Free TV Australia Addresses Anti-Siphoning Laws

November 25, 2013 World Screen Top Stories

SYDNEY: Free TV Australia has dismissed pay-TV networks' renewed calls for dismantling the country's anti-siphoning rules, which keep sports free for everyone to watch.

These anti-siphoning laws were essentially designed to prevent pay-TV broadcasters from buying monopoly rights to televise important and culturally significant events before free-TV providers had the chance to bid on them. Free TV Australia is arguing that the current anti-siphoning rules have not prevented sporting codes such as the AFL, NRL or Cricket from taking in record broadcasting rights deals, thus meaning that sporting rights in Australia are still fully valued.

Free TV Australia is speaking out after claims that Australian pay-TV operator Foxtel is lobbying the federal government for a number of top sporting events not played in Australia to be taken off the list of events on the anti-siphoning rules. Such events include Wimbeldon, the U.S. tennis Open and World Cup football qualifier matches played by the Australian national team in other countries.

Free TV chairman Harold Mitchell commented: “It’s no surprise to see pay TV out there crying foul over television sporting rights. It’s more of the same from an industry that is about one thing—making people pay for stuff they would otherwise get for free.”

Mitchell noted that around 70 percent of Australians rely exclusively on free TV for their sport, news and entertainment; there is no reason, he said, for them to be forced to pay an average of A$100 per month to watch this same content.

“Calls for the current framework to be replaced by a ‘dual rights’ scheme where free-to-air and pay rights for listed sports would be sold separately is nothing more than a pea and thimble trick that will see sports disappear from the television screens of ordinary Australians,” Mitchell continued.

“It is simply a fantasy to imagine that the same content can be sold to two competing platforms.

“That scheme is simply the latest strategy devised by pay TV to achieve their ultimate goal—exclusive rights to premium sporting content."