NRL Grand Final Coverage Falls Short for Perth Audiences – The NRL Grand Final—Channel 9’s biggest broadcast day of the year—will once again air live across most of Australia this Sunday, 5 October. Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide will enjoy the coverage without interruptions from morning through to the post-match. Nevertheless, Perth viewers are about to miss out on parts of the action.
With daylight savings coming into effect in the eastern states, Channel 9 has set its schedule to ensure live coverage into key markets. Weekend Today will air earlier, going live into Adelaide and Brisbane. Meanwhile, 9 News will shift to 5pm in Brisbane and 5.30pm in Adelaide. Wide World of Sports and The Footy Show will also air live throughout the day on the main channel in those cities.
In Perth, however, the situation looks different. Channel 9 will not move Weekend Today forward to a 4am start. Meaning, viewers in WA will instead see a tape delay at 7am. As a result, Wide World of Sports and The Footy Show will be pushed onto multichannel 9Gem. This forces audiences to choose between the delayed breakfast show and the live sports programming.
The frustration doesn’t end there.
As has become routine, Channel 9 Perth will also cut the post-match coverage short by 30 minutes to make way for the local 9 News bulletin. The final half-hour will not appear on the main channel or on a multichannel. Thus, leaving WA fans without the same end-to-end coverage in contrast to the rest of the country.
While ratings considerations are likely behind these programming decisions, the move has left many wondering why Channel 9 does not prioritise full live coverage in Perth for its most important broadcast of the year. For a network that markets the NRL Grand Final as a national event, viewers in WA are again left feeling being put on the sidelines.
Note: There was an invite for Channel 9 to comment on this story but did not reply.
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NRL Grand Final Coverage Falls Short for Perth Audiences