Seven had been covering horse racing to some extent since the 1950s when you consider early Melbourne Cup coverage, and Seven covered the Melbourne Cup in parallel to ABC, Nine and Ten up until 1977, when Ten (0-10) secured exclusive coverage rights from 1978.
I don’t know about other states but HSV7 also had regular Saturday afternoon race meets covered during the 1980s and probably way earlier.
Some great familiar faces there, but the one that stands out is Melissa Downes (now co-presenter of Nine News Brisbane). Also Richard Freedman who’d end up featuring prominently on Seven’s 17 years of modern era Melbourne Cup telecasts until 2018 when losing rights.
if Nine wanted the F1 rights it would have to be exclusive and no simulcast deal with Foxtel, instead the overseas F1 races would be live (and on demand) on Stan Sport.
Stan like Foxtel does 4k
Like I said previously, I feel that 10’s Melbourne Cup Carnival coverage throughout 2019-2023 looked a bit the same as Seven’s coverage of 17 years. I liked 10’s coverage from Mid-1990s well into 2001 better because it had Peter Donegan sharing the presenting role with Tim Webster as well as using Dan Mielicki as the network’s caller for the event whereas Seven’s coverage of 17 years from 2002-2018 saw Bruce presenting a large chunk of the coverage and the on course caller in Greg Miles (Later replaced by Matt Hill) was used for the races for much of the 17 years.
Wasn’t really Nostalgia when the races were delayed until early in the morning, and the results were often announced in newsbreaks prior to the delayed broadcast. Also qualifying races were limited to a brief package.
Seven also used the great Pat Welsh in the betting ring throughout their Melbourne Cup years, as seen in that 1999 telecast at the Magic Millions. As well as Sandy Roberts (then news in Melbourne from 2005), Kylie Gillies, Johanna Griggs, Neil Kearney, Matthew White, Michael Felgate, Simon Marshall, Francesca Cumani and in later years Hamish McLachlan, Rachael Finch, Giaan Rooney, Rebecca Maddern, Jason Richardson, Mel McLaughlin, Peter Donegan and Abbey Gelmi. I’ve probably forgotten a couple of reporters from the early-mid 2000s there, I feel Adam Peacock may have been there a couple of years, maybe Mark Beretta or others from the network’s stations?
From the 1990s well into 2001, 10’s Cup carnival coverage was fronted by Peter Donegan and Tim Webster while expert crew featured Jenny Chapman, Richard Freedman (Also Featured on Seven’s coverage of 1999 Magic Millions), Roy Higgins, Gary Willetts, Simon Marshall (2001 only, later featured on much of the Seven Coverage of 17 years) and John Letts with Reporters featuring Sandra Sully, Tim Bailey, Lyn Talbot, Tim Gossage, Mark Aiston, Terry Kennedy and Marie Louise-Thiele.
I also can see that Seven’s racing crew prior to landing the Cup Carnival TV Rights in 2002 had Bruce alongside Max Presnell and Keith Hillier featuring each Sunday morning on Sportsworld previewing and reviewing all things Racing. I also watched Seven’s preview of the 1996 Melbourne Cup Race and the late David Fordham was brought out to present the network’s Sportsworld preview show from Melbourne instead of Bruce. At least Bruce presented Seven’s Sportsworld preview of the 1997 Race from Melbourne and then the 1998 and 1999 race previews was from the main Sydney studios.
Don’t think many fans would be nostalgic of Nine’s coverage, especially towards the end between 2000-2002. There was even a whole website that kept track of how poor the coverage was.
Their “memorable moments” is certainly an amusing read when you think of how comprehensive the coverage is these days.
Memorable moments from Channel 9’s F1 coverage:
Well, instead of reviewing the Top 20 bad moments from Channel 9’s final season broadcast Formula 1, we thought we would take a trip down memory lane, and take you to a world of amateur broadcasting, the ugly moments from Channel 9’s Formula 1 coverage. There isn’t much good about the coverage - but then again, Channel 9 got back what they put in - i.e. nothing. So, sit back, relax, and remember the good times when you screamed at the television (in no particular order):
- Delays for any Championship-deciding race.
- The 2000 French GP tape not rewound back enough.
- Parc Ferme being cut and pasted, or worse yet, never shown.
- Leaving the 1999 Australian GP coverage to leave for a pre season Rugby League match, getting barely any of the podium celebrations and post race press conference from Eddie Irvine’s first ever Grand Prix victory.
- The slow disappearance of Friday practice highlights, late on the Friday night of the Australian Grand Prix.
- The lack of qualifying for 16 out of 17 races. Still the only country in the world to host a Grand Prix, and yet not receive any Qualifying sessions.
- Lack of shots of the drivers and crews on the grid, Channel 9 instead opting to watch AJ and Eastlake mumble about in the studio.
