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Foxtel to charge for Winter Olympics

Foxtel looks set to add extra fees to see its 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

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bcplaceFoxtel  is set to charge an additional subscription fee for access to live Olympic coverage.

“Foxtel are confident that there are enough die hard skiers and boarders who will pay for live coverage as opposed to having to watch delayed coverage,” said an insider told tech website SmartHouse.

For the Vancouver games, Foxtel shares the broadcast with the Nine Network. It plans to screen events across four Foxtel channels including a new HD sporting channel.

The joint broadcast deal with the Olympic Federation includes live rights for free-to-air, HD Channel programming and subscription television, as well as internet and mobile rights.

When Foxtel announced its plans for 2010 there was no mention that subscribers would have to pay an additional fee to access events.

Foxtel declined to comment further on its plans for the Vancouver games at this early juncture.

Source: SmartHouse

17 Responses

  1. I am extremely disappointed with Foxtel charging for the Vancouver Games. I arlready pay $150 per month! you would think that its enough to entiltle mr to watch such a sporting event. This action by Foxtel is not disimilar to the sort of garbage Banks deal out to their customers. Wake up Foxtel and treat your loyal customers with some respect.

  3. wow. i just don’t get you wingers. It’s gonna be $50 all up; if you pay in advance. $65 if you don’t.

    for that you get 4 channels .. playing most events live – and staying with any event till it’s over [a condition of their licences]. they’ve made a commitment to not interrupt live events with ad breaks.

    and its HD. for the cost of about 1 ticket to any live Olympic event. don’t know what you’re all wingeing about…. Foxtel have to provide a bucketload of extra and expensive staff and provisioning to create the feed. not to mention the healthy sum they no doubt had to pay the Olympic rights owners..

    you misers on the other hand, can watch the superb Channel 9 feed [one channels worth with room for all of Nine’s other choice can’t-do-without programs and the few [ ha ha] ad breaks they’ll throw in pushed in around it for freeeee

    enjoy yourselves. and while you’re at it… run out to the Mathew Talbot for some free dinner cos you surely shouldn’t be forced to pay for anything so basic a human need as food either. I pay for the HD feed and it’s great. it’s not lots if you take away the FTA rebroadcast … but most of the HD channels are better content per hour than most channels IMHO. the HD on demand movies are brilliant… no waiting for the movie start.. And the feeds for FTA are better quality than my digital aerial feed.

  4. No doubt some people will pay. I still can’t believe people pay a few hundred dollars installation plus 10 dollars a month to Foxtel for several HD channels, half of which are free to air channels.

  7. they have to be joking. Did they miss the Winter part when they made this call. Message to Fox: leave it in my normal subscription or i will watch my 10.5 minutes on ch9. Cant believe I just said i will watch ch9. Actually i will just watch the footy – its ice skating ffs

  8. The International Olympic Committee (to give the governing body the correct name) simply wanted more money from TV deals, that’s why it allowed pay TV companies from many countries to be involved in the coverage, knowing it can show more sports live to air. In Hong Kong for example, the only way to watch the 2010 Winter Olympics and 2012 Summer Olympics is on pay TV. Previously the Olympics were shared between the city’s two free-to-air stations.

  11. Foxtel charging for Olympics (winter or summer), now why am i not surprised! How much will the Summer Games cost for subscribers in 2012? Damn pay-tv!

  12. Paull, Nine and Foxtel have the rights to the 2010 Winter and 2012 Summer Olympics. This was announced last year and reportedly cost them $US100m

  14. Usually would actually watch some events, but not if I have to pay extra as its not unmissable TV. They did the same for the commonwealth games 2006. Aren’t they on FTA as well?

  15. I would have thought this was obvious. For Sydney 2000 they charged extra for the Olympics package, it only stands to reason that you would pay now for the extra channels.

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