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TEN abandons AFL in HD

The serious lack of HD programming in Australia is still 'the elephant in the room.'

We’re going backwards not forwards….

On the weekend TEN screened its AFL coverage in standard definition on TEN and pulled a big audience of 804,000 viewers for a Sydney vs Collingwood game.

In primary channel shares, TEN was first on Saturday night.

A week earlier AFL was offered in both SD on TEN and HD on ONE but it has now dropped its high definition broadcasts of the code, instead offering live coverage of a MotoGP race on ONE. That pulled all of 149,000 viewers.

TEN has sought to talk up the switch.

“This offers viewers a wider range of viewing choices, rather than running the same programming across two channels,” said TEN’s Jeannette McLoughlin told The Australian.

While Seven has declined to offer AFL in HD, until now TEN has come to the party.

The move follows TEN walking away from AFL coverage after this season, and ONE shifting some of its content to general entertainment.

The lack of HD sport continues to frustrate viewers at a time when industry and government continue to talk up the numbers that have made the switch to digital television. 

Nine no longer offers State of Origin, NRL or cricket in high definition on GEM, despite promising HD sports last year. While viewers were grateful that Seven introduced live Wimbledon in an earlier timeslot via 7TWO, it could have offered the games in HD via 7mate.

Next year Seven will screen some AFL on 7mate but at its broadcast deal press conference CEO David Leckie said that he did not know whether Seven would broadcast in HD -or even if it would be “upscaled.”

Meanwhile, Premier Media Group’s FOX Sports will show all five of its games in HD next year.

Industry expects the issue to remain unresolved until the switch to digital television is completed at the end of 2013.

65 Responses

  1. @steve: I was only referring with regards to Network Ten’s AFL coverage, which started in 2002 and AFAIK was available in HD from that point though I may be corrected on that.

  2. This is so annoying, personally, I think One HD had the best picture and sound quality. This is the reason I watched Saturday games specifically on One no matter who was playing. Now they’ve changed it, I hope they put it back on One HD, please Channel Ten?

  3. Now that One HD and others seem to have walked away from HD broadcasts I wonder what justification Foxtel can have to keep those channels listed under the HD grouping whereby they charge you more per month to view them. Its a bit like a carbon tax paying for something you cant see and that its not all what is made out to be.

  4. Very interesting comments here.

    JJ – So clearly for a HD Broadcast truck it would cost more than a SD truck and therefore it costs more to produce a HD broadcast.

    And as we have discovered showing the same program on a SD channel and HD channel (one and ten or Nine and GEM) is reducing the possible overall audience and Advertising Revenue – SO at the end of the day the Broadcasting Rules are to blame and until analogue is switched off we will see nothing worthwhile broadcast in HD – so the networks can get a peek audience over all their channels

    Such a shame – Sport, Movies, Docos, would all be fantastic in HD….I look forward to it one day….the way it is suppose to be.

    Maybe TEN HD should make a comeback!!!

  5. Note to the sports industry, you may be f***ing willing to wait till 2013, but I’m not! As for you TEN network, you have already broken your promise to the AFL fans wanting more HD sport. I hope Andrew Demetriou burns you alive for that betrayal to the fans!!!

    Also, f*** the so called ‘Digital Ready’ plan. Whoever made it up didn’t take into account HD sports fans. We need to take action now and we don’t have time to wait for more HD sports till 2013! One of my ideas, we need more HD ready sats launched asap!

  6. I see their argument being able to show different programs at the same time to cater to different audiences. It is useful for those that are not interested in the match being broadcast on 10, it’s not quite so useful when the alternate program is of no appeal to some people.

    Just think it is silly for them to do it mid season, when 7 finished with a whimper in 2001….. they did it with grace and dignity.

  7. It’s not like Ten dumped the Sat. night AFL game from One HD for a re-run of Airline or Bondi Rescue, they actually did do it due to a clash with another sporting commitment. It was probably their only way around it given that AFL has to air on at least the analogue/SD channel.

    If they do end up abandoning AFL on One HD just for the sake of it or because they know they’re walking away from AFL in 2012 then that is indeed a very poor effort after almost ten years of their HD coverage of the game.

  8. ONE is a dead duck, now that AFL HD is gone iif it wasn’t for “An idiot abroad” I there is nothing else on this channel.

    Oh Thank you for Fox Sports HD, the footy on there is sensational.

    Maybe all the channels think that HD is too expensive, what chance seeing anything on 3D, another con???

  9. Makes sense that TEN want to milk the AFL for all it’s worth since they’ll have nothing to do with it soon.

    What’s the point in having multi channels if the same thing is shown over 2 of them? Then there’s a point of regular programming on digital channels being disrupted in preference of sport which will have other people complaining. It’s an issue which won’t be solved anytime soon.

  10. @Kev, then you must have pretty dodgy eyesight because that’s just ridiculous. “no” difference, what a joke…. unless you’re talking about the difference between SD and upscaled SD, which is takes up 99% of programming on the HD channels, in which case, yes, there is practically no difference. But between SD and true HD, the difference is huge (this coming from someone that watches it on 32, 40 and 52 inch screens).

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