Victoria Racing Club horseracing events are set to return to television screens this week after the organisation formally agreed to a partnership with Australian commercial broadcaster Seven.
Victorian racing entered blackout mode last week after pay-television broadcaster Sky Racing said it would cease coverage on June 15. Parent company Tabcorp, a gambling operator in the country, said that it submitted an offer for rights to events operated by VRC on June 1.
VRC had said that its preferred new free-to-air rights partner was Seven, with Sky Racing continuing to show “domestic, international and digital” coverage. The VRC yesterday (Sunday) joined the Melbourne Racing Club, Moonee Valley Racing Club and Country Racing Victoria in signing up to the Seven proposal, which will showcase the sport on a new dedicated free-to-air channel.
The service will be broadcast on Channel 78 and be integrated with VRC’s digital platform, Racing.com. The official launch of the new station will happen on August 29 and until then Seven is set to re-transmit the existing Racing Live coverage from Racing.com.
Seven will be able to transmit Channel 78 across its national metropolitan network in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Seven will begin testing the Racing.com vision feed on Channel 78 this week.
Racing Victoria chief executive Bernard Saundry said: “The interim solution won’t be perfect. There will be people in regional areas that cannot access the interim coverage, but this is an important first step in getting our races back on television.
“I can advise those punters, fans and participants in regional areas that we’ll be working with Seven West Media to extend the interim solution to them as quickly as possible, whilst also looking to re-engage with Tabcorp on an agreement to get Victorian racing back on to Sky Racing’s wall-to-wall channels.”