As Netflix deals with losing billions on the stock exchange, Todd Sampson faces blowback on a controversial guest and the ABC pulls a presenter off the air | TV Blackbox S07E13
In this episode:
- 2.16 – Todd Sampson faces a twitter backlash
- 7.37 – Lisa Wilkinson out for revenge
- 13.37 – Netflix considers advertising to make up for a loss of subscribers
- 20.11 – Two big streamers say they want AFL rights
- 31.54 – Production news on Million Dollar Island and Nigella confirmed for MKR
- 37.01 – Ratings Wrap
- 46.16 – Hatches & Dispatches
- 47.28 – TV Bingebox
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Hi Guys, love the Podcast! but considering how much FTA networks rely on Sport I feel that the conversation about Sports and ratings lack the depth when the team speaks about this issues (although Molk does great work on the ratings) compared to the other areas of TV you discuss which is A+. The show could benefit from having a specialist jump in when the bigger topics would be discussed (.i.e new sports broadcasting deal). Kevin does this on the website.
The discuss on the AFL and AFLW CBA negotiations was good content (Cost side for the AFL) than the view that 7 will want to pay less due to lower ratings. I am a fan Molk, but saying that AFLW was a more Bankable product was a significant over reach, although it does have amazing growth potential. A case could be made that it is already an equivalent Tier 2 sport already comparable to A-League and NBL. There are changes to when the AFLW starts and new teams which will increase content. The speculation is that an August start through to Christmas.
The points that got missed.
– Channel 7
Will they pay more or less? (Sort of did this) The ratings drop would be inline or maybe slightly better than the rest of FTA TV. There are a couple of items they negotiated away when the 2017 deal got signed that they now may want back i.e. I will discuss in summary.
What is the impact if 7 doesn’t have the rights?
– Channel 9
Are they interested? Major +Plus for Stan Sports, but existing commitment of NRL. The fact that have both a paid subscription model for sport and are a FTA is a major +Plus
– Channel 10
They have the same strength as 9 in this space as they have a subscription product and an FTA network. Just a bit of history best was at its peak when AFL was its stable. The assumption at 10 at the time was they drop AFL, but will gain NRL (this didn’t’t happen). There is a great article in The Age today that discusses this, shame it didn’t land before you did the POD.
– Amazon Prime
If they are involved I would speculate a single night deal, like a Thursday night exclusive content.
– ESPN and Disney+
? I have thoughts on this, but not sure they would agree with it.
– Foxtel / Kayo
Potentially the biggest losers if they don’t have AFL content. This would be a single show it’s own right
I don’t have enough hours in the day to talk about how this relates to other Digital Assets in the various stables of media companies.
TV BlackBox special or spin off? You would get at-least 1 subscriber. Keeps up the great work.
What a well considered comment! Thanks for this and please know I am taking your comments on board.
Cheers, Rob
Thanks Rob, wasn’t really expecting a comment back (and so quickly).
Couple things I just realised I forgot to include in the post.
In regards what was said for AFLW pay, it’s not strictly a pay reduction for the Men and pass that onto the Women. It’s the start of the Collective Bargaining Agreement(CBA) for both Men and Women are occurring over the next year. The current arrangement is 25% of revenue is for the Male players 2017-2022. The AFLW wasn’t a competition at the start of the current CBA. I would image that the AFL would want to maintain the 25% revenue share for both Men’s and Women’s competition. The reason why it affects the Men’s competition is that the current AFLW competition loses 10m annually (This could be more or less over the period on the next CBA, considering that they are adding 4 new teams next season). The current AFL Men annual salary is 10m per team (180m for the league). If revenue percentages and cost are comparatively stay the same even if the overall rights deal is higher the Men’s competition would be subsidising the AFLW.
As for 7, when the original rights deal was done 2015 the new arrangement was that Foxtel was able to simulcast the game on Foxtel at the same time game was on 7 (fair enough as News Ltd was paying more – Telstra chipping in for 200m as well). No-one had the foresight to see a Kayo coming or that they may want to stream live sports on their own platform 7Plus (Which 9 was able to do with the updated NRL deal for 9 Now). Telstra pulling out of streaming AFL on its phones it helped Kayo grow, I was with Telstra so I could stream AFL on my phone.
It has been interesting to watching some of the commentary about the 7 coverage from Senior Footy Journals in the last week. Caroline Wilson (The Age / 3 AW) mention on Footy Classified that 7’s post game coverage was an issue, and they could be leaking viewers to Foxtel for that reason. Sam McClure (The Age) also mentioned that AFL wasn’t happy that they dropped Talking Footy and Game Day products. Coincidence? I will let readers be the judge.
More Generally
Just a suggestion, but you could do a “Sports Rights Special” with drops periodically leading up to the rights announcement and keep it as a part of the TV Blackbox feed and people that are interested in it could listen and people that aren’t can skip it. I wouldn’t think that there is enough content for a TV Sports feed in its own right, but heaps of room for periodical drops within the same feed as TV Blackbox.
It could look something like this and each episode would get 30-40 mins of content.
Drop 1 – The AFL Rights Landscape
Drop 2 – The Incumbent FTA – What does Channel 7 Do?
Drop 2a – The Incumbent Pay TV and Streaming – What does Foxtel Do?
Drop 3 – The Challenge – 10 and Paramount+
Drop 4 – Competitive Tension – Is 9 Interested?
Drop 5 – The AFL Strategy – “Lock Stock and Barrell” or “Multiple Checks”?
Drop 6 – What Does this mean for other sports?
Drop 7 – The Decision
Future additions would be other sports media rights deals, pre-season ratings prediction and post-seasons rating reviews for each sport for FTA, international rights deals and the potential impact locally and where possible Australian Pay Only TV sports.
No matter what you and the team do I am sure it will be great content and look forward to listening to it!