C7 Sport

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C7 Sport was a pay-TV service in Australia, owned and run by Kerry Stokes' Seven Network. The service was carried on the Austar and Optus Vision pay-TV networks between 1995 and 2002, when it was removed in controversial circumstances. Seven is pursuing legal action over the matter.

1 Early days
2 Seven's involvement
3 The Olympics
4 The lawsuit
5 External links

[edit] Early days

When Optus Vision launched in 1995, it carried two sports channels: Sports Australia, and Sports AFL (which showed Australian Football League games.) These channels were run by a company called Sports Vision, in which Seven was a partner. A third channel, "Sports Australia 2", was added during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and later used to show additional live programming.

The programming lineup on the Sports Australia service was generally considered superior to that of its rival, Fox Sports Australia, with the AFL, National Rugby League, the Australian National Soccer League, the FA Premier League, and Sheffield Shield cricket. At the time, Fox Sports' lineup focused more on less popular sports.

[edit] Seven's involvement

In 1997 Sports Vision ran into financial difficulty; Sports Australia struggled to get viewers due to the limited reach of the Optus cable, and aggressive marketing of the Fox Sports service by Foxtel. The company eventually collapsed, but the Seven Network bought the channels and relaunched them in March 1998 under the C7 Sport brand. Sports Australia became "C7 Gold", or "C7 Twelve", after its channel assignment on Optus. Sports Australia 2 became "C7 Blue", or "C7 Thirteen". Sports AFL's programming was carried on the other two channels.

Shortly afterwards, Seven signed a deal with Austar that saw C7 Gold become available to most of regional Australia. Austar had many more subscribers than Optus at the time. Before the deal, C7 had only been available in the small Optus cabled areas in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. C7 was never available to the majority of people in the capital cities (except Hobart and Darwin).

[edit] The Olympics

C7 continued to lose programming to Fox Sports; after the Super League war in 1997, C7 no longer had exclusive rights to NRL games, having to share them with Fox, and had totally lost the rights to the FA Premier League.

C7 began negotiations with Foxtel in order to make the channels available to a wider audience, but Foxtel refused to carry them. Foxtel claimed that C7 was an inferior service, for which Seven wanted an exorbitant price. C7 won two Federal Court actions backing their position, but Foxtel claims it acted in accordance with the Court's rulings. Seven won the right to put its programming on Foxtel's analog cable system, including its set-top-boxes.

C7 still had the AFL, and crucially, had the rights to the 2000 Sydney Olympics. An additional two channels ("C7 Olympic" and "C7 Games") were set up, which would carry non-stop Olympic programming during the Games; the channels were made available to Austar and Optus customers at an additional cost. After lengthy negotiations, Foxtel and C7 reached a deal just weeks before the Games, and the channels became available to Foxtel viewers.

C7 was later forced to give refunds to some customers after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ruled that they had misrepresented the C7 Olympic service in advertising; promotional materials claimed that the service would carry all Australian men's and women's basketball games.

[edit] The lawsuit

Late in 2000, Seven lost the rights to the AFL to a News Corporation headed consortium also containing Publishing and Broadcasting Limited, Network Ten and Telstra. The new rights deal, which started with the 2002 season, saw Nine and Ten carry games on free-to-air, and a new service, Fox Footy Channel, launched on Foxtel.

C7 continued to provide its service to Optus and Austar, but its programming lineup near the end of its run was extremely weak. C7 was reduced to showing XFL games (on several weeks' delay) and live woodchopping in prime time. Austar and Optus ceased carrying the service after the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, replacing it with Fox Footy.

Seven launched a massive lawsuit later that year under Australia's Trade Practices Act, naming Nine, Ten, Optus, Austar, the AFL, the NRL, Fox Sports, PBL and Telstra as defendants. Among Seven's claims:

Foxtel deliberately denied C7 access to Telstra's cable network and Foxtel's STBs, in order to weaken C7's position when negotiating television deals with the AFL and NRL (which was against an earlier High Court ruling)

One or more of the named defendants acted illegally to collude in the marketplace and use their combined market power to prevent competition

Foxtel's owners (Telstra, News Corporation and PBL) signed an agreement in late 1999 to ensure Foxtel gained the AFL and NRL rights. (This replaced an earlier claim that News and PBL had agreed in 1996 not to compete with each other in the pay-TV market.)