Blackout continues as racing talks stall

Punters affected by Sky Racing’s blackout of Victorian racing since Tuesday will be without free-to-air coverage this weekend.

Stay-at-home punters and others disadvantaged by Sky Racing’s blackout of Victorian thoroughbred racing since Tuesday will be without free-to-air coverage over the weekend.

The Victoria Racing Club held protracted negotiations with Racing Victoria over funding issues but missed the opportunity to take up an offer from Seven West Media to show races, commencing with today’s Moonee Valley meeting.

The VRC is the last media rights-holder to sign off on a deal that will see Seven West Media cover 520 Victorian race meetings a year for the next five years on a dedicated channel.

Country Racing Victoria, the Melbourne Racing Club and the Moonee Valley Racing Club signed the agreement earlier this week.

Seven West Media was willing to use coverage being streamed on the industry-owned website racing.com for the next nine weeks on digital channel 78, before launching a new coverage on the last Saturday in August.

That will coincide with the Memsie Stakes at Caulfield on August 28, which marks the start of the spring racing carnival.

The VRC board was meeting last night, well past the deadline set to establish the link.

By the time papers are signed and delivered, channel 78 may not be carrying the racing.com feed until early next week.

Rights-holders were less than impressed by the failure to green light Seven West Media, brought about in part by the VRC’s lack of preparedness on some of the nine sticking points that needed to be thrashed out yesterday.

After receiving presentations earlier this month, Racing Victoria recommended the Seven West Media bid over Tabcorp’s Sky Racing.