-The ‘In The Pits’ segment being shown every now and then.- Channel 9 spending more money (again!) on a new set, when other parts of the coverage needed more attention.
- Lack of visual reports about up and coming Australian drivers. Reporting results is all mad and wonderful, but if your world was limited to television, you wouldn’t know what James Courtney or Rob Nguyen looked like.
- Eddie McGuire hosting the Australian Grand Prix coverage.
- Satellite difficulties during races. Happened to often for comfort.
- Lengths of ad breaks, particularly during live races.
- The 2000 Austrian GP, Channel 9 deciding at the last minute to change the telecast time from 10:30pm to 11:20pm!
- Eastlake and AJ cryptically giving away the result of the 2000 Japanese GP, despite there being a pathetic 7 hour delay for those on the East Coast.
- AJ discussing his next adventure, whether it be his auction or his V8 Supercar racing.
- Catching up to the ITV commentary just before the five red lights turn on, because AJ and Eastlake continue to talk, despite the fact that the ITV commentary have been talking for several minutes before the warm up lap.
- Cutting off Murray Walker on his last ever Formula 1 commentary at the 2001 USA GP, to go to a commercial break.
- The 2001 Brazilian GP - the Channel 9 director falling asleep, as ITV went to an ad break, but then reneged, when David Coulthard decided to pit (in what ended up being the turning point in the race).
- The German GP broadcast at 12:40pm. Never mind waiting for 60 minutes to be shown at 8:30pm instead of the usual 7:30pm, but also a 3 hour movie!
- The 2002 Hungarian GP breaking a new ad-during-telecast record, with 8, only to be beaten four weeks later by the 2002 Italian GP telecast, which had 9 ad breaks!
- The 2002 French GP delay, and then showing no podium, no press conference, all for the 7am news!
- The 2002 British GP delay, some seven hours.
Having said that though, I reckon they’d do a lot better job of it these days between Nine and Stan. Having everything on Stan and say, at least half a dozen races plus the Australian GP on Nine as well would be good and provide better exposure for the sport.
To be fair to Nine, when F1 moved to Ten in 2003, the coverage wasn’t much better. Still had the same delayed coverage for European and Asian races (30 minutes to 7 hours). It began to improve when the multichannels came along.
lol. That wouldn’t go down well around here.
I remember being up at about 5am WA time and that race being on
So safe to say based on that list that despite having the F1 rights for a long time Nine did a poor job with the coverage.
I recall that there was a lot of initial excitement that soon died down when it became clear that the coverage was only marginally better.
No qualifying for all races until 2007 was a disappointment (although they’d started showing Q3 in full on Sunday afternoons in 2006 during RPM) and the timeslots were often only slightly better (if at least a bit more consistent and earlier at 10:30ish.
I think up until the mid-late 90s the coverage was not too bad by global standards. It was certainly fairly good in the 1980s.
When coverage improved in other countries in the 90s and more sessions were shown with pay TV also having the rights as well in a lot of places, this also coincided with Nine’s coverage getting worse with it being low on their priority list behind the NRL (even in AFL states) , tennis, golf etc.
Ten’s 2000s and 2010s era was good, live telecasts (when they did that) with a small studio, usually late night but so good from the ONE HD days. Leigh Diffey, Alan Jones (the other one), Greg Rust, Mark Howard. Can’t recall if Bill Woods was involved pre Ten News.
Yep, it was Bill Woods and Neil Crompton from 2003 to around 2005-06.
And Daryl Beattie remained with Ten post-V8s, for MotoGP with the same team bar Jones as F1s. While Crompton went to Seven in 2007 when they regained the V8s with a new team in Matthew White, Mark Beretta, Grant Denyer, Daniel Gibson (from Prime), Mark Skaiffe and Mark Larkham. Multiple since at Foxtel, as well as Rust, but a couple have since left.
So i found this S12 game from 1997- did Seven really produce the S12 for Fox?
I know that Gordon Bray called most of the games and David Fordham, who was studio host for the 99 World Cup on Seven called a Reds-Highlanders game in 99 (game was a late start due to daylight saving in NSW but not QLD). I believe Chris Handy was with David in the box and Greg Martin was on the sideline. For the Reds-Crusaders game in 2000, Steve Davie was with Handy in the commentary box while Pat Welsh was on the sideline.
1979 promo for ATV0’s VFA coverage.
YouTube: Gezza1967
and with Channel 7 not showing Sunday AFL in Victoria anymore instead they have the VFL (for the uninitiated that is the 2nd tier of Australian Rules football) on Sundays at 2pm. Just like the old days of the VFA and the Commodore Cup/Statewide Cup/Army Reserve Cup!
11 posts were merged into an existing topic: AFL broadcast rights 2025-2031
Half time show of 1988 VFL Grand Final is now up online
