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Anger grows at Tennis delays

Tennis fans vent their anger over Seven cutting from the Serena Williams and Sam Stosur match to News, TT and Home & Away.

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Last night, tennis fans in Melbourne and Sydney got a little reminder of what sports fans around the rest of the country have been experiencing since the Australian Open started: disrupted broadcasts.

Not long after the Serena Williams and Sam Stosur match began, Seven crossed to its 90 minute block of Seven News, Today Tonight and Home And Away.

By the time the highlights of the match resumed, Williams had beaten Stosur 6-4 6-2.

The Daily Telegraph notes that Sydney’s ATN7 took more than 300 calls complaining about the move.

Once again Seven’s messageboard was alive with opinions:

– Tennis coverage
– Rubbish Tennis coverage channel
– Tennis
– idiots!!!!(tennis)
– Worst TV coverage, Screw Home and Away

And on Yahoo:

– Channel 7 suck.
– sack jim courier
– Keep Henri Lecont on as a commentator!!!
– Enough Bagging of Courier
– Lecont commentating – is this a joke?
– why the hell did they show home & away??
– Jim Courier is annoying!

Lewis Martin, General Manager of Seven Melbourne said, “Whilst it was a very challenging and difficult decision we’ve got a commitment to our News and TT.”

The fury follows complaints about coverage last week.

Last night’s feature match between Lleyton Hewitt and Roger Federer was also put back by half an hour to accommodate the season return of Home And Away.

Tennis Australia CEO Steve Wood tactfully said, “We understand this is a very difficult decision that is not taken lightly and reflective of their commitment to the 6pm news. But obviously we would have preferred for the entire match to be shown live.”

Seven’s daytime matches are shown live around the country but evening matches are all played at 7:30pm regardless of timezone or live broadcast.

Meanwhile, the Sydney Morning Herald says the average audience for Seven’s coverage is down by 24.8 per cent on last year, across the five major metropolitan markets and by 29.7 per cent in Melbourne. On Sunday, Nine’s cricket drew an average viewership of 1,155,000 while the tennis night session attracted just 626,766.

Update: But last night Seven thrashed the competition with 1.63m viewers for the tennis and a staggering 42.4% share.

Week 5

Source: Daily Telegraph Sydney Morning Herald, Herald Sun

61 Responses

  1. Does it really matter if we switch off? I don’t have a rating’s box as most, if not all us here don’t have one either. Can someone share some light? My opinion, all major sporting events should be on ABC1/ABC2 or SBS1/SBS2. Less adds this way. Cheers.

  3. Total joke… And it has just happened again (Roddick game).

    Solution – If you have the rights to a sports broadcast that is not shown in full and live, you must provide the signal (in SD as a minimum) to ABC 3, at your cost, including the transmission costs( and a backup path)… That will in effect force the broadcaster to stay with the event as the transmission costs will hit them hard.

  4. Looks like 9’s been reading this. They stopped showing the cricket for the News (in AEDT) with 2 balls left. Yes Channel 9, a 5 minute wait will kill you…

  5. I must say last night was a low thing for Seven. I was one of those people who rang Seven and the lady told me had it been Hewitt it probably would have continued.

    I must say that Courier and Austin are fantastic commentators. I was pi**ed last night but i blame the government. They have taken so long to review this list its crazy

  6. there are a couple of problems with Seven’s coverage and Seven Sport in general
    1. The Eastern States get shafted a 6pm half-way through a game to go to the news and, states outside of the East Coast see more or the finish of the game yet, get Delayed Coverage of the Night Session!
    2. They F***ed up the Stosur Coverage for Eastern States as they showed the last game of the match at 7:30pm before Johanna Griggs stated that the match would be replayed later in the Broadcast

    Common sense did not prevail there did it?

    Seven Sport in general muck up their AFL Coverage for Eastern States. We all know about Friday Night Football and the 3 hour delays there but, particularly when the V8’s are on 12-3pm. instead of getting a one-hour delay like Melbourne with Full Match Coverage, we get an abbreiviated 2-Hour package which includes highlights of the 1st Quarter and the rest in full!

