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When it comes to reporting on Adelaide United’s exciting fortnight ahead, we at The Roar have been leading a one-website rearguard against the fog of indifference afflicting the mainstream media. Well, according to one of my regular readers-friends, who I will keep anonymous and who sent me this email last weekend.
“I’m very pissed off, he began, “and the more I think of it the worse it gets. What’s with the FTA networks, both TV and radio? Firstly Adelaide make Australian football history and my local TV and radio stations barely gave it a mention; 102.9FM Hot Tomato [a Gold Coast station] waffled on about league then rugby and ended the sports stories announcing Pieter van dan Hoogenband is announcing his retirement, a f**king swimmer from Holland and no mention of Adelaide’s efforts!
“You just a wrote a blog on Adelaide and I swear if you’re not living there or you don’t religiously follow football you’d be lucky to know it happened.
“Now today I was watching the news and had to endure at least three minutes of news on the [rugby league] World Cup, where I learned they have included sides such as Indigenous Dream Team and New Zealand Maoris. What a farce …
“Sorry to rant at you, but it seems that while the FTA networks have their finger in the AFL and NRL TV rights pie they’ll do anything to help us forget football and it seems they are all in it together.”
I’m not completely sure about the veracity of those statements, because I’m afraid I don’t watch the commercial networks these days much beyond my need for the occasional hit of Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half Men, but SBS, at least, was getting behind the Reds Express on the weekend, with a long interview with Ange Costanzo and pretty thorough coverage on its World Game website (which, yes, in the interests of disclosure, I write for).
But having followed Australian football since the late 1980s-early 1990s, I know where my friend is coming from (as did my readers in my last blog, who vented their anger at FTA TV’s blank on Adelaide).
The mainstream media’s understanding of football remains frustratingly superficial, its coverage token. But why should we expect anything more?
For instance, FTA TV’s idea of a good news story (outside of the ABC and SBS) is showing sneak peeks of the new Pink or Kylie Minogue video.
In a week where James Packer divested himself of his family’s last remaining interests in FTA TV and magazines, media is becoming more and more segmented, tailored to niche interests. The pace of change is breathtaking, especially with the slated high-definition channel reforms slated for January 1 next year.
And, inexorably, advertising spend is following it.
The internet has blown open all the paradigms that use to apply to the media industry in this country, and, if I’m an example of a typical football fan, I can tell you I get 95 per cent of my football information from the web, where the analysis is better, the information more up to date and the choice unlimited.
So if Channel Nine or whoever wants to blow hot air into the Rugby League World Cup at the expense of giving coverage to the irrepressible march of Adelaide United to Asian Champions League infamy, then I couldn’t care less.
It just proves again how incredibly irrelevant and inadequate a source of information the FTA TV networks (clarification: commercial – Ed.) are, not just for football fans but thinking, demanding, tech-savvy people in general (anyone with a laptop, BlackBerry, iPhone, 3G-enabled mobile phone).
As for the Rugby League World Cup, which my friend rightfully disparaged, I couldn’t help but guffaw at a quote from Colin Love, the chairman of the Rugby League International Federation, over the controversy regarding the eligibility of NRL players Fuifui Moimoi and Taniela Tuinaki to play for Tonga after representing New Zealand (since declared lawful by the NSW Supreme Court).
“We’d love to see all the best players in the tournament, he said. “But you can’t just break the rules, you can’t turn it into a farce.”
A statement predicated on the assumption that the RLWC wasn’t already just that.
If Channel Nine or any of the FTA networks really think otherwise, at the expense of having the opportunity to follow and report on the truly significant feats of Adelaide United, they deserve to rot for their ignorance.
Viva la revolution!
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