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Nine rolls out Olympic schedule

Nine's Winter Olympics schedule has evening highlights from 9:30pm, making room for other programming. But there is ice cold news for viewers in Perth.

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Channel Nine has scheduled much of its primetime Winter Olympics to begin at 9:30pm weeknights.

Vancouver Gold, the three hour highlights package hosted by Eddie McGuire and Leila McKinnon, will wrap up the top events from each day.

From Mondays to Thursdays it will air from 9:30pm local time across the country. Friday, Saturdays and Sundays the start times vary from as early as 7:30pm to as late as 10pm.

Freeing up the earlier schedule will allow Nine to program other shows, although it is yet to reveal which ones.

The move could give Nine the upper hand in the ratings game, given daily shares are tallied on the 6pm-midnight block.

Live daytime broadcasts hosted by Ken Sutcliffe will air from 9am weekdays in Sydney and Melbourne, 8:30am in Adelaide, and 8:00am in Brisbane.

But Perth viewers get the raw end of the deal with delayed daytime broadcasts at 9am. With the exception of the Opening Ceremony, Perth viewers will have almost no live coverage of the games across the entire 17 days (Saturday February 20 is Live). After Seven’s delayed evening sessions with tennis, it is a bitter sting for Perth sports fans.

Weekday daytime sessions vary in length, anywhere from 3 hours to 6.5 hours. Weekends are up to 8 hours.

The Opening Ceremony is live in all cities at 12:30pm AEDT Saturday February 13, and replayed later that evening at 7:30pm in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth and 9:30pm in Sydney and Brisbane.

The Closing Ceremony is live in all cities except Perth and replayed at 9:30pm on Monday March 1st everywhere.

Nine still has cricket and NRL commitments to juggle.

Nine will also give the games coverage via Today and Nine News.

https://tvtonight.com.au/Vancouver Gold

70 Responses

  1. I have just watched 2 hours of the moguls. Every moment analysed. Eddie trying his best, with no success, to get the silver medallist to say “I should have won”. WTF. When will the commercial networks realize there is more to Olympics or winter Olympics than what a (so called) Aussie is in? I was hoping that 9 would do a better job than 7 did with the summer Olympics but no, it’s even worse.
    Why do 9 think that the Olympics should be covered like they do current affairs. With baddies and goodies. Just cover the games. It’s simple, cover the games.
    I am so angry! 9 thinks there is nothing worth showing unless there is an Aussie in it.
    I understand that people are interested in events that Australians are in but that is not all we want to see. I am so disappointed in 9s coverage. It’s as bad as 7s and that is saying a lot!
    Give it toSBS? Or ABC just not the commercial butchers.
    So disappointed and angry
    Rob Brisbane

  2. Channel Nine Cricket or the Olympics? Do not bid for the rights to telecast if you can not show it due to other commitments. As most of us work all day starting the days coverage at 9.30 or 10pm when the cricket is on is ridiculous. Give it back to Channel 7

  4. Nine Perth is commited – under programming deals – to airing the Today Show as close to the eastern states start time as possible. This means that they can only go on a 1, 2 or 3 hour delay with it. They cannot drop it completley. And thanks to the anti siphoning laws – the olympics cannot go on the HD channel. It could be Today on HD only, olympics live on SD. There is a technical issue with that, but it can be resolved. The major issue though, is that Nine sales do not recognise SD & HD being different … so they cannot sell airtime on HD alone, sure they could – but then you would effectivly be slashing your revenue because you are dividing your audience.

  6. Great plan Channel 9 – no Winter Olympics coverage from 6-9am in Perth means that I (and many others) will still have no reason to switch over to Channel 9 from Sunrise in the mornings before work.

  7. Matt says:
    January 30, 2010 at 10:15 am
    Other than the opening ceremony I don’t plan to watch Nine for one second during the games. Foxtel is giving us the type of coverage we’ve always wanted.

    Just remember your paying for it?
    So you should get better coverage!

  9. re anthony – yes i would urge viewers to boycott 7 (and have been doing so on this site and other sites) during their delayed telecasts of the aust open. i do it thru the year for friday night football too and have numerous letters published each year in the west newspaper.

    basically, my vendetta is against delayed sport, whoever is doing it.

    10, 7, 9, 2 all do it all year round . sbs and foxtel are the only ones who play ball with live coverage, i wish foxtel had all afl, cricket, everything – so that if you want live you can pay, and if you cant afford foxtel or dont want to pay for tv, you get delayed. this would be win-win

  10. Again a channel in Perth fails. Other than sport I never watch FTA now, sick of how they treat their customers.

    I can’t see why the HD channel cant mirror the eastern states feed, then they can play the delayed version on the SD channel.

  12. @guy

    don’t you mean. 7 knows how too butcher an olympic coverage. this whole package with nin and fox is going to make whatever 7’s coverage look like a backyard production. because that what it was with bejing games. a backyard production

  13. At the people that are complaining about the delayed coverage for Perth viewers, will you be the same viewers that would complain if 9 decided to air the Winter Olympics Live and you ended up behind on many of Channel 9’s other programs, whinging that “bloody sport ruins everything”??

  14. @billy ray valentine

    Perth dont watch Nine anyway. How do you think Seven win so much. Perth are in love with them, just like Melbourne are with Nine. I knew this was coming. Seven are the ones who know how to broadcast the Games. You watch them fall flat on there faces with the coverage. Just look at how they broadcast the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

  16. this will still be better than whatever 7 and their super flogs would produce. no rebecca wilson and tom williams would be a major plus in this coverage. fox will have their own commentators

  17. Could be worse – you could be in the US. Although Vancouver is in the same time zone as the West Coast, they’ll get coverage delayed three hours as everything is being scheduled to suit the East Coast. And when the games aren’t in the Americas, they get the coverage delayed by hours if the local organising committee won’t give in to them and having finals at 8am in the morning! Thank god for the BBC!

    Looking ahead to the Commonwealth Games in October though and it seems to have been scheduled to be Australia friendly – the swimming finals are scheduled ar 4pm Delhi time, which conveniently is 8.30pm AEST. Probably still not live in Perth though!

  18. I cannot belive that channel 9 perth will be delaying the coverage of the games. Total bull**it if you ask me. Maybe subscribing to Foxtel may be the better way to view the games Live

  19. complain to 9 and tell other people too! 9perth.com.au has their phone no. maybe if people complain and let their feelings be heard then they might change the winter olympics schedule to be live.

  20. The siphoning rules should have a provision that if the host network can’t be bothered rearranging a couple of programs to accommodate live sports coverage to all states, then SBS or ABC should be entitled to do so.

    If they had to compete for viewers against another FTA network showing it live, maybe they’d get off their arrogant fat a*ses and make an effort.

  21. @billyrayvalentine, seems like more of a personal vendetta against nine, would you advise people to avoid 7 Perth as well during the Primetime Tennis coverage?

  22. as a perth resident . i say thank god for foxtel . free to air over here is pathetic , delayed tennis, cricket , winter olympics , rugby union test matches need i say more ..

  24. Nine’s coverage of Olympic Winter Games (its first since the 1994 Games in Lillehammer, Norway) is just as bad as Seven’s coverage of the 2006 Games in Turin, Italy. While the daytime live broadcast is welcome (Seven had little live coverage of events from Turin, and they all involved Australians), it is delayed by 3 hours in WA, which I think is very unfair to people living there (the only reason I can think of the delay is Today’s continuing battle against Sunrise). This will only force WA viewers to go onto the net or subscribe to Foxtel to watch the events live and find out the results.

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