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Turnbull: “I have spoken with the Optus CEO”

"He believes it will be fixed this evening," Malcolm Turnbull tweets, after sports fan fury.

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Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has tweeted that he has spoked to Optus CEO Allen Lew over a wave of outages with the FIFA World Cup.

Yesterday Lew apologised to fans and assured the problems would be fixed, but they resumed for a third night running.

SBS chief executive Michael Ebeid suggested the broadcaster is open to assisting “in terms of putting some of those games on our channels.”

“[In the next] 24 hours, I think they’ll need to take a good hard look at where they’re at in terms of fixing the problem,” he told radio station SEN.

“From the conversations I’ve had with Optus, they seem very confident it’s down to a very small number of users.

“Optus states the number of people affected are less than five percent of their viewerships.”

He also said had SBS funding not been reduced by $40 million, the sub-licensing deal with Optus may not have been considered.

“It does come down to finances, sports rights have been going up and up and up,” he explained.

“The World Cup was no different – we’ve paid a lot more for the World Cup. At the same time as our costs for the World Cup are going up our revenues have been going down.

“Had we not had to look at our budgets we probably would have retained it like we were planning to when we bought it.”

Some might argue Turnbull responsible for both the NBN and SBS as communications minister turned PM has a lot at stake to see this one sorted.

Source: ESPN, SBS

16 Responses

  1. what a pathetic little country we are, where the biggest tournament in the world apart from certain games that are on sbs we have to pay for where as else where in the world, every game is on fta, and don’ t get me wrong I am not a big fan of modern soccer, as I reckon we had more skill as school kids in the play ground

    1. Soccer is a growing sport in Australia but I agree that the World Cup should have been better treated as a media sporting event, the SBS usually do a good job broadcasting the World Game but this is not a good look for them no matter their financial reasoning and political point scoring on the matter, FTA should have had at least one or two games a day at least on FTA.

  2. This has nothing to do with the PM. Why’s he getting involved in something that has nothing to do with. How about focus on fixing the problems in the country to earn the salary?

  3. Good news folks! Just heard on Seven News and read on the herald website that Optus will let SBS broadcast their games for the next 48hrs.

  4. I thought the Liberal Party line was that businesses should free to operate within the law however they see fit, without any government interference?

    Hypocrites, the lot of them…

    1. But could this be seen as Optus charging customers for a service they are not getting? it is a breach of consumer law to charge people for a service an organisation knows it can not provide. debatable if this falls into that category however.
      i do agree that the government has bigger issues to deal with but this is the politics of distracting from those at the moment to look like the good guy.

      1. Then it’s a civil matter between provider & customer, which should be handled by the relevant consumer tribunal, ombudsman, or court.

        It’s not that the Government has bigger issues to deal with – it’s that it’s directly contrary to both the traditional stance of conservative parties in general, and the stated policies of the Liberal Party specifically. When a Liberal Party minister or PM starts interfering in the operation of a private business, it’s hypocritical at best – and potentially a case of exerting undue influence, or even straight-out corruption, at worst.

        1. It is actually Australian Consumer and Competition Authority.
          I do take your point though. Just wanting to highlight potential pitfalls for Optus.

          1. FWIW, the ACCC doesn’t handle individual disputes between businesses & customers; they’ll simply point you to the relevant *CAT or industry ombudsman.

          2. Tex, from the ACCC website: “The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is an independent Commonwealth statutory authority whose role is to enforce the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 and a range of additional legislation”.

          3. (This is rapidly heading O/Y, and I’m sure David would prefer we drop it at that, but …)

            @wellinmyopinion: So? Nothing you’ve quoted from the ACCC website says they will involve themselve in individual disputes between customers & businesses. In fact, if you look a bit futher on their website, you’ll find the following:
            “Contact the ACCC for information about your consumer rights and obligations, and possible courses of action you might take. While we don’t resolve individual complaints, we will use the information you provide to help us understand what issues are causing the most harm to Australian business and consumers, and where to focus our compliance and enforcement efforts.”

            But feel free to contact them & ask for yourself. I have, in similar circumstances, which is how I know they won’t…

  5. Calm down – don’t take life so seriously. This is topical, a rush of anger from people who have paid money for a service they aren’t getting. Maybe Turnbull paid $15 also and isn’t happy…

  6. The PM getting involved with this,has a he’ll if a lot more important issuesto sort (which he isn’t ) but this is more popular for his ratings. .joke

  7. Why is the Prime Minuster getting involved in this???? How about he sorts out the important things and not how a football match cannot he watched,

    1. As a one time Communications Minister and Shadow Minister choices and arguments he made regarding the future of the internet in this country, that’s why he is involved.

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