Ha - and following that I see that some ironman and women event has bumped the basketball to One today
Great it's still on but really makes it hard to build a following when the broadcaster can move the telecast whenever they want

Don't we have a contract or is it just like the last one that wasn't worth the paper it was written on....

As a Shareholder, im happy about this. Wharburton needs to shake things up at 10 and bring profitability back. there programming sucked big time in 2012.

Gee major shareholder owns a pay TV network too, all free to air sport being pushed to the point that only Foxtel is an option.

Foxtel pick up broadcast rights cheaply as the sport needs to be on TV somehow.

How the government allows this is beyond me.

NBL will be back on Foxtel in the blink of an eye.

I think your facts are not quite right there BJF.

Nice conspiracy theory, but a few problems.

For all those who were convinced the boys bought ten to bring One down because it competed with FoxSports just remember that right now, it was not worth the level of investment (and losses) in Ten to preserve either the market position or revenue of foxsports...

Huh? It is very much an insurance play to protect their pay TV investment

BJF, we all heard that conspiracy theory when they bought into Ten. I disagreed with it then and I do now. The fact is TEN has tanked so badly that if all it was about was a defensive play for Foxsports then they would have undone the programming, cut their losses then and there, and run. But they haven't, and now their losses and liquidity position is terrible. You don't lose tens of millions on one side, to protect millions on the other....

HO speaks sense.

Foxtel EBIT is up 8.5% since Murdoch took a position in Ten.

2012 EBIT $598,000,000 net profit of $200,000,000

Murdoch's current holding in Ten is $31,300,000 ( original cost 128 mill)

Spend 128 mill once to protect 600 mill cash flow and $200 mill net income on going per annum with upside.

Packer also owns 25% of Foxtel so his dollar for dollar injection into Ten is also an insurance play.

Ten shares have to tank a hell of a long way for this to be any issue at all for either Murdoch or Packer.

Remember what their first move was when they stormed the board, it was to shut down One HD as a Fox Sports competitor. all done on the back of one years profit from Foxtel.

That all comes to whether you believe it is Lachlan's cash or News Limited's cash. The market understands it to be Lachlan's cash, and his intense personal involvement in Ten would bear this out.

FoxSports and Foxtel are separately held. News has a 25% stake in Foxtel, Packer another 25% through consolidated holdings. The two companies jointly own FoxSports. FoxSports turned a 74 million EBITDA last year.

The conspiracy theory was about FoxSports remember? At the same time there was an even stronger media view that they would turn One into a 24 hour news service - indeed the view was that this was the play, perhaps involving Sky.

You would have to have been extremely jumpy at the time to believe One was going to do serious damage to FoxSports. Ten was tanking at the time, which was one of the reasons they bought in.

http://www.watoday.com.au/business/fresh-raising-piles-pressure-on-ten-board-20121205-2avmf.html

At the end of 2012, both Murdoch and Packer had lost 132 million in their Ten play and were facing a 200m capital raising to further dilute their equity position.

You cant really separate Foxtel and Foxsports on this one because both benefit from subscribers who want to watch sport.

The only reason I had Foxtel was to watch basketball
Basketball left Foxtel , I canceled my subscription.
I am not alone in that.

Look at the Murdoch business model and it is all about controlling/ influencing content then placing that content onto their subscription model ( Dodgers, Yankees, Knicks, Rangers investments to highlight a few)
One HD was expensive to set up as they had to buy the content upfront that they needed to support the channel's ethos. Cost would have come down over time as they clawed revenues particularly through the male 20-49 demographic and averaged the up font costs over a number of years.

Paul, I showed the separation because it in turn shows the difference in ownership of the two organisations.

Foxsport often act very independently of Foxtel.

So BJF's, is it Lachlan's risk or News Limited's? you can't just generalise and say Murdoch.

The numbers still don't stack up, you don't lose 260 million to protect sports content when it would cost you less to buy the rights to the content...

Im not either way on this theory as both explanations are plausible, but getting rid of a competitor for both viewers and rights means potentially more customers and cheaper rights into the future.

Isn't that a bit like asking is it Gates' $ or Microsoft's ?

same same

If it wasn't for Foxtel there would be no Fox Sports, the two are inextricably linked. They may have slight differences in ownership holdings but they are most certainly cut from the same cloth.

The 260 mill loss you quote is a one off to protect a long tail cash flow. as i said the net profit last year was almost that. One years profit to protect decades of income is an easy decision.

Fox are paying 40 mill per annum for A League. What would that have cost if One HD was in the picture still? We will never know.

As a side note, Fox arent paying anywhere near that for A-League, a fair chunk of that money is for the Socceroos.

OK sure it is 40mill per annum to the FFA for all of their assets, which in turn uses those funds how it sees fit.

BJF - did One ever screen commercials (ie, beer) to try to get revenue?

All I recall is Fred Hollows and community service ads, and promos.

But BJF, that 200 million (EBIT, not net) is Foxtel, in which Lachlan Murdoch has no interest. Packer only owns 25% of Foxtel through CH. The largest shareholder is Telstra. So at best Packer picked up 50 million from FT last year, and that is unlikely, because they would not have paid $200m as a dividend.

The differences are not slight btw. Telstra being a huge player in FT is extremely significant.

Even with that the Packer thing has a little merit.

Its not same same, Lachlan plays his own game. OneTel was an example of that.

But again, much of the talk at the time was to focus the digital channels on news assets.

You don't spend what you have on an asset like Ten to then just throw it down the tube when any other competitor can walk into your space. Channel 9 could have turned GEM into an all sports channel at any time, bought content etc and gone for it. One was no threat to FoxSports primacy.

um that 200 mill is the NET profit not the EBIT