Mediaworks is in alot of trouble financially since the private equity buy-out. News stories in NZ have gone so far to say that if the NZ Government hadn't agreed to loan Mediaworks $43.3 million so that it could renew its own broadcasting license.
There's a number of stories on the matter:
Free Market Mockery
The $43 Million lifeline
Sky TV success
Sky TV has access to some fairly deep pockets, but the deal clincher that it offers is that it has a free-to-air channel in the form of Prime Television, which has some motorsport shows on it already and does replay some Sky motorsport footage.
TV3 shouted from the rooftops about how good their deal was going to be for motorsport fans, and really the outcome feels closer to an echo in a culvert.
Now that C4 is rebranded as some other goofy channel, it has seemingly become so valuable that playing V8 Supercar coverage on it is out of the question. Looking at how the championship timetable sits for this year, there could be a lot of late night "Race 2's" which won't really help to grow the sport in NZ at all.
As for the non-championship round at the F1, we see zero coverage of that for a raft of other issues.
Hopefully, with respect to all future broadcasting rights contracts that V8 Supercars enters into, they think of the fan base and perhaps look to take a bit of an income hit in return for showing the footage in each broadcast market at a reasonable hour.
AusV8 TV coverage in NZ [formerly TV3 - Another raw deal on coverage]
Hybrid Mode
