The NSW rugby league rights were shared between 2 FTA broadcasters in the 80s (not sure exactly on the years).
ABC (Saturdays) & Seven (Sundays) - up to about 1982?
Nine (Saturdays) & Ten (Sundays) - this only lasted for a couple of years around 83/84 when the ABC realised the error of its ways in giving only the commercials the rights as many regional fans didn’t get the same level of coverage from it’s own commercial stations.
ABC (Saturdays) & Ten (Sundays) - from about 1985? and Ten also Friday nights when they started in the late 80s.
It wasn’t at all unusual for sports to be televised by multiple television channels, the VFL was shared with Seven and the ABC until 1986 (one year in the 60s all four channels in Melbourne carried VFL telecasts), test cricket was on the ABC and and 0-10 and before that 7 before World Series and then with Nine while the ABC maintained regional and late night replays until aggregation, Olympics and Commonwealth Games were shared until the 1980s. I think tennis was one of the first sports to have exclusive rights deals during the 1970s.
Comparing the two listings for Friday 12 May 1995, I noticed that the AFL wasn’t shown at all on Seven in Sydney, not even on a late-night replay. I think this would’ve changed a few years later, or if not when Seven got the rights back in 2007 and showed the Friday night matches on a late-night delay in the league markets (unless the Lions were playing, in the case of Brisbane in 2008 and 2009, and the Swans in Sydney in 2011).
In the intervention, when Nine got the AFL rights, that sport had to be shown on late-night replay on Friday nights due to the NRL. It was the reverse in the other markets (i.e. AFL first, then NRL).
IIRC The Swans specifically requested the AFL at the time to not schedule their games on a Friday so their games wouldn’t be aired at the graveyard timeslot due to the fact Nine had to air NRL.
On the flipside, however, some Melbourne Storm NRL matches were scheduled for Friday nights in that period which meant GTV viewers had to wait until after midnight to see their local team play. This continued into 2007-11, despite Nine’s loss of the AFL rights.
In particular I remember there was a match between the Storm and Panthers in mid-2004 (which the home side won 66-14) that Nine in Melbourne couldn’t air until after Wimbledon coverage had finished, meaning a starting time of close to sunrise.
There was a similar case in 2006 when two Storm matches (vs the Broncos and Sharks) didn’t start airing until 5:00am due to Wimbledon and golf coverage respectively.
And in 2011 there was a Friday night match between the Sydney Swans and Carlton which clashed with the Royal Wedding between Prince William and Cate Middleton, therefore 7TWO aired it live in Sydney while it was shown on a late-night replay on Seven in the same market.
Since the anti-siphoning rules were relaxed in the early 10s, which also coincided with Seven becoming the sole FTA broadcaster of the AFL in 2012 and promising to air Friday and Saturday night matches live into Sydney and Brisbane on 7mate, the Melbourne Storm and Sydney Swans have featured on Friday nights more regularly.
In the late 1990s, Seven Sydney ran Friday Night AFL post-midnight, prior to the loss of their rights at the end of 2001. They actually did this with all night matches on all nights regardless of who was playing.
Some good memories there. I used to watch “The Zone” religiously being into video games back then. But I do notice that Tas TV still had some Ten shows in its schedule. The basketball with Bill Woods and Steve Carfino along with Stuntmasters.
interesting. I wonder how those came to remain with Tas TV? Legacy program deal still to finish up? or maybe SCN knocked those back (maybe no available timeslots given they also had to accommodate Seven programming) and Ten offered them to Tas TV?
