In massive news for the 2015 Bathurst 12 Hour race (6–8 February) it was announced yesterday that all 12 hours of the race will be broadcast on free-to-air television. Yes, all 12 hours of it! That’s pretty cool.
The race will start on 7mate before switching across to Channel Seven for the closing stages. It’s expected at least the final three hours will be shown on Seven, but the final split won’t be known until closer to the event.
“We are delighted to be partners with the Bathurst 12 Hour,” said Saul Shtein, Seven’s Head of Sport. “We are focused on building our presence and leadership in major sports across our broadcast television platform and we are looking forward to working with the Bathurst 12 Hour, its partners and the teams to deliver all-encompassing coverage from one of the great motor racing circuits in the world.”
As well as the live coverage a post-race highlights package will be produced for international audiences.
“Having the entire 12-hours showcased live on free-to-air network television is rare in the world of endurance racing and we are excited to be able to offer this level of coverage from 2015,” said James O’Brien, Event Director.
“‘Australia’s International Endurance Race’ is growing rapidly and our partnership with Seven is a reflection of that.”
While we are both grateful and excited at this announcement, we’d just like to say, wouldn’t it be great to have live coverage in High Definition too. Oh well, you can’t have everything it seems.
Oh, one other slight whinge. The race start has been moved forward to 5:55am, which of course brings the finish forward as well. This has been done so that Seven can go straight into its six o’clock nightly news. So, we can look forward to a really thorough 30 second wrap up of the race.
Some people are never happy!
[Source: Bathurst 12 Hour]
5 replies on “2015 Bathurst 12 Hour goes free-to-air”
HD? You’re having a laugh, last time I checked the only sport to be shown live in HD from a HD source in Australia this year is going to the Tour Down Under (already passed), the Tour de France, the World Cup and the Commonwealth Games.
Even F1 on ONE is an SD source upscaled these days, because Ten are too cheap to pay for the satellite bandwidth.
Leading into the 6pm news is a pretty big deal.
@Dave, that’s why I source the F1 elsewhere.. I manage 720p [which looks better than OneHD’s broadcast anyway!] and its 50FPS so it’s silky smooooooth. Oh, and usually there are multiple audio tracks so you can turn off the commentary if required and just leave the ambiet sounds..
Of course, no true fan of F1 would watch One (it’s not OneHD any more as they don’t have any HD content!) if they could possibly avoid it, but I suppose it needs to be on some sort of FTA channel so it’s not completely lost to those who don’t live in an area with broadband and can’t afford a Eurosport sub.
One’s coverage might be passable if they sacked AJ, Australian motorsport would be so much better represented on the international stage if he hadn’t spent the last 25 years sabotaging the careers of upcoming Australian drivers – including telling Mark Webber’s sponsors to walk away in the late 90’s which led to him falling off the F1 career track and racing an upside down Merc instead. FU Jonesy!
[…] A quick reminder that the Bathurst 12 Hour is being held this weekend. We’ll be taking a very low key approach to coverage this year due to a number of reasons. However, you will still be well served because all 12 hours of the race will be shown on free-to-air television. […]