The Olympics Sports team Abdul Rahim and Muhammad Sadiq Padela, Gold Coast, Australia, April 3, 2018: The organizers of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games have suspended the accreditation of a major Australian free-to-air television network after it broke news access rules and showed footage of the Opening Ceremony dress rehearsal on its prime-time news (Channel 9 accreditation).
GOLDOC confirmed the suspension of all Channel 9 accreditations at the daily briefing in the Main Press Centre on Tuesday (3 April).
“It broke our news access rules,” GOLDOC’s chief executive officer Mark PETERS (AUS) said. “So there has to be a consequence, the same way there is a consequence for athletes and officials, and so the consequence is we have suspended their accreditations. We will review them in the next few days.
“The other 16,000 volunteers and people (audience) respected the fact we asked them not to do it. And then they put it on their news service.”
Australia’s Channel 7 has the exclusive rights to