Friday, May 11, 2007

Attention Sports and Free to Air TV

I am one of the those people who do not subscribe to Sky TV. It is simply too expensive with our family costs. I live my life following sport on the net, papers, radio etc. It is a tragedy to me that I cannot watch at any reasonable time (except one game every Saturday night) the rugby, league, cricket, soccer, golf and other sports which are exclusively on Sky Sport. I think it is also destructive to the sports involved. A generation of NZer's are growing up who really do not get to watch these sports. This will affect playing numbers I think over time.

There is thus a gap in the Free to Air world for lesser known sports to make their move for the hearts of NZer's. There are some who do like surf lifesaving, motor sport and netball who retain their Free to Air commitment. What I am advocating is that those of you in minor sports like hockey, lacrosse, athletics, swimming, triathlon, biathlon, cycling etc move decisively to fill Free to Air TV with your products. This would mean that I can turn TV on on a weekend afternoon and have a feast of interesting entertainment. I see Maori TV are doing it with the lesser known league fixtures.

It seems to me that if this happens the landscape of NZ sport will change and the days of rugby, league, cricket dominance will be over. I also think that these major sports need to realise that they need to be on free-to-air TV consistently to capture the broader audience. In this way too, Sky TV will get more subscribers as people are hooked into their core sports. So go for it you lesser sports; fill the gap and show NZ that there is more to life than rugby... just!

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