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TEN in the game for NRL

Network TEN is the latest bidder said to be looking at challenging Nine and FOX Sports for future NRL rights.

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Network TEN is believed to be looking at a bid for the NRL rights which will be up for grabs for 2013.

An executive recently met NRL boss David Gallop.

The Herald Sun notes senior executives are believed to be working on a proposal to use the ‘regular free-to-air channel and ONE HD to broadcast the NRL.‘

With a likely price tag of up to $1b, it would no doubt mean no more AFL on TEN, should it prove successful.

But Nine and FOX Sports both retain first and last rights for an extra five years and a spokesperson says Nine has no intention of losing the code. And then there is Seven, which launches The Matty Johns Show this Thursday night.

“Hell will freeze over before Channel 9 loses rugby league,” said the spokesperson.

Source: Herald Sun

17 Responses

  1. Mike you are wrong about viewership it was up last year and to date is up in the metro areas also why does anyone care if ratings for the footy show are down will that affect the game. No. AFL will always win viewership because there game goes for longer and covers a broader spectrum of viewers and creates more revenue from advertising.
    One HD has not reached its television share aim of 2% and 7Two has only reached 2% whereas GO! has already reached 3.2% and growing without major cross promotion like 7 and Ten does.
    David Gallop has said he can give other networks pieces of the pie with Finals, State of Orgin, the Internationals and the New All Stars Match.
    NRL should get in the area of $900 million+ because Fairfax reports that the study, commissioned by the NRL, reveals the game has an aggregate audience of 128.5 million compared with AFL’s 124.3 million.
    Nine will most likley keep the Nrl with more games being broadcast live to the internet. CVC Asia Pacific which owns PBL will still forkout the money as it will help payoff the $4 billion they paid for PBL. Although Ten/One HD and Seven might get games like the Finals and State Of Orgin

  2. Mike, I don’t think you can call ONE a failure, and it is a bit useless to compare it to 7TWO and GO because they are general entertainment channels. ONE is a sports channel. And I think the demographics for the channel would actually be quite attractive.

    In the age we are living in, men (which I assume would be the target audience for ONE) buy as much stuff as women do and men usually make big ticket item purchases i.e. cars, houses, etc. If you actually look at the ads on ONE you will see that the quality and value of products advertised are quite high.

    It is not all about the quantity of viewers on any given channel, but the quality.

  3. Poor old Mike. This must be all he has to cling to today! 😀

    Channel Nine is making a lot of noise about holding on to the Rugby League for dear life. As a sports fan I tend to think they do a lousy job with any sport they decide to cover, so I wouldn’t mind seeing another station getting the rights.

    One thing I think really needs to be looked into, and something the afl doesn’t need to worry about, is the international rights for the NRL.

    Right now Telstra holds the internet rights and they are not allowing the NRL to offer more than one game per week to overseas TV stations. Obviously, one game per week isn’t enough to interest stations looking for content to fill the many hours they have to burn, so they have been turning down the token coverage.

    This has meant that overseas NRL fans have to go to the Bigpond web site and pay a fee to watch games….see what they did there?

    I’ll just be happy to see the competition get a TV contract that actually pays the game what it is worth as a ratings winner and not have to be locked up by so many stupid issues that mean the TV companies run so many aspects of this amazing sport.

  4. Being called a halfwit by a “League Freak” must mean something I’m sure, but when fandom overrides common sense you can’t help but see the humorous side.

    League Freak, One has been an utter failure. Go and 7two regularly have a larger audience share and I’m betting Go has much more desirable key demographic data. You know the stuff advertisers actually want to keep content on the air. Do you anything about this?

    Ahh, Richard who do you think has more money a few country bumpkins or the mass of people in metro areas where Oztam actually counts and people are able to spend money at the venue to see the match.

    Richard do you have any evidence to back up your theory about more diverse advertsing audience in NRL?

    The only draw card of Rugby League is the SoO. Three games out of how many that actually seems like the NRL is worth it.

