All Stories Feed$50 for Foxtel’s Winter Olympics
Foxtel has announced its pricing plans for its 2010 Winter Olympics coverage, offering an “early bird” rate of $50 for 17 days of action, or $65 for a Season Pass which goes on sale in 2010.
The fees come on top of monthly subscription rates for viewers.
With sport as its biggest drawcard, Foxtel will offer more extensive coverage of events than the Free to Air broadcast by the Nine Network, with 1600 hours of coverage.
CEO Kim Williams said: “Foxtel’s coverage of the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games will feature more than 340 hours of live coverage, compared with only 10 hours live coverage of the 2006 Torino Olympic Winter games.
“We will complement our television broadcast with mobile, broadband, and interactive delivery platforms making the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games available anytime and anywhere,” he said.
“We will take all of the extraordinary possibilities of our digital platform – our iQ set-top-boxes, SD and HD channels, surround sound, interactive services, electronic programming guide, and mobile and broadband services – to showcase the 17 days of competition with greater depth, breadth, excitement and relevance than ever before.”
Foxtel’s coverage will be carried over four dedicated channels branded as:
* Cyprus: will cover free style aerials, moguls, snowboarding and ski cross.
* Creekside: will cover alpine skiing, ice hockey finals, and curling finals
* Whistler: will cover cross country skiing, ski jumping, biathlon, bobsleigh, skeleton and luge.
* Vancouver: will cover all figure skating, hot track and speed skating.
There will also be four standard definition channels.
Austar will also offer the events to regional Australia (except WA).
When Foxtel announced its rights for 2010 there was no mention that subscribers would have to pay an additional fee to access events. So far there is also no clarity on whether the telecast will be ad free.
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If you’re in New Zealand, they have Prime (free to air channel) who are showing the games from 6am-6pm daily. That’s far superior to Nine’s coverage. Sky Sports have 4 dedicated channels however the big difference is that Sky are not charging their customers anything extra (as long as you have the sports option). Foxtel are ripping us off !
way too expensive on top of what I already pay – leave me out
dont need 4 venues at once
By the way, I have Foxtel as well and i totally agree that $50 to $65 is way too much. Yes, it’s broadcast in SD and HD, but for us customers who already pay a pretty penny for Foxtel, it’s not fair to be charging us that much. If anything, it should be free! I’ve given them enough money over the years that at elast they could reward their customers with something like the olympics. Once every two years (summer and winter) wouldn’t be hurting them too much profit wise….
I’m a Canadian, and I guess becuase of that, I love the winter and the winter olympics. I can understand aussies not being interested, but once you’ve been in the snow and experienced what it’s like, you’ll miss it when its not there. Sure, it’s cold, but you get used to it and of course you dress for it. For those of you who are knocking back the winter games just because you’ve never experienced snow/winter, you’re missing out. Whatever the coverage channel 9 gives, watch it and give it a go! Isn’t that the australian way???!!!! Besides, the winter games are so much more visually stunning and appealing than the summer games….
Wathc it, then judge it guys….Cheers!
I can’t believe how many people are complaining about this, blah blah blah. I currently pay $90 for Fox a month, and with this I get all the sport I need LIVE around the world, Super 14 rugby, Tri Nations, golf, cricket, MLB, NFL, NBA, I could go on. I would in fact pay the $90 just for the live sport alone. On top of this there are great channels like Discovery, Food, Lifestyle, How To, National Geographic, Music, Kids programs, etc, so I think I’m getting something decent for $90. Now to pay another $50 for full Winter Games coverage is again, well worth it. To even get the choice of being able to watch it is a great thing. I probably couldn’t even name one competitor, but I will definitely be watching these games as it’s an amazing event. A true sports fan wouldn’t be whingeing and complaining like everyone on here. Be thankful we have the option rather then not seeing anything at all. I won’t even mention FTA coverage.
Who are the “faces of the coverage” the people who do the talking? Will they be US or Canada or UK people? Coverage from an Amercan or UK POV? Or will Australian Fox people go over and front the shows?
EG: When the Kangaroos tour the UK and we have to listen to the UK commentators calling the game, you get the game from a UK POV, and it makes it less enjoyable.
I purchased the early bird at the last Com.games, even after confirming my order it did not activate on the night, they told me it was ok, they would sort it just keep pressing the buy now red button each day, cost me a fortune they charged me the early bird and the price the daily price. it took months to sort it out, in the end they knocked the money off the monthly charge over a period of months. Never again will I pay/book for any movies, sport, etc. where you change things out of the normal monthly pattern. They can’t cope with changes.
