Hi Fans and Punters,

Another great week in racing has gone by and I have been working feverishly trying to get you all the good oil.

Look, I know I have been down this track before and it seems like the old expression applies in this case. That is, it is like flogging a dead horse. But Sky Channel really need to do something about its alleged showcase coverage of racing in this country. I really do understand that they are owned by the TAB and are dictated to by a supreme power and that their business “model” is reliant upon turnover. I get it too that their key performance indicators and all those other buzz words used in the modern day by man-bun wearing wankers mean that they need to show pre-race stuff rather than post-race stuff (because you can’t bet after the race). But seriously, yesterday’s effort on Sky 3 was appalling.

This showcase channel showed 4 meetings, Sydney, Newcastle, Adelaide and Brisbane and I could not believe my eyes when I tuned in to watch the Group 1 feature at Doomben, the time-honoured Doomben Cup which was scheduled for 4.01pm. I am pretty sure that someone at Sky controls the race times. After watching a great race won by the iron horse Sense of Occasion, I was truly looking forward to hearing from its trainer, the great man, Kris Lees and the jockey, another great man, Corey Brown. But no chance of that happening on the showcase channel, no sooner had they hit the line, without placings or dividends being displayed or any post-race coverage at all, we were off to a very important benchmark 60 at the provincials which was timed to jump at 4.05, that’s right, 4 minutes after the feature race of the day. It was a disgrace and an insult to the customers whose betting provides the funds for the coverage.

I have written to some of the bosses at Sky and those that have bothered to respond have explained with all the usual corporate speak that their hands are tied by a higher power and that their business model is geared toward turnover and therefore pre-race coverage. But how can you have any pre-race coverage when the times of these two races were pre-set 4 minutes apart???

Sky 2 just sits there and is basically a music channel. Why not revamp it, spruce it up, put some decent presenters on there instead of the work experience shift and call it Sky Provincial and showcase provincial racing on it and free up some time on Sky 3 for the feature meetings?? And why do we have to pay for Sky 2 when all the other channels are free?? Why not give it a catchy name and show provincial and Brisbane meetings on it where they can be showcased properly??

Please do something about it before thousands of new customers are lost to our sport because of the below par coverage that you serve up to us every week. Why not consult with some of your customers and see what they want rather than just ignoring them and forcing this rubbish down their throats and taking their money???

And if you are not serious about showcasing our sport on one of your 3 channels, and just want to pitch your product to produce more turnover at the expense of everything else, get rid of Sky’s 2 and 3 and just keep Sky 1. It has a race every minute, often two at the same time, and whilst it would be a bit like playing a poker machine with a gap between races the same length as the gap between pressing a button on the bandits, at least your turnover KPI’s would be met…..that’s all that matters.

So, to the management at Sky, whoever you are, to the people that organise the times of our races and set the schedule on the showcase channel, I am happy to sit down with you at any time and help you fix this mess and when we do, and it won’t take long, you can thank me, shake my hand, take me to a pub and buy me a beer.

Until next week this has been Tommy from Campbelltown…………….signing off.