving swiftly to implement an interim coverage of Victorian thoroughbred racing and that RV was grateful for their support.
“We thank Seven West Media for the offer to establish an interim broadcast from this week as our agreement is not for the launch of the showcase channel until 29 August. The interim solution won’t be perfect. There will be people in regional areas that cannot access the interim coverage, but this is an important first step in getting our races back on television,” Mr Saundry.
“I can advise those punters, fans and participants in regional areas that we’ll be working with Seven West Media to extend the interim solution to them as quickly as possible, whilst also looking to re-engage with Tabcorp on an agreement to get Victorian racing back on to Sky Racing’s wall-to-wall channels.”
Mr Saundry explained that RV will continue to seek talks with Tabcorp Holdings on achieving its preferred media distribution model which involves both Seven West Media and Sky Racing with the goal of building a strong, sustainable future where current and future generations of fans and punters can access vision of Victorian thoroughbred racing whenever, wherever and however they choose.
Mr Saundry reiterated that RV is keen for Victorian thoroughbred racing to again be broadcast on Sky Racing 1 (Channel 519) into homes, pubs and clubs, in the immediate and long-term future.
Mr Saundry also confirmed that Victorian thoroughbred racing would continue to be streamed live and free across computers, tablets and mobiles via Racing.com, sportsbet.com.au and crownbet.com.au, and broadcast into the state’s 92 retail TAB agencies.
More to come.