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Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announced the bulk of his new strategy on sports media broadcasting and the anti-siphoning list.
While the NRL and AFL continue to enjoy protected species status on free-to-air television, the A-League didn’t even get a mention.
The Socceroos fared a little better and now all Socceroos World Cup Qualifiers must be shown on free to air, before they can be broadcast on any other media.
This is added to the FIFA World Cup matches and the English FA Cup Final, which are the only other football content to have made the anti-siphoning list to date.
There have long been arguments about whether showing the A-League on free-to-air will actually boost the popularity of the league or not. The old NSL was shown on SBS but that never really caused it to take off significantly.
When commercial stations bought into the NSL, they showed the games at ungodly timeslots until surprise surprise, with no viewers they were pulled from our FTA screens.
Others might argue that if the A-League was shown on FTA, particularly a highlights package or game of the round, it would help to promote and ultimately grow the league’s popularity.
Well, the Communications Minister has made that decision for us – A-League games don’t have to be shown on FTA in Australia.
The other controversial outcome of the new deal is that the Minister will have wide-ranging powers to determine how many AFL and NRL sporting matches are broadcast on free-to-air television, under proposed reforms unveiled yesterday.
The reforms will give Senator Conroy the power to declare quotas for the number of games broadcast on free-to-air TV, versus subscription TV.
“For example,” Senator Conroy said, “the Minister may declare that an eight-match round of the NRL premiership season is a quota group, with a quota number of three. This would mean that subscription television broadcasters could acquire the exclusive rights of up to five matches of this round.
The new anti-siphoning laws also give Senator Conroy the power to “declare” a sporting event be listed as a “Tier A” or “Tier B” event, and the coverage obligations of broadcasters showing them.
Events in Tier A include “nationally iconic” events such as the Melbourne Cup and “football” premierships, but not including A-League premierships.
Tier B refers to “secondary regionally iconic and nationally significant” events such as Australian Open non-finals games, but again no A-League or Asian Champions League games.
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Tier A games must be televised live on FTA TV.
And, for the first time, Twenty20 cricket matches involving Australia and played in Australia will be on the anti-siphoning list, as well as Twenty20 World Cup matches involving Australia.
But if you want to watch the A-League, Asian Cup or Asian Champions League matches on FTA, you’re going to have to wait to see the outcome of negotiations between the FFA and the media companies later this year to see whether they will be on FTA TV or not.
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