Trackside TV under knife

BY BARRY LICHTER

TAB cost cutting is about to hit racing's Trackside television channel with scores of redundancies, the axing of most shows, and reduced raceday coverage.

And the impending cuts have industry leaders worried the channel, racing's shop window, will become a turnoff for viewers with little more than wall-to-wall racing from obscure overseas venues.

The job losses will hit everyone from senior managers to the newest recruits, as New Zealand Racing Board bosses try to save $12 million in the wake of declining betting turnover.

The knife has gone through every sector of the board's operations, but Head of Broadcasting Glen Broomhall had the unenviable task last week of calling meetings with a raft of TV workers who will lose their jobs.

Top Canterbury harness presenter Justin Le Lievre is one of the most high-profile people to lose his position, his knowledge of the code and its participants deemed dispensable given the channel plans to cut all interviewing on Trackside at the Trials and to drop the weekly review show Box Seat Retro.

North Island broadcast manager Bill Harman has been shown the door after 11 years, his skills of organising the logistics of big racedays no longer required, given coverage of even the biggest carnivals is being scaled back. His southern counterpart, Keith Hopgood, is also out.

Respected northern floor manager Mark Claydon, a veteran of 22 years, and the central districts' Adrian Jones are also expected to take their redundancy packages, along with a host of producers, with the TAB deciding it can no longer afford to have a presenter on course at midweek meetings.

Only selected Friday, Saturday and Sunday meetings will be hosted by on-course frontmen, unless clubs can afford to pay for their own presenter.

The next generation of workers has also been affected, with trainees Jayne Ivil and Jason Teaz among those singled out.

Ivil, best known as the former strapper of champion mare Seachange, will lose her job unless she agrees to move to Wellington, and Teaz's dreams of becoming a commentator have been floored as the money has dried up so has his training, he was last seen manning a television camera.

Broomhall would not respond to questions about the lost personnel, believed to number more than 30, and the board's new chief executive Andrew Brown would say only the board had started "a consultation process with employees around the proposed changes."

The Sunday Star-Times understands those approached have until tomorrow to accept their redundancy packages or to file submissions on how their skills could be used by the channel.

Along with the lost workers will come a potentially disastrous gutting of the channel's content. The only two shows certain to be kept are Saturday morning's First Call and Thursday's Box Seat Preview, the weekly gallops and harness tipping programmes.

The Star-Times believes the knife will be taken to the review shows, NZ Retro and Box Seat Retro, the greyhound code's Lures And Leads, and the magazine piece Born To Run. They will join the now deceased Racing Show, the popular personality programme dumped earlier in the season.

Brown would say only "the ongoing viability [of the shows] was being assessed while they were on a winter break."

But even more concerning to industry leaders, like Harness Racing New Zealand's general manager Edward Rennell, is the loss of skilled course presenters like Le Lievre.

"Justin has been a great servant for the industry but they believe they can do it just as well from the studio," Rennell said.

The board had indicated it thought well-briefed presenters in the studio could interview trainers, drivers or jockeys just as effectively, he said. More use would also be made of the course racecallers to give their opinions before races.

But the importance of the right interviews could not be over stressed interviews being key drivers of betting. The prospect of losing course presenter Stephen Stuart for its Thursday night meetings is a major worry for Cambridge-Te Awamutu Harness Club president Barry Gordon.

"Our turnovers have held up very well and a lot of that reflects on the work Stephen does for us. I think, with his industry knowledge, he's the best in the game."

It's not just the faces that will disappear, punters will see inferior pictures. Fewer cameras will be deployed to film races and midweek punters will have to do without close-up views of runners behind the barriers, with no camera being stationed at the start.

Racegoers will suffer from the cuts too Star-Times' sources reporting the "big screen" presentations, introduced to make punters' experiences more entertaining, would be severely restricted.

In the season just ended as many as 75 meetings had special presenters MCing in the birdcage and doing interviews relayed on a big screen, but the number will be cut to only 25 in the new season.

Even the biggest racedays won't be immune to the cuts fewer course presenters are expected to be rostered on for big cup days.

On Fridays and Saturdays, only the main meeting will qualify for a course presenter. If Addington is hosting the major meeting, the only way Auckland can retain a presenter is if the club pays for one.

Rennell said HRNZ had already spent between $30,000 and $40,000 a year for the last three seasons ensuring it had presenters on days, like Sundays, when the TAB deemed it did not qualify for one.

In his half-yearly report, NZRB chairman Michael Stiassny said the TAB's earnings were down 10.9%, or $8.2m, on the previous year, and management had been charged with delivering savings of $10m.

With that target now raised to $12m, it is reasonable to expect the turnover slide has worsened, but it's not a figure the TAB is prepared to release.

In response to questions about turnover, the TAB replied: "As it is only the end of the financial year today, those figures are not yet available."

Figures from the half-yearly report show $6,817,000 was spent on broadcasting racing last season.

For the first half of this year the total spent was $3,672,000.

- © Fairfax NZ News