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Antisiphoning facts
Q. What is the antisiphoning list?
A: The antisiphoning list is a list of major sporting events that the Parliament of Australia has
decided must be available for all Australians to see free of charge and cannot be “siphoned”
off to pay TV where people are forced to pay to see them.
Q. What is on the antisiphoning list?
A: There are ten sports on the antisiphoning list plus the Olympic and Commonwealth games.
The sports include football, cricket, tennis, motor sports and golf.
Click here to see if your favourite sport is at risk.
Q. What would happen if there was no antisiphoning list?
A: In other countries where there isn’t an antisiphoning list major sporting events are siphoned
off to pay TV. In New Zealand, for instance, despite the fact that rugby union is nearly a religion
live games are only available on pay TV.
In the UK you can only watch the Premier League soccer on pay TV and they often charge a
premium for the best game of the round.
Q. How much sport is shown on free-to-air television?
A: 1648 hours of listed sport was shown on free-to-air television last year.
Q. Won't there be more coverage of my favourite sport if it is not on the list?
A: No. The current system ensures that the best games are available to all Australians for free
and complementary and more detailed coverage is available for those people who choose to
pay to watch television.
Q. Does this mean I can't watch these sports on pay television?
A: No. Pay TV already provides extensive coverage of listed sports.
For instance it boasts that it shows “every game of every round” of NRL and AFL. It provides
extensive coverage of events such as Wimbledon and the Australian Open tennis
tournaments. Free-to-air broadcasters are able to negotiate rights to the best games and
everything else is available to pay TV. Pay TV is also able to show the free-to-air
games/matches on delay.
Q. Haven't I seen some of these sports on pay television?
A: Yes. Pay TV currently provides extensive coverage of listed sports – although they do not
always show everything they own. It is nonsense to suggest that the list prevents them from
showing these sports on television.
Q. How much would it cost to watch these sports on pay television?
A. The cheapest package available on pay TV is around $600 a year. But the pay TV industry
boasts that their average subscribers take their more expensive packages and they average
at least $1000 a year.
Q. Aren't there 1300 events on the antisiphoning list?
A: There are 10 sports plus the Commonwealth and Olympic Games on the list. When pay TV
says there are over 1300 events on the list and free-to-air broadcasters only show you a
fraction of them. What they don’t say is that 838 of them are made up of the Wimbledon and
Australian Open tennis tournaments. AFL and NRL make up a further 183 and motor sports
another 38 giving a total of 1257!
Q. Do other countries have an antisiphoning list?
A: Yes. Some other countries do have an antisiphoning list. One of them is the UK which
introduced a list after the national football games were siphoned to pay TV.
Recently the English and Wales Cricket Board asked to be removed from the list after giving
an undertaking to the Government that they would always have free-to-air coverage.
But the very next rights package they negotiated was an exclusive pay TV deal. This means
that when the Ashes start next month UK audiences will be forced to pay to watch their team
and will only be able to see a delayed highlights package the following night on the BBC.
Q: What is the “use it or lose it scheme”?
A. The Federal Government is proposing to introduce “use it or lose it” rules for sports on the
antisiphoning list to ensure that broadcasters are showing the events they acquire and that
listed sports are not being “hoarded”. “Hoarding” occurs when rights to an event are
acquired by a free-to-air broadcaster and are not shown or passed on to another broadcaster
or pay TV operator. Free TV broadcasters are confident that they show the rights to sport they
acquire and everything else is available to pay TV. We are concerned that pay TV interests
want to apply a set of rules that will result in sports that are currently seen on free to air
television, being removed from the list even where this will disadvantage viewers.
Q: Use it or lose it sounds simple enough – how could it hurt viewers?
A. Like most things that sound too good to be true, "use it or lose" is more complicated than it
sounds. For example, the pay TV industry says the "use it or lose it" rules should include a
requirement that sports are shown nationally (to 50% of the population). However, AFL
coverage would fail this test because free-to-air broadcasters show different, local team
games into each market so that people can support their home side. Showing local games
in different markets means it's unlikely that any game would reach 50% of the population.
