IF you’re a V8 supercars fan who enjoys sitting in front of the box watching your favourite driver, team or manufacturer (there’s five of them now remember – Ford, Holden, Erebus (AMG), Nissan and Volvo) – you might be sorely disappointed from 2015 onwards.
Why, I here you ask. Well let’s see, V8 Supercars will show just six (6) races live on Channel 10 from next year (yes that’s right a new broadcast deal is in place) – being the Clipsal 500 Adelaide, Townsville 500, Wilson Security Sandown 500, Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, the Gold Coast 600 and the Sydney 500 – the rest, well on free to air TV – they’ll be a one hour highlights package on a Sunday afternoon.
Yep, really, a one hour highlights package on a Sunday afternoon. If you want to see anything more than that, you’ll need to dip your hand deep in your wallet, and get on board Foxtel, because the live rights have been sold to PayTV land.
While V8 Supercars and their new media partners (bye bye Channel 7 – I for one will miss you) are promising a 360 per cent increase in television content, if you check the fine print, it’s pretty much all on PayTV. What? I hear you question – well you too can buy the soul of Australia’s most popular form of motor sport, as long as you are willing to part with a cool $241 Million over six years.
Now apparently according to Supercars CEO James Warburton (former Channel 10 boss and all), we should be excited to get the six biggest races of the season live on free to air TV, and we should also be excited that if we want to watch the rest of the races live, well we should be excited to sign up to Foxtel for that privilege.
Well I’m excited. Actually no I’m not. I don’t want to sign up to PayTV to watch V8 Supercars, I want to watch V8 Supercars live, on free to air TV. I will NOT pay for the privilege to watch a sport I have supported since the day it started.
I’ll just watch the big six I guess, if I can be bothered, and keep up with what’s happening with the rest on the net. And as for you Foxtel, you’ll never get my money. Enjoy your appallingly low audience numbers V8 Supercars, I’ll see you in 2021 if you’re still around.
What about you, send a message to V8 Supercars and their new broadcast partners by commenting here…
i am very upset in that pay tv foxtel in getting the v8s’ I for one will not transfer to pay tv ,l love the cars on free to air ch.7or ch.10 ,what is wrong with u people ,this an aussie inervation, ¬ o/seas so foxtel can earn big bucks,this wrong,well if this goe’s head i for one will not watch v8’s free to air only ,what more do they want ,they probably want all the afl games next.
This is so wrong the next thing will be changing the V8’s to American racing cars to make it a better seller for the overseas market and the Americans. So I predict it will be Bye Bye to Volvo, Mercedes, Holden, Ford and Nissan and other prospective entrants and Hello to Chev, Ford and Dodge on circular tracks.