A leading TV analyst "has brushed off concern" within the Australian Football League industry that Foxtel's recent investment in Channel Ten could hinder the value of the next broadcasting rights deal, according to Daniel Cherny of THE AGE. It is understood that the pay-TV provider's recent purchase of a 15% take "in the floundering free-to-air network has been raised at club level as an issue which could potentially stifle the AFL's ability to maximise revenue as the right to televise football between 2017 and 2021 plays out." However Steve Allen of Fusion Strategy "quashed that notion." Allen: "I wouldn't have thought decreasing competition was an issue." While Allen believed that recent talk of a surge in rights value due to the entrance into the market of new competitors like NetFlix, Fetch TV and Google was "fanciful," he suggested that if anyone was going to boost the value of the next deal it was Foxtel. Allen: "Because it's not an ad-funded model -- it's a subscription model -- they have oodles of cash, and they can throw more at sports rights than anyone else because they don't have to make a commercial return via advertising, they make a commercial return via increased subscriptions" (THE AGE, 7/20).
