When Foxtel wanted to announce their recent Olympics package they deliberately chose partners like News Ltd and NineMSN along with key marketing media as opposed to technology and lifestyle media.
The move was deliberate, as they are desperate to not only raise marketing and advertising dollars to fund their upcoming Winter Olympic coverage, but introduce additional revenue raising by trying to charge Australians to watch a sport that will feature very few Australians.
Instead Australians will be asked to spend $50 on top of their monthly Foxtel fee to pay to watch a bunch of Swiss, Austrian, Canadian and Italian nations speed down a hill in a series of Winter Olympic events.
While this will not appeal to most rugby and cricket fans Foxtel is hoping it will appeal to a niche market of skiers and boarders, and if it works Foxtel will have a model that will result in Australians being charged to watch Football, Rugby, Cricket and in fact any event that they can pump across their network in the future.
In other words this is a real acid test for Foxtel which is a lucrative monopoly 50% owned by Telstra.
They have access to Telstra databases and in October they will launch Powerline technology, including an extender that will allow PC's and other devices to be connected to the Telstra/Foxtel network so that content over an IP network can be delivered into Australian homes.
The plan is to charge Australians for access to movies, sporting events and a host of other content that in the past has been free.