    Well if Nine is sticking by the NRL they will need all the help they can get. A few matches aired on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons, where most people are out or have better things to do really aren’t worth the network to continually support it and throw hoards of money at it. But it will be interesting to see how Rugby League fares when they try and mimic other countries and whichever network pays exorbitant amounts for rights when there are fewer people and less support in Australia.

    Just how financially viable are some of the clubs Freak? Pretty lousy and hanging by a thread.

  5. Where as AFL is has much more yearly following both in the ground and on TV, you have to remember that NRL has a bigger following in regional areas of NSW and QLD, so to count only Metro figures is a bit silly. NRL viewers are more diverse so different advertisers can capitalise on this. AFL have loyal fans but essentially the same viewers and less diverse.

    NRL can also offer more premium one off events like the State Of Origin series and Test matches that AFL simply don’t have the same following for. These bring in big TV numbers.

  6. Anyone that says Rugby League is dying is a halfwit. I’d go into further detail but quite honestly, its not worth my time.

    One HD was always going to be an interesting player in the market. I don’t think Ten has the money to really shake things up, but then again they did pay a lot of money for part of the AFL rights and seemed to be happy to write off the terrible ratings they would bring in the first and third biggest TV markets in Australia.

    I don’t know that Ten wil ever get the rights for the NRL competitions, however I think the possibility of them getting the rights for International Rugby League is not too bad. They have more flexibility to show the games than Nine does and with On HD they can show these games across Australia.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if the NRL actually wanted One HD to also get some Toyota Cup games too. That is a fantastic competition that right now is only showed on FoxSports, but it would be a very nice content filler for One HD.

    I think until they can get a large portion of the NRL or AFL rights, One HD is probably only going to be good for NBA and NFL.

  7. Why? Rugby League is dying, and has for quite some time. It couldn’t even help Channel Nine win last Friday night in total audience share. Also, like most things in tv land both viewership for games and the Footy show is down from last year. So Ryano, you are incorrect. Rugby League is shedding viewers not gaining them. The only thing that Rugby league is gaining apart from ego and arrogance is a self-aggrandizing money agenda hell bent on extorting the stupid networks out of more money at the cost of other programming.

    Most sport is not commercially viable when the sporting associations jack up their prices beyond reasonable means. Evidence of this is with ITV (UK) and their soccer rights and NBC (US) and their Olympics. Granted the networks need to take responsibility and stop living beyond their means but sporting associations need to realise they are not the be all and end all and most people do not give two hoots about sport.

    I’d be surprised if Ten is even around in five years time. With debilitating audience erosion, anaemic audience share and lacklustre results in key demos Ten is swiftly becoming the Titanic, even Canwest tried to bail (sorry went belly up). Let’s not forget the turkey One. Its audience share is still meagre and it certainly hasn’t helped Ten win any night this year like Nine or Seven.

    But hey, sport is just so damn popular.

  11. I would like to see some conditions put on the next N.R.L. rights, that the games should be shown in the non traditional Rugby League states at a reasonable hour, and not at 12:30 am in the bloody morning

  13. “Welcome to the first round of Friday Night Football for 2013 here on Ten and ONE….I’m Natalie Bassingthwaighte, joined in the commentary box tonight by Matt Preston and Michelle Bridges…”

  14. i hope 10 get the rights. they had it in the 80’s and early 90’s. but 9 and fox will keep the rights because of that rule with first and last bid

  16. Ten broadcast the NSW Rugby League competition (the predecessor to the NRL) in 1989-1990 before the network went bankrupt. Nine took over the broadcast rights at the request of NSWRL and has covered rugby league ever since (Seven did air a few international tests in early 1990s). So it will be interesting to see how the NRL will now fit in Ten’s (and/or One’s) schedule.

  17. All pro sports are going to continue to increase revenue from TV rights as networks seek out exclusive content. Audiences are leaving conventional media in droves and sport is one of the only ways the nets can keep audiences.

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