The pay TV industry has also said that the test should consider how much of the event is
shown on free-to-air television. What they are not saying is that most of the rights that are
used by free-to-airs are already available to pay TV. That means that under their test an event
that was already being shown on both free-to-air and pay TV could be taken off the
antisiphoning list because it wasn't being "fully used" by free-to-air broadcasters, even though
the so-called "unused" rights were already available to or shown on pay TV. So rather than
increase coverage, this test would see sports being delisted and moving exclusively to pay
TV, leaving viewers to pay to watch something that they were getting for free.
Q: How can the “use it or lose it” rules be applied fairly to ensure that sports currently shown
are not removed from the list?
A. A few additional criteria would ensure that the use it or lose it test operated fairly. Our main
concern is that the proposed test doesn't consider the impact on viewers if an event came
off the list. It also doesn't weigh up the trade-off of having to pay a minimum of $50 per month
to watch sports that are already on free-to-air television or available to pay to buy. The rules
should include the following criteria. What would be the impact of delisting some or all of an
event, and in particular would it maximise audience access? What rights were acquired by the
free-to-air broadcaster and how much of these were shown? Were sporting rights available for
acquisition by pay TV? Was there complementary coverage of the event, if so what was it?
These criteria should ensure that the rules do not operate as a mechanism to replace free
coverage with paid coverage.
Q: What kind of coverage of listed events do Free TV broadcasters show now?
A. Free TV broadcasters provide extensive coverage of listed sports including AFL, NRL, cricket,
and motor sports as well as the Commonwealth and Olympic Games. Pay TV operators
continue to make misleading claims about the free coverage of sport. Here are the facts on
some of the sports which they claim are not being shown by free to air broadcasters.
2006 Winter Olympics - Seven Network
The Winter Olympics were not on the list when they were acquired. Channel Seven acquired
the rights on the open market. Channel Seven provided 60 hours of coverage across the event.
The Opening and Closing Ceremonies along with the women’s aerials (in which Alissa
Camplin was competing) were broadcast live and again during prime time. The coverage was
broadcast in prime time to ensure that a majority of Australians were able to see them.
Commonwealth Games – Nine Network
In March 2006 Channel Nine broadcast extensive coverage of the Commonwealth Games
mostly in prime time. It passed on the rights to pay TV which was able to provide seven
channels of Commonwealth Games coverage. Channel Nine also passed on mobile
television rights to Telstra.
Rugby Union – Seven Network
Seven Network broadcast the 2006 Bledisloe cup live in New South Wales and Queensland.
It was broadcast on delay in Victoria and South Australia. Pay TV broadcast the event live in all
states. If the Bledisloe Cup is removed from the list all those viewers who saw the event for
free would be forced to pay in the future.
Rugby League Football – Nine Network
The NRL Grand Final was broadcast live in all Eastern States. It was broadcast on delay in
Adelaide and Perth.
Australian Rules Football
The AFL Grand Final was shown live in every state in Australia. 100% of finals games were
shown on free-to-air television. 93% were shown live or on an AFL mandated delay or in one
case on a timezone delay. The remaining games were given to pay TV to show live, and also
shown on delay on free-to-air television.
Wimbledon – Nine Network
Channel Nine acquires exclusive rights to just 6 matches per day. Channel Nine showed
100% of their exclusive matches either in full or in part. All other matches are available to pay
TV. In 2006 7 matches were passed back to pay TV. The pay TV operator is also free to show
the Channel Nine games on delay. Pay TV showed just 15% of the matches available to them.
They did not use all the rights available to them.
The Australian Open – Seven Network
Channel 7 has exclusive rights to matches on the two major courts at the Australian Open. All
other games are available to pay TV. Pay TV is able to access the Channel 7 games on delay.
Channel 7 begins its broadcast at 11.00am each day and broadcasts until the early hours of
the morning with a small break for news and current affairs. As with Wimbledon, pay TV do not
use all of the rights available to them. We estimate they only show about 15%.
Q. How can I do something about this?
A: You can contact your local member of Federal Parliament and let them know that you do not
want to have to pay to watch your favourite sport on television and that you want to make sure
that the new “use it or lose it” rules are not a device to take sports you currently see for free and
put the on pay TV. |
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