Nine boss tells Stan it should have seen pub blackout coming

Currently, Sports and racing codes can have their non-free-to-air vision shown in pubs and clubs via satellite through one of three subscription services, Foxtel, Optus and Tabcorp’s broadcast arm, Sky Channel.

The Herald revealed last week a deal between Stan Sport and Sky Channel was pulled on the eve of Friday’s Super Rugby AU season openers after a Tabcorp senior executive learnt Sky Channel had reached an agreement without the consent of its parent company.

As a result, the second match of the evening, between the Western Force and the Brumbies in Perth, could not be screened in pubs and clubs around the country.

Stan chief executive Mike Sneesby did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday, but earlier this week the Herald pre-empted Marks’ suggestion by flagging a solution whereby Stan could direct stream to smart televisions.

But that is not happening yet, which means three of the four Super Rugby matches in Australia and New Zealand this week will not be shown in pubs throughout the country, while Saturday’s Waratahs-Brumbies match will be shown on free-to-air.

Roughly 200,000 viewers tuned into the Waratahs-Reds match at Suncorp last Friday, with 150,000 of those coming from 9Gem and the other 50,000 on Stan.

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Marks, who played a key role in getting the landmark broadcast deal over the line, said he was pleased with results in week one.

“I mean it’s hard to go out and trumpet it too hard but basically all the numbers that we’ve needed to hit for that plan to play out, we’ve hit, and some,” he said. “And that’s just month-to-month targets for activations.”

Marks said there had been a spike in new subscribers who had not previously been with Stan.

“The really interesting thing about the sport subscribers is we had an expectation that those sport subscribers would be a reactivation by … previous Stan subscribers,” Marks said. “In fact, the number that we’re seeing has been more than 40 per cent of subscribers for sport are in fact new subscribers to Stan. We’ve timed that new entry into that market really well.”