After patiently biding their time through the sometimes frustrating first season of Network 10 and Paramount+’s broadcasting of Australian football, fans have been hit with the most disingenuous apology in the lead up to the 2022-23 season.
With footballing eyes around the nation desperate for more flexibility in the Paramount+ application, the platform has tweeted openly to customers that despite its promises, the frustration of subscribers and the ability of other platforms to provide what could be deemed as expected in the modern digital world, the service in season 2022-23 will be essentially no different to that dished out previously.
Just two days out from kick-off and the grand final replay between Melbourne City and Western United, Paramount+ Australia informed customers from their official Twitter account of the following.
“Dear football fans,
We want to be upfront with you, and unfortunately live pause and rewind won’t be ready for the start of the 2022/23 A-Leagues season. We understand your frustration and we’re continuing to work on this feature. As soon as it is ready, we will let you know.”
Thousands of Paramount+ subscribers were frustrated by the service provided to them after taking out subscriptions for the 2021/22 A-League season.
Most were reasonable in their acceptance of teething problems that they were promised would be addressed by the provider after concerns were raised.
Yet Wednesday’s tweet flies in the face of those supposed efforts to get things right for the upcoming season.
What was provided to customers in 2021/22 was far from perfect, clunky and along with the 10Play streaming service that was often impractical when it came to providing a fluent, consistent and controllable means by which to watch Australian football, proved nothing but a frustration for fans who had hoped for so much more.
Streaming content is vastly different to watching programs on commercial or subscription television that can easily be recorded, paused, re-winded or fast forwarded when required.
Slick streaming services provide flexibility and functionality that please the consumer and allow for a pleasant experience whilst using them.
What Paramount+ threw up last season was far from ideal and saw paying customers frustrated by the inability to rewind and review key moments, pause in real time in order to attend to life outside the game itself or catch the game soon after its completion should life have simply thrown far too many things towards them at the time the actual match took place.
In light of the far superior functionality of other applications available to consumers, the view that customers should expect the same from a service so critical to Australian football hardly seems to be unreasonable.
However, despite the promises made during the off-season and the providers’ insistence that things would be vastly improved for the second year of their involvement in the top tier of the Australian game, the tweet suggests that we are simply in for more of the same.
Moreover, the wording A-Leagues, suggests that the problem could well be solved, if ever, long after the launch of the women’s competition in late November.
I would love to be a fly on the wall when Paramount+ Australia executives meet Football Australia powerbrokers in regards to exactly what is stalling their provision of a quality and state of the art streaming service; something we were all promised, expected and should demand.
Most alarming was the utter silence greeting the expressions of concern and disappointment of customers on Twitter; people told that things would improve and those now shattered that the company has simply dodged responsibility by offering a rather lame and paltry excuse at the eleventh hour.
On the official thread, just one customer received a response, as they sarcastically enquired as to when the NCIS series might be available in Australia.
Those in control of the Paramount+ Twitter account jumped all over that, yet ignored the hundreds of subsequent queries from people wondering why they had been lied to and when exactly the streaming service would be catching up with the others they use most days of the week.
As of yet, I am unable to find another response from them, as the provider simply hides behind a pathetic excuse.
We should all be disappointed and Football Australia CEO James Johnson should be leading the charge to demand answers. The notion of investing significantly in a sport in order to acquire broadcast rights and then not doing everything in one’s power to make it a success is nothing but absurd.
That does appear to be the case with Paramount+ and fans of Australian football stand to be the losers.
Jordan Sports Fan
Roar Rookie
And subcription fees direct to APL rather than a middle man. Plus they could get into the market for other rights once they have the platform good to go?
Jordan Sports Fan
Roar Rookie
I have started to think the same thing myself, NBL of course have their own and farm a couple of matches to 10 (and ESPN).
Jordan Sports Fan
Roar Rookie
Get out of my brain please Stuart. Not sure how I approach today’s slate. Go to Suncorp at 4pm and then what, watch big blue on my phone on the bus home and not bother with F3? Ideally, I watch a mini of F3 upon getting home and then Big Blue on slight delay when done, fast forwarding through half-time to catch up. Optus would allow for this.
