Anyone can do that though…
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What do you mean?
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Wonder whether it’s simply a case of cost cutting in that by only showing one match a day, Nine doesn’t have to pay for a full crew to do overnight shifts for nearly two weeks.
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Is there any reason they can’t show the world feed? The same as Stan. Foxtel were doing the same when they had the rights.
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It will be. As well as a way for Stan to get more subscribers
I’m just still puzzled that they didn’t advertise this at the start. I would be fine with it if they advertise it that way but they didn’t. They are pissing off viewers for no reason
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I totally agree.
All Nine had to do is say in the original press releases that they’ll be covering one match a day for 9Gem, and promote the living crap for Exclusive Rights for Stan. But instead, they kept quiet, and none of us knew of this change. Most thought it was to air on 9Gem for the whole night, instead of finishing early.
Does the pre-game show air on Stan too? If not, then whats the point of airing it on 9Gem for one match?
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Doesn’t bode well for Wimbledon and US Open coverage. I imagine Nine has similar plans. Do we even know for sure that Nine will broadcast the finals?
This could all blow up in their face if de Minaur and Kokkanakis keep winning.
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It’s an easy win for them to decide to make it FTA if they do go really deep.
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Plus Wimbledon always gets treated better here and has always rated far higher, so I’m sure Nine will still give that major at least strong coverage (a heritage sport for them too)
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Wimbledon themselves (or the club anyway) are very big on a FTA presence worldwide where possible.
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No it doesn’t. Wimbledon always has had an FTA presence so you would that think would stay the same as the cutting that coverage early of Wimbledon given staying up late to watch Wimbledon is a tradition here in Australia. But maybe the US Open goes to night matches only or something to that effect since like Roland Garros, it had a number of years where it was exclusive to Pay TV.
By the looks of the guide for next week, looks like they will be cutting cover early all the way up to the final. Next few days up til the quarterfinals stop at 11pm like the other nights. Women’s semi is scheduled 11pm - 1am which would suggest one semi and the men’s is Friday night at 10.30pm for 3 hours which also would suggest one semi being shown.
I’ll give Nine this much, they did at least stay with the Tsitsipas game until the end despite running well past 11pm.
When it comes to how they’ve covered this tournament though- I would have had no issue with them only covering the first few hours each day if they had been upfront and honest from the very start that this was the coverage they were offering this year.
By changing their coverage 2-3 days into the tournament from the original comprehensive 9 hours of coverage per day to now 3 or 4 hours tops with no notice and not in line with what they originally advertised, that is where they have acted in a very poor manner in my view. As a viewer it comes across as untrustworthy and I suspect this has upset a lot of tennis fans in how they’ve gone about this.
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I was so confused as to why it was finishing so early on the weekend and have just caught up on it all in this thread. I assume a lot of viewers would be confused too. I woke up Sunday morning trying to find Djokovic’s match on a multichannel somewhere but nope.
This really is poor form from 9. I really don’t see the point in airing just 4 hours of tennis per day. It makes no sense. They might as well not play the tournament at all IMO as you are just luring in viewers and then basically throwing it back in their face.
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This is pretty much what they’ve done with how they’ve gone about this.
They’ve advertised comprehensive coverage and then turned around a couple of days in and slashed it to a fraction of what was originally advertised (presumably in an attempt to drive Stan Sport subs).
That wouldn’t have been a problem if they’d been honest and advertised 4 hours per day of coverage from the start, it’s still better than in the past where there was little or no coverage at all on FTA. Doing it this way though just comes across as very sneaky (feels a bit like bait and switch).
At a time when Nine is part of the group lobbying to “Keep Sport Free”, actions such as this do little to help the cause when the networks themselves don’t back up their words with their actions.
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It has been appearing in the top 30 (reach) in the ratings for the last few nights too. The reach has been good, and the average would be one of the highest for the multi-channels. So people do want to watch the French Open.
So ditching it at a certain time is absurd, especially when they said that Nine would have comprehensive coverage.
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That’s the point if they are trying to increase their Stan subscribers. There would be nothing wrong with this if they had of advertised this during the start of the tournament.
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Seems that this is undermining the arguments from Free TV Australian about the dangers of streamers getting rights to sporting events. Perhaps it only applies to overseas streamers?
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9Gem will be showing the Alex De Minaur - Alexander Zverev Quarter Final match from 4.25am (Thursday morning). Just mentioned on the post-match segment of the State of Origin.
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That’s not going to get them new Stan subscribers.
Now we know they’ll keep showing De Minaur and if he makes the final, they’ll probably air it on Nine. No chance to shine for Stan or 9gem.
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But that’s not Stan’s proposition.
Stan ‘shines’ by having every match. Not just one offs.
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