  7. This is stupid. As with the cricket they delayed the news, why not do that with the tennis and push back Home and Away’s return. I’m sure we can all do without TT for a night.

    True though. In Perth it happens all the time that we miss out on matches due to the time difference and not always getting games life. Lleyton’s match was delayed for us.

  8. Give the rights to the ABC! At least they provided a quality live broadcast of the Hopman cup a few weeks back. Least the ABC, Nine, Ten and SBS plus their multichannels and 7two of course are providing good alternatives to the tennis. Who would have thought that 7two would be much better than 7. Yikes

  12. What is the anti -siphoning rule? I think it is ludicrous that Live Sport is always shafted whether it be Tennis or AFL.
    Feel for the QLD and NSW viewers who hardly ever get life AFL matches. I think 7Three should be intorduced for more live sport, or remove the anti siphoning rules so Tennis and other sport could be live….
    I think solutions need to be found!
    As for H & A it was off air for longer. It now has over 6 weeks break each year.
    As for John’s comment “It is refreshing to know that Seven hate NSW and Victorian viewers like they hate those that don’t live in the AEDT timezone.” I agree!

  13. Best commentators are probably Todd Woodbridge and Tracy Austin (it seems they always do commentary on the Justine henin matches and they’re not a bad pair). Jim Courier is pretty good and far better than some other Aussie Commentaors like JA

  14. i know theres a lot of anger out there for the tennis coverage but i think people are asking for more then there getting with day and night coverage with nearly 16 hrs tennis coverage a day you think that would be enough but i dont wont 7two with tennis with less sport and more other programs but i do agree they could put off tt and h&a with live coverage and less promotions but just remember it could just be on pay tv then everyone would have to pay instead of being free to air so stop bitching and lets hope they change the format for 2011.

  15. The delays don’t bother me much. I love tennis and I am pretty much glued to the television for the 2 weeks it is on.
    I do agree that they should show some matches on 7TWO, but unfortunately anti-siphoning prohibits that. Maybe next year?
    The only issue I have is the bloody awful commentary from JA and Todd Woodbridge. They have no idea what they are on about most of the time. I have to praise the Americans Tracey Austin and Jim Courior though, they are just so much better.

  16. Its just two weeks out of the 52 in a year. People will understand the news being held off for live tennis. As for TT, it should just be off for two weeks. H&A should simply start “after the tennis” like everything else on Seven.

    And if not having TT on means they fall behind in daily news and current affair commitments, then simply put it on in the morning with the morning news for two weeks, with maybe a repeat after the tennis after midnight.

  17. There could be a compromise if the Federal Government weren’t so bloody stupid. Allow the FTA to air their sporting events on a second channel if they axe the anti-sophining list altogether. That way everyone both FTA or Pay TV can get rights to events, and more importantly the threat of losing the gems in their sporting crowns, cricket, tennis, NRL, AFL would force the networks to show games lives and/or delayed by a resonable amount of time.

  18. @Jason D. : Completely agree with you. Instead of it being called ultravision, they might as well call it ‘shots of tennis player that we made x100 slower with trashy old music’

  20. The overunning games should just be bumped to 7TWO so the main station can run it’s regular evening broadcast commitments, it really can’t be that hard to do !

  21. The No.1 thing Seven cares about is the ratings for the 6.00pm News. Let’s all stop watching it this year and sink their flagship! We will have heap of choice for News this year.

  23. @ ryan – that’s only because Hewitt was playing Fed,watch the ratings drop like a stone with no aussies left.

    And I was wondering who that french tool going off was. He was awful !

    Agree about the poster who said Courier was ok. He’s a good commentator and a funny guy.

  25. Jim Courier is the only decent commentator there, why are you posting that Jim Courier is annoying, all the Australian commentators are much more annoying espically JA

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