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Report: Nine poised to take Melbourne Cup broadcasting rights

Seven has dramatically pulled out of the bidding process for the Melbourne Cup, according to reports.

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A day after their 2024 Upfronts, Nine is poised to take the Melbourne Cup broadcasting rights after rivals Seven dramatically pulled out of the bidding process.

News Corp has reported Seven withdrew in anger after it became clear Nine was the Victoria Racing Club’s preferred bidder.

The Victoria Racing Club and Racing Victoria had been at loggerheads over the rival broadcast proposals. But the VRC were reportedly keen on extended exclusive coverage of Melbourne Cup Day – not wanting coverage of The Big Dance in Sydney (broadcast by Seven) on the same broadcast.

10 is broadcasting its final Cup Carnival in November citing concerns over an increasing focus on gambling by Tabcorp and the Victoria Racing Club. The next deal will see Tabcorp have involvement and approval across elements of the production and commentary team of the broadcast.

“Given this likely change in focus combined with commercial constraints of the future agreement, Network 10 considered the preferences of its viewers and advertisers, and politely declined to move forward with the process,” 10 said in a statement in June.

Metro overnight audiences:

2013: 2.17m (Seven)
2014: 2.12m
2015: 2.07m
2015: 2.07m
2016: 1.99m
2017: 1.8m
2018: 1.84m
2019: 1.32m (10)
2020: 1.41m
2021: 1.21m
2022: 1.02m

5 Responses

  1. The nation is crying out for more regulation of the gambling industries’ control and marketing habits, and yet Tabcorp think the best thing is for them to control even more of the broadcast content?
    10 are right to say farewell to the rights and forget about it.

    However, the number of gambling ads I personally sit through on 10play makes it a hollow moral stance from my perspective.

  2. Not impressed with the VRC nomination of channel 9 to broadcast the Melbourne Cup. Eddie was ok last year on channel 10 but not fantastic. Would prefer the channel 7 team to broadcast the Cup as they have done a fantastic job doing the weekend racing every week and deserve to have the rights to broadcast the Melbourne Cup. Nothing against channel 9 but just think that channel 7 would do a better job than channel 9.

  3. look at that almost steady decline in audience year after year…wtg david for coming up with those figures.nine’s picking off sports…seven picks off farmer and the voice…this seems like a strange add for nine though.god forbid someone comes up with something new…which is why..for all its faults i appreciated bay of fires..and good to know the responder is coming back sometime.i’m presuming sbs’ll air it.

  4. Live sport and event live television is the only way to attract big overnight crowds to FTA these days, so I wonder what Seven’s strategy is for the future. Although cup ratings are sliding in the scheme of things it’s still big a business and regardless of protest, still a dominant sporting fixture of Australian culture. I wouldn’t be surprised though if Seven eventually nabs the NRL in the next decade.

  5. If somebody had said back in 2008 (when Seven had all these) that ‘in the near future, Nine will have the Australian Open, Olympics and Melbourne Cup’ as well as NRL among others… I’d have laughed. Unbelievable really. Nine well and truly the new ‘Home of sport’ and ‘new Seven’! Very very nearly nabbed the AFL too and who knows about Comm Games and V8s.

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