SKY TV quietly pleased with RWC coverage

Will Johnston

OPINION: SKY Television will be quietly rubbing their hands together after issues were experienced during Spark Sport’s coverage of the All Blacks opening Rugby World Cup match against South African.

Subscribers took to social medial after experiencing pixelated footage, poor quality and buffering during the first half of the match taking away from the viewing experience.

Spark Sport decided to simulcast the match on TVNZ Duke and offered refunds to subscribers. All of Sunday’s matches were be played live on Duke as a result while issues were being resolved, it was announced.

"Due to a small percentage of our customers experiencing streaming quality issues when watching Spark Sport on certain devices, a decision has been taken to switch live play over to TVNZ Duke," Spark said in a statement.

The All Blacks match wasn’t the only game that was affected. An error message interrupted viewing during the Australia v Fiji match on Samsung Smart TVs on Saturday night.

During the All Blacks match, my stream, through an HDMI cable plugged into the TV from a laptop, started having issues during the first half – issues that I knew were inevitable.

I tried to be patient with the service when it was buffering and made it through to halftime. Then I read that the remainder of the match was to be played on Duke and I immediately switched over for uninterrupted coverage. 

Streaming is a new way to watch sport in New Zealand and the Rugby World Cup is an incredible test for the new provider to the sporting market. It is also the first time the tournament hasn’t been on conventional television.

SKY Television, which had the broadcast rights for the 2011 and 2015 Rugby World Cups, missed out on this year’s instalment of the tournament in a bidding war with Spark. Reflecting on the previous tournaments, there were no issues, from memory, even when TVNZ and TV3 had previous rights. SKY would have known that, quietly having a chuckle.  

Extraterrestrial coverage is more reliable than streaming, in my view, in a country that only installed fibre in recent years – but not available for all, yet.

Spark and SKY came to an agreement so pubs and clubs can access this year’s coverage through the decoder – that could have been done for residents too.

It’s all well and good trying new things and keeping up with technology, but that needs to be supported by the resources.

Among all the technological issues, I was pleased with the personalities involved in Spark’s coverage. Presenter James Gemmell and guests in the studio were top class and commentator Scotty Stevenson, an ultimate professional with Stephen Donald on his side, added his comments. Kimberlee Downs was also excellent on the ground in Japan. 

SKY, in my view, would be far more reliable taking the feed from the host broadcaster and televising through the usual paid-per-view service – they will surely be front runners for 2023.