★★★★★ 0/5

AFL boss dismisses minister’s intervention

“Whatever happens going forward Free to Air will be a critical part of our broadcast," Gillon McLachlan says.

2
Leave a comment

AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan has dismissed an unusual intervention by Communications Minister Michelle Rowland last week as it navigates the final stages of its next broadcast deal.

Last week Rowland urged the AFL not to put more games behind a paywall and hold firm on games on Free to Air television.

Seven and Foxtel are jointly considered to be front-runners in the next deal, but there have been rumours of some changes to Saturday games, streaming rights and more.

“Whatever happens going forward free to air will be a critical part of our broadcast,” McLachlan said.

“Free to air coverage is a cornerstone of the way we talk to our supporters.”

He added that the government’s intervention in the broadcast negotiations showed how important the AFL was in the lives of Australians.

“But we actually want free to air coverage. We are lucky to have an incredible partner in Seven, we’re lucky to have free-to-air partners who want to broadcast our game, so it’s irrelevant to us, frankly, because as I’ve said to the minister, we value free to air coverage. It’s a cornerstone of our broadcast.″⁣

Source: The Age

  • Tagged with AFL

2 Responses

  1. A month ago, i heard on the age that FOx want to use their own callers for all AFL games. Some of the callers from both Fox and Seven were so bad I couldn’t listen to. Kelli Underwood was atrocious and couldn’t string a sentence properly, while Brian Taylor was notoriously bad for his obsession of terms like ‘Wowee’, and some weird phrases. BT has done it since 2011. When Fox/10 previously both had the rights to Wallabies games (from 2013-20), they have separate callers and different graphics for both networks.10 had Gordon Bray, while Fox had Greg Clark.

Leave a Reply