Media Watch slaps Nine over Rugby World Cup

Last night’s Media Watch decided to go into bat for viewers unhappy with Nine’s coverage of the Rugby World Cup.

It would come as no surprise to readers of this site, that Nine’s programming of the matches, and it’s capacity to inform the audience of programming has been less than forthcoming.

Host Jonathan Holmes said a promo plugging ‘live coverage’ in Sydney on September 17 was “a straight-out untruth.”

“Kick-off in the crucial Wallabies-Ireland match was at 6.30pm Australian eastern time. It wasn’t shown in New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania until just after 9 – not ‘live’ but two and a half hours late. In Victoria, and South Australia, the game was delayed until 11.30,” he said.

“At least, in those states, and in W.A., it was also shown live on Nine’s digital channel, GEM. But not in Queensland and New South Wales.

“No matter where you live, finding out what’s being shown when has been almost impossible.”

The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy said Nine asked for an exemption for coverage to be played on multichannels, to get around the issue of the event being on the anti-siphoning list. It was granted on September 14.

“This change to the anti-siphoning list allowed the Nine Network … to premiere coverage of eight matches … on the digital multichannel GEM,” a spokesperson said.

But it didn’t always take advantage of the exemption in all markets.

“Why Nine left it so late, we don’t know. Nor why they hardly ever told viewers on Nine what matches were showing live on GEM,” said Holmes.

For the most part coverage in Melbourne, and WIN-owned Adelaide and Perth stations has been live on GEM. TV Tonight has received Press Releases on various matches on Fridays -but no Amendments.

In Sydney and Brisbane, where the appeal of the sport is arguably higher, on many occasions viewers were forced to wait until NRL games had ended on Nine to watch delayed games.

For Media Watch to be slapping Nine over programming of sport is indicative of how endemic these problems are and how frustrated the audience has become.