Australian pay broadcaster Foxtel again called for the right to transmit sports events that free-to-air TV broadcasters are not covering.
Chief executive Kim Williams said free-to-air broadcasters in the country did not transmit enough sport. They should therefore be subject to a "use it or lose it" principle, whereby they lose the right to privileged access to sports events that they have so far failed to broadcast.
Under Australia’s anti-siphoning law, certain events are protected for free-to-air TV broadcast.
"Over 75 per cent of the 1,00 sporting events - if we leave the Olympic and Commonwealth Games out - protected for them each year since 1994 is never shown on free-to-air TV," Williams said. "They have a lock up on the negotiation process but they never honour the public with transmission of 75 per cent of the events.
"Subscription TV is practical enough to accept that the sport that is broadcast on free-to-air TV today should stay available to free-to-air on the anti-siphoning list …We propose the most simple policy solution imaginable: we call it use-it-or-lose-it.
"But what is not broadcast should come off the list: both free-to-air and subscription TV can then compete to acquire that sport for our multi-channels equally.”