Roberto Bettega
Roar Rookie
As others have said, I've never really cared about the lack of re-wind function. The service is so cheap, just enjoy watching the games. That's all there is to it.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
What happened to that guy Jordan sports fan, one week apparently he is watching the NRL and AFL semi finals at the same time, I though we would hear from him on the AFL streaming where they had it totally stuffed didnt they. So the minute Channel 7 stuffs up totally the AFL grand final he dissapears, shouldn't that be his big critique moment. What about Optus and the world cup stuff up, we didnt hear this amount of absurd rattling on.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
Never used this live , never wanted it. what people want is simple a live stream. What happened with the AFL live stream thats what people dont want.
Stevo
Roar Rookie
Paramount’s foray into sport is not new. https://www.purevpn.com/blog/sports-on-paramount-plus/ It would be interesting to know what sports fans in the US think of the P+ service.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
I'm on record as having always preferred to watch live football than anything served up on television. VAR is frustrating enough when you are inside the ground. Imagine having the opportunity to pause and rewind when you are at a live event - imagine the chaos that would ensue. Keep sport live, watch it live and save your bathroom breaks for half and full-time.
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
it's handy to check a play that interests you but not the broadcaster, and for early replays of course, you get home from the game and want to watch the TV version but it takes a day to become available. My biggest issue with the telecast is the commentary. They're still doing Roar games from a studio in Sydney and they don't have a local on their team.
Stuart Thomas
Expert
So if you arrive home 30 minutes after kick-off, might it be nice to be able to watch from the start? Simple from a tech point of view according to many. The app is way off the pace compared to others.
Mahler
Guest
Pause, rewind blah blah who needs it. I'm no great fan of Paramount but it's cheap and functional although always giving the impression that there's a chimpanzee somewhere actually operating it.
Blood Dragon
Roar Rookie
It's $8 a month for the price I'm not going to complain as the next cheapest Football Service is Bein Sports at $19.99 a month
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
would it be possible for them to make any money out of that? Obviously the attraction with P+ is the fee they pay for rights to stream/broadcast. Advertising would bring some, but enough?
Doc Disnick
Roar Guru
Talk about a First World Problem.
Nick Symonds
Guest
NEWS: Saudi Arabia to host 2029 Asian Winter Games - Let's hope the Socceroos are conditioned to play in the frozen tundra of Qatar
NoMates
Roar Rookie
First Network Ten dumps the A-League onto its 2nd channel due to dire ratings and now Par+ couldn't be bothered fixing its streaming service due to poor viewing/no incentive to do so. IF they had won the AFL tv rights bid Im sure it would have been in place asap.
steggz
Roar Rookie
Usually allows for those of us who can't make the start of a game can watch from the start
Griffo
Roar Guru
Is Paramount+ a transition platform until APL can get their own up and running? To my mind KEEPUP. looks to be the intended end-platform, or at least the games media arm of one that has a streaming platform tightly integrated. APL and FA could do worse than look at what Volleyball have done in recent time - Volleyball World (KEEPUP.) and the separate app Volleyball.tv (ALeagues or Football.tv) available on web and devices. VBTV is a slick offering, works well, and the media on that platform also contribute to VB World. If football in this country had that platform run by APL at least you could stop worrying about the likes of P+ and keep (and work for) all your own revenue.
Griffo
Roar Guru
Agree on development but they would have won over their (football) subscribers with early and honest communication.
Griffo
Roar Guru
I think Paramount/CBS took on football to quickly grow their subscriber base when entering the Aussie market at the same time. Now they’re a year down and - perhaps not enough return on investment with certain metrics - they’re not going to fork over money to enhance capability, especially when it doesn’t affect/is needs to watch their other media offerings (movies/series). Personally I have used rewind during live streams or ‘watch from the beginning’ on occasion but is it more other services have it so it is a baseline Paramount should offer? Time will tell if they loose subs after this season because of features not available. Perhaps that might spur them into actioning - if their tech platform is even capable. Personally all providers are hoarding their own content and I am not sure I would have normally added P+ to my sub list even though there are some shows and movies I would watch. But with fewer TV games that cannot offer replay/catch-up unless provide by the channel’s separate online service, they have us over a barrel if wanting to watch your team or the leagues. It’s not like the TV is accurately monitoring if I am watching a game on Ch10 or 10Bold so as to convince the execs to add more games to that physical platform as an accurately measured form of protest. And running 10Play while watching the TV hasn’t made a difference ( :silly: ) and may even convince them to coerce people to P+ anyway. Always there seems to be a lot riding on how the season pans out, but for P+ not adding capability this season, or ready for the next one, may harm their sub base. Which really will harm football and turn fans off even more imo.