A sign of the times. Things are tight and with what I think is worse to come, cutbacks will continue everywhere.

if no one picks it up hopefully ABC can get it cheap, if this happens though, this will be disastrous for the sponsors like IInet and1 etc, surely there contracts state that they will sponsor for as long as it is on tv. if it goes off i wonder if sponsor contracts are void. anyone know?

The TV contract is longer than the sponsors contracts I think. So as long as the TV contract is tight it shouldnt be an issue.

A lot can change in the four years left in the deal, so the 'walk away' comment can be taken with a grain of salt, once again assuming the contract is tight. Needless to say, the NBL needs to find a way to get more viewers if it wants to continue past the current deal.

No. NBL is not on the anti-siphoning list. Thats why FOX could show it exclusively for so long.

anon they dont care about sports that arent that popular, from a statistical point of view basketball isnt that strong here, its footy, rugby, and because of the bogans the v8 super slugs that are referred to for the broadcasting stuff. if a sport isnt in demand then there is no interest in protecting it. its shame though.

The bigger issue is that new owners have financial interest in FOX. With the introduction of ONEHD subscriptions etc for FOX dropped and effected the profitbaility. With the NBA & NBL not on free to air some prople will take up membership again.

Hopefully another fre to air channel can pick some games up.

Good thing that there's a few more years left on the contract.

There might be a change of heart in a few years.

jake, ONE HD was rating apallingly and underdelivering. The play for Ten by Murdoch etc., was not defensive - they saw a cheap, really underforming asset with a questionable strategy for the future. The investors believe they can turn that around and have set about doing it.

Exactly right Jake
Murdoch and Packer protecting their own interests and investment in Fox.
Same reason why Ch 10 dropped out of the chase for AFL once Murdoch and co became influential on Ch 10.

HO, what do you think of the new strategy? Cost cutting when they are already (if my memory is correct) easily the lowest spenders of the three networks. Where do you think they are heading past making a quick buck?

Paul, I think from a business perspective the strategy for One HD is right. Sport is expensive to produce and unless you can show AFL and ARLD every week in this country you are in trouble.

As for Ten, I think the strategy around vamped up news was wrong in a commercial TV play. A lot of resources for little return. I do not yet really understand what they are doing with Ten to be honest (as opposed to One).

Ten has always underspent the other two, but has also on a return on revenue basis been very profitable in the past. Nine and Seven have fought about market share for years and spent accordingly. Ten has never fought that but made good profits on its smaller revenue - from a shareholder point of view you would be happy if they could recreate that.

U cant rely on free to air station thats y i watch da NBA on da comp on myp2p its free to

^ Nice typing

Free to air is essential for the NBL expanding it's fanbase. If/When this contract runs out it should be top priority for another free to air contract to be sourced and not foxtel.

Saying that, I would get foxtel again if it was the only way to watch NBL. Maybe they should get an online subscription type deal instead?

I definitely agree re ONE. It was obvious they weren't able or prepared to do the sports channel thing properly ie basically no league, union, cricket or tennis, and without a good range of popular sports it was never going to succeed. I just wonder if they are heading into the previous low spending Ten that was successful, or the one that suffered badly financially through lacking an identity that attracted enough viewers.

HO I am not disputing ONEHD was underperforming and that sport is expensive to produce. I would still argue the play was defensive. If you look at Parker and Murdoch's combined business interests I am sure they would not have got involved with ten if they were not involved in the pay TV market. I am sure investing in another casio would be more profitable for Packer than getting a return on investment from cutting costs and low budget tv for the ten network.

How quickly Aussie FTA TV is going the way of American TV. More channels, but always the same old cr@p. ONE was innovative and daring where all the other channels just went conservative with their content and made cheap, money making clones of each other.

FTA TV (AND FOXTEL) can sod off. All of the best stuff I watch now comes off the web. Hopefully one day the NBL will too.

Might be a perfect time for SBS or the ABC to come in and play hard ball with the NBL. They need a TV coverage, and they are well equipped to go head to head as both have little exposure to the teenage and younger markets.

Jake, the play for ten was a play for Ten - One HD (and 11) is collateral to that. Ten overall was significantly underperforming, and so a cheap buy and has an enormus upside if they get the rebuild right.

Its an opportunistic play, but its a venture capitalists approach - buy it, turn it around by changing content and savaging costs, build share price and sell.

There may have been some defensive element regarding One HD but I fail to see a compelling reason. Any of the networks can buy sports content and can bid against Fox Sports - controlling (or eliminating) one alternative does not prevent the other two impacting you. If it was a defensive approach you would have used One HD as a foil in other negotiations - so do deals where you share content across FoxSports and One HD.

Decisions since then vindicate this. Changing One HD's format was all about ratings - but they've kept some sport content there. The savaging of News resources at Ten itself this week is far more significant - showing they are intent on rebuilding the flagship and its focus.

I think the play is mostly about Ten itself.

Hear what your saying HO and you have point together some good / valid points and I agree with the above however you cannot discount the fail in revenue and subscriptions at FOX since the introduction of ONEHD.

If you were an owner of FOX and saw a free to air sports channel impacting your revenue and growth would you agree if an opportunity to pruchase the network and restructure the programming would not be a smart investment?

Love all the conspiracy theories going around about the Ten network play by Murdoch, etc - has everyone forgotten about Kerry Packer selling the Nine Network to Alan Bond and then picking it up several years layer for about a third of the price he sold it for? It is corporate raider business where you pick up poor performing businesses cheap, sell off or change poor performing sections, revamp it and then sell at a good profit. Actually this was the background of Richard Gere's role in "Pretty Woman."

While a One HD totally devoted to sport was a great idea, the reality is that the viewing audience in Australia is not big enough to give it the advertising revenue that it requires to operate. Any business can only afford to make a loss for a certain time, before it folds, ie several basketball teams over the past decade, or changes what it does to return to a profit.

If OneHD cannot get enough revenue from AFL football, I hardly think they would miss Basketball. The reality is the article said

"Ten is also expected to walk away from many of the broadcast rights used to build One's original schedule such as basketball and netball once they expire."

This is the view of the article's author, not a quote from Murdoch or any other Ten executive.

Jake: are you forgetting Murdoch's part ownership of Sky News?

If states basketball cant attract a viewing audience here what hope the aussie leagues especially with the rotten track record of clubs falling over more often than a drunk. The press is usually bad press and top players are mostly unknown. Basketball is a late night filler with a miniscule audience and consequently sponsorship is patchy extremely limited.Private ownership sports are generally not well tolerated here and no one follows a sport where your team is a year to year proposition of surviving.

Remember at one point Packer owned or partly owned both Channel Nine and Fox Sports

Well if we had a reliable ACCC this wouldnt be an issue, since it's clearly TEN dropping sports that FOXTEL will pick up, Cheaply I would assume.

Well if we had a reliable ACCC this wouldnt be an issue, since it's clearly TEN dropping sports that FOXTEL will pick up, Cheaply I would assume.

Jake, the decline in fox (not sepcifically foxsport) subscription rates coincided with a number of things:

- Launch of Digital television generally (freeview)
- GFC

what I am saying is the main reason the boys bought ten was the potential to rip it apart, generate quick profits and resell - the offensive play, rather than the much talked about 'defensive' play of stitching up One HD.

Would they have made this investment just to rip into One HD because of their relationship with foxsport ... nope - not worth the risk considering One already had dismal ratings.....

It's an easy conspiracy theory to sell here btw, because everyone wants to believe it.