My understanding is that Foxtel will show stuff in long-form – so you’ll see the entire round or event. Nine will dip in and out much more. $50 seems pretty reasonable if Winter Olympics are your thing. It’s certainly far more visually spectacular than the Summer games. I imagine in HD it will look pretty amazing.
@ Axel – $160 a month? Platinum only about $100, at most $125 if you have IQ2 and all the HD channels. Did $160 include pay per views or something?
I love the winter games and I’d love to say I’ll just stick with the 9 highlights, but knowing they’ll just feature a few failed aussie competitors and not actually the real highlights I’ll probably be signing up, $50 sounds fair for 4 channels in HD.
$50 sounds fair to me – even the $65 to be introduced in January
I’m not that interested in the Winter Olympics – so won’t be watching
Skeleton!!!
I might consider paying it for the summer games but defiantly not for the winter games
really dont get this one. Most sports nuts arent into this stuff..it just not in our culture. Fox couldnt make a dedicated AFL channel work at $100 per year, I have no idea how this will be cost effective. Would make more sense to give it to us in our sports package as a tease to show how well it can be done in the hope that it will temp people for Commonwealth & Olympic games. Fox havent poached any ch9 programmers lately have they??
$50 is good value when you compare it to a WWE PPV. I think Foxtel make most of the profits from ads not from the $50 fee. The $50 fee is to cover transmission costs.
Winter Olympics is not that good anyway, so I’ll just watch it on Nine. They certainly will do a better job than seven did.
My relatives in the U.S. pay $50 a month for 90+ channels. Foxtel are a bloody rip-off. I was paying $160 a month till I gave it the chop a couple of years ago. Everyone should send them a message by not responding to that stupid offer.
Yup.
So David, are those 4 ‘dedicated’ channels you’ve mentioned above, in HD?? I ask this because below that you’ve got, “there will also be 4 standard definition channels”.
i would rather pay 50 bucks to watch the winter olympics like this. than what channel 7 produced in 2006. put this with what 9 will do. it will be better than 7′s coverage by a country mile
I wonder with TEN having a dedicated HD sport channel if that would make them more likely to get major sporting events in the future?
As I said earlier I’m not paying for sports I probably won’t be watching, not up to $65, maybe if it was $20 then I would but I’ll just catch the highlights on the news…
BTW I re-read and Austar will be covered.
$50 is nothing.
Costs me more for a round of beers with the boys after work.
What a rip off. For what some crappy Winter Olympics coverage. I pay for a Platinum Package already give ‘em $106 per month. They can stick it
does anyone care that much about the winter olympics that they would pay $50 for a secondary coverage? i assume that this will be the equivalent of SBS’s coverage of Beijing. being, no australians and very little audience.
if the SBS coverage couldn’t make the top 100 during beijing during low competition, imagine how low it will be when it is limited to foxtel payers, that have to pay extra, and it’s only winter olymics.
i will be very surpised if this is popular.
In fairness to Foxtel, Kim Williams has said ads will only be in natural breaks, not during events. Live events should be 5am – 6pm.
Foxtel is a rip already, who is going to pay that much for the winter olympics, not many i suspect.
I would consider paying for the Summer Olympics, but not the Winter one. I bet the 2012 games fees are even higher.
“the wee hours of the morning”
Vancouver time zone will mean the events will be run during Oz mid-morning-daytime-afternoon with competition ending for the day about 6pm our time
Sorry, I won’t be purchasing this. I think they get enough money out of me already.
I’d be interested to see how much money Foxtel will lose when thier anticipated quota for the Winter Games comes in well short. They can’t seriously expect to make a profit outta this..
Paying three times (effectively) does seem a bit much for events that will trail into the wee hours of the morning.
@Johnsen: So foxtel users not only have to pay the monthly subscription fee, but they also have to pay $50-$65, and still have ads in the broadcast… ill save money and stick with free to air.
Although, I do hope nine don’t start airing events late like they do with their shows.
Only Ice Hockey finals? I’d consider it if we got every game of the Ice Hockey…..
They did the same with the Commonwealth Games. I knew there’d be a subscription fee but $50 is an absolute rip. Maybe if it was $10-$20 I might think about it. If they’re gonna charge 50 bucks for the Winter Olympics I loathe to think what the pricing on the Summer games will be.
The Australian Financial Review said on Monday that Foxtel’s Winter Olympics telecast will have 3 minutes of ads every hour, compared to Nine’s 8 minutes of ads per hour.
Sorry even though it’s on ch9 I’ll stick with the FTA coverage on this one. Why pay extra for sports I’m not likely to watch anyway…
BTW will this offer be open to Austar subscribers?
Can we get anything without paying the 50?