Continuation of thread from previous forum…
The Representative Round fixtures in early May have been confirmed. The Test Match (Australia vs New Zealand) is on May 6 from Newcastle, the City-Country match is on Sunday May 8 from Tamworth. Kickoff times probably normal TV times but given the pre-match festivities for the Test Match that kickoff may well be after 8PM.
Looks like Ray Hadley is still calling? But at least with Fox calling all 8 games, Channel 9 commentators can be completely avoided.
Yes great news, don’t have to put up with listening to the dribble from Rabs, Gould, Fittler and Johns, on a whole I much prefer listening to the Fox commentators
I’d rather shove sex toys up my fundaments than listen to either Fox or Nine commentators. And yes, I do regularly watch the Fox coverage, I do subscribe to League Pass.
The best commentators for NRL are on ABC Radio and This Week in League.
Nine and Fox are checking the contract because Nine at this stage believes Fox must take pictures and commentary from them, not provide their own… so it’s not over the line yet.
Hopefully part of the deal will be Nine can’t run promos for their shows during play if Fox have to take pictures from them.
Strange considering FOX has used their own graphics and callers for every finals match since at least 2010.
finals yes - but this deal is “simulcast” and it depends how the contract is written. Nine has always thought that Fox had to take its callers and graphics plus run their ads… so they’ll looking deeper into it.
Good to see the footy’s back!!
All Stars game is on right now… no changes to graphics or anything for this year - yet.
Though a bit of a surprise in that Ray Warren isn’t calling the game - Mat Thompson is.
Also meant to add it’s looking nice and clear in MPEG 4 HD for the first time 
Rabbits is still quite unwell, he’s had a few setbacks with health in recent months again. I think this may be Ray’s final year.
For the life of me I don’t know why Nine and FOX don’t combine their staff and have the one football unit. It just makes sense.
Interesting to see the footy show will be on a new night this year Wednesday. Wonder if there will be a another show aftert he Thursday night games.
Don’t see why they would do both…
A Thursday night show wouldn’t start until 9.30pm, which is probably a bit late for Nine’s liking.
I should have also pointed out that Ray has though signed a new three year deal with Gyngell… the Telegraph reporting today that FOX wanted him to come over and do some games for them.
The male model from Mudgee, Kenny Sutcliffe, has also signed to Nine for another 5 years.
Shouldn’t be. 9.30pm is its traditional timeslot
I’d do something like NRL Preview at 9.30, looking to all the other games in the round, give it til 10.15 or so to help boost late night numbers.
I didn’t mind the nrl footy classified show they had thru the finals last year mabe that will be a fulltime show this year.
I think Nine needs to make a choice between The NRL Footy Show and a regular NRL version of Footy Classified. Yes, I’m well aware that the AFL versions of said programs have been running side by side for years but I’m not sure if there’s enough room in the marketplace for NRL versions of both The Footy Show and Footy Classified.
As for Ray Warren, I thought that he was planning on retiring from commentary after the current TV rights deal expired myself.
In his book I’m pretty sure he says he was keen to leave at the end of 2015! Haha. Might be wrong.
I think there is room because both shows are very different beasts. Footy Classified (well the AFL version anyway) is geared towards the panel debating storylines emerging from the weekend/off-field issues and more commonly, each other. The Footy Show on the other hand is more of an ‘entertainment’ (I use air quotes because the entertainment value is questionable) show where the rugby is very much a side note.
However where your argument makes sense is the declining ratings The NRL Footy Show has been getting over the past few years. Maybe the move to Wednesday might help somewhat address that but if the ratings keep declining, maybe the choice does have to be made