The IOC has slammed Australia's rules for keeping major sporting events on free-to-air TV.
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THE International Olympic Committee has slammed Australia's rules for keeping major sports events on free-to-air TV, saying they are choking off competition, and warning that tough new federal laws could inflict commercial damage on valuable TV rights that bankroll the Olympic movement.
Major football and cricket groups have also warned that the Gillard government's reforms to strengthen the anti-siphoning regime could harm their ability to get a good price for the rights to broadcast their games, with the Football Federation Australia declaring its business viability would be under threat.
In a submission sent from the Swiss city of Lausanne last week, the IOC warns that the existing laws distort negotiations when it sells TV rights to the Olympics and are based on the "simplistic and wrong" assumption that Australian viewers would be deprived of free coverage of the Games without an anti-siphoning scheme.
The IOC says Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's new anti-siphoning bill - introduced to parliament last month - has the "real risk of adversely impacting" the value the IOC gets from selling TV rights to future Olympic Games.
"Anti-siphoning laws of the kind currently included in the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 and as proposed under the bill are inherently and self-evidently anti-competitive," the IOC says.
"By effectively appointing the free-to-air television broadcasters to the powerful position as 'gatekeeper' of the television rights to listed sporting events, laws such as these operate to the commercial detriment of sporting organisations."
Senator Conroy has introduced new laws to strengthen the anti-siphoning regime, which have gone to a Senate committee chaired by Labor's Doug Cameron for debate.
The reforms - which Senator Conroy has spoken of as giving Australia the world's strongest anti-siphoning scheme - would allow the Communications Minister to "declare" designated groups of events must be shown on free-to-air TV for a certain minimum number of hours.
The laws give Senator Conroy wide discretion on sports broadcast rights. They increase the number of events that pay-TV can pitch for but still allow the free-to-air channels the right to bid first for events such as the Olympics.
Last night, Senator Conroy's spokeswoman said the reforms were subject to extensive consultations and would impose use-it-or-lose-it obligations on free-to-air TV to televise anti-siphoning events or offer the unused rights to others.
While the anti-siphoning policy has been controversial, the government faces an escalating policy brawl over key planks of the bill.
The FFA says the proposed inclusion of the Socceroos World Cup qualifying matches on the anti-siphoning list would be debilitating for its ability to extract a good price from its broadcast rights by introducing uncertainty into the market.
Cricket Australia has similar concerns, saying the impact on its finances would hit "the primary revenue source sustaining the business of sports and funding grassroot, community and fan focused initiatives".
The Australian Football League describes the reforms as a considerable improvement to an anti-siphoning regime it believes is unnecessary, but has major concerns about the extension of the minster's discretionary powers as giving the AFL less certainty when striking commercial deals.
The IOC says it was not consulted about the proposed federal laws - even though they affect the value of its Australian TV rights - until the Senate committee invited it to make a submission.
Like pay-TV operators and the sports groups, the IOC fears the new laws would give the minister too much discretion to make "potentially arbitrary" decisions.
In the submission, the IOC opposes the blanket inclusion of all Olympic Games events on the anti-siphoning list, suggesting it should be focused on iconic events such as the opening and closing ceremony, 100m final and events where Australia tends to excel, such as swimming and cycling. "The declaration of all events in the Olympic Games as anti-siphoning events is overboard and excessive," the IOC says.
While the bill states that the minister can declare that the Olympic Games could operate under a new, more flexible part of the anti-siphoning scheme for "designated groups", the IOC says it has no certainty that such a declaration will be made.
It wants the bill changed so that the summer and winter Olympics are treated as a designated group. The significance of this is that such treatment allows events to be broadcast across free-to-air TV, pay TV and content services.
Even then, the IOC says it could still be caught by new rules allowing Senator Conroy to require that broadcasts go for a minimum number of hours.
The IOC body fears that the minimum hourly requirements could exceed the number of hours of exposure that it has demanded in its deals with media firms. This, the IOC says, "has the potential to adversely impact negotiations with free-to-air television broadcasters".
"A requirement that increases the number of hours on free-to-air television will also decrease the incentive for subscription television to acquire the rights to the Olympic Games," the submission says. "A minimum hourly requirement that constrains in any way the IOC's ability to commercialise the media rights in Australia is vigorously opposed by the IOC."
The government's changes will not affect the broadcast of this year's London Olympics as the Nine Network has already acquired the TV and other media-rights and has sub-licensed the subscription TV to Foxtel. Nine and Foxtel paid a record $126 million for the rights to broadcast the London Olympics, which open on July 27, and the 2010 winter games.
Deals for the Australian TV rights to the 2014 winter games and 2016 summer games have yet to be struck.