The Easy Solution to the AFL Broadcasters' Delemma

Anyone with an interest in AFL footy knows knows channels Seven and Ten have a problem with their new five year agreement to broadcast all eight weekend games into Sydney and Brisbane. Quite simply, the free to air channels in the rugby dominated eastern states won't be able to absorb that many AFL games.

It seems the broadcasters thought Foxtel would stump up some (well, a lot, actually) cash to televise four of the games, but Fox wouldn't accept the asking price. So the "free to airs" are now committed to telecast the code at peak viewing times into eastern cities that have little interest in the seven games that aren't featuring the local team.

(Note: As an AFL tragic, I'm an exception to the above generalisation.)

Solutions are being sort by the broadcasters to relieve themselves of their obligation, including showing the matches on little watched community TV stations. But there's an easy to implement, "available right now" solution to their problem, and it's only government regulation that's standing in the way.

It's called digital multi-channelling.

Every free to air broadcaster has enough bandwidth to simultaneously broadcast at least two digital channels simultaneously. The ABC and SBS are already doing this. It only takes an inexpensive set top box to allow a standard analogue TV to show the additional channels.

As I understand it, the commercial broadcasters fought against multi-channelling, and the government, ever mindful not to upset media barrons, agreed to disallow the service. It's ironic that the system they fought against could offer a solution to their AFL rights dilemma.

Digital TV has a low take up rate, unsurprisingly when one considers that there's no real advantage in acquiring the technology. High definition is hardly a "must have," and the lame programming on the ABC's and SBS's second channels hardly makes the effort worthwhile.

Perhaps the AFL and Seven / Ten should get together and try to get the restrictions on multi-channelling lifted.

If they were successful, I'd be racing to buy a digital set top box the next day.