The Race That Stops The Nation will have a new home next year, with the broadcast rights for the Melbourne Cup currently being negotiated.
Channel 10 has chosen not to proceed with pursuing the rights, with the bidding now coming down to either Seven West Media or Nine Entertainment Co.
2023 marks the final year of 10’s broadcast rights deal – first signed in 2018 for $100 million – with the new deal to hand over the rights from 2024 to 2029.
In a statement, Paramount said:
“Network 10 has declined Tabcorp’s and the Victoria Racing Club’s (VRC) invitation to progress further in the process to secure broadcast rights for the Melbourne Cup Carnival after the current agreement finishes with this year’s Carnival.
“Network 10 would like to acknowledge the VRC for a successful partnership in broadcasting the Melbourne Cup Carnival to millions of Australians since 2019.
“When the landmark rights agreement was struck, we saw it as important to engage new, younger and growing audiences to the Carnival and the sport of racing. We achieved this even receiving a recent Logie nomination for the 2022 Melbourne Cup Carnival broadcast for Most Outstanding Sports Coverage.
“Throughout Network 10’s tenure, the Lexus Melbourne Cup has dominated its timeslot for people 16 to 39, with a commercial share ranging between 81.7% and 91.4%.
“Network 10 is proud to have brought the Melbourne Cup Carnival to Australians during two years of COVID-19 restrictions in 2020 and 2021.
“Throughout the course of the current negotiations, it became clear that the nature of the agreement between Tabcorp and the VRC would require a move towards a core racing and wagering-focused broadcast product.
“Given this likely change in focus combined with commercial constraints of the future agreement, Network 10 considered the preferences of its viewers and advertisers, and politely declined to move forward with the process.
“Network 10 remains the Melbourne Cup Carnival rightsholder for 2023 and looks forward to providing coverage of this year’s Carnival, bringing viewers all the exciting action on and off the track.
“Network 10 wishes Tabcorp and the VRC all the best with their current process over the coming weeks and their new partnership from 2024.”
Last year, The Melbourne Cup saw punters shivering through the coldest race day since 1995.
1,024,000 tuned in to watch as Gold Trip and jockey Mark Zahra took the win. Viewers on 10 Play saw the Melbourne Cup race average 152,000 live stream viewers – it was 10 Play’s biggest live stream audience of 2022.