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Lawn bowlers seeing red on the green

Commonwealth lawn bowls champ Barrie Lester joined with angry bowls players today to protest at ABC's plans to dump the sport.

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Commonwealth lawn bowls champ Barrie Lester joined with angry bowls players today to protest at ABC’s plans to dump the sport.

Lester joined with MP Bronwyn Bishop and angry bowlers at Malvern Lawn Bowls this morning to call on the ABC to retain its broadcasts, which have aired across 30 years.

They cited the sport’s following, with around 400,000 viewers nationally.

A petition is now circulating throughout clubs across Australia.

But the ABC is sticking to its guns.

ABC Sport’s Justin Holdforth has told Bowls Australia it would not renew the telecast agreement at the end of the year.

“In recent years, the audience for this programming has been in steady decline. Audiences since 2008 have fallen significantly. In an increasingly competitive television market these declines are not sustainable,” he said.

Lawn Bowls is not the only local sport in ABC’s crosshairs with state football leagues concerned they could be next.

12 Responses

  1. Unfortunately the people most affected by this are the ones you will not here from, my parents are really peeved but do not have a computer and are too conservative to make a public statement.
    How accurate any rating data would be on this one is beyond me, how many of the handful with a ratings box would be Lawn bowls fans anyway.

  3. One HD should pick it up and show it in glorious HD and maybe the local sports like SANFL annd WAFL if ABC chooses not to show them. One should try to get more cricket and even the US and French opens if no FTA broadcaster will air them or at least in full

  5. Exactly…they are not fighting for ratings….or are they…are they going to start advertising…?!?!?
    And no good to me putting it on pay TV….I don’t have it and never would!

  7. How is it “not sustainable”? It’s not like the ABC has to attract sponsorship to air anything and I hardly think lawn bowls would be an expensive production to maintain. It’s also not as if they already have all their channels brimming with higher quality programming for the entire week, in fact they have so little they turn the lights off overnight on two of them.

    Not that I’d ever watch bowls on tellie in a pink fit, but I’m afraid I call BS on this one.

  8. Maybe Fox Sports could step in and screen the Lawn Bowls from 2012 onwards. With the AFL moving to a dedicated channel in the new year (Fox Footy Channel is coming back! yay!), Fox will have some more room in the schedule for other sport. I am sure older subscribers who get pay tv for the NRL or AFL will watch the Lawn Bowls. It is a sport that has a big following and participation in this country. So I am sure Premier Media Group will at least consider broadcasting it…..is the petition to get the ABC to continue showing Lawn Bowls available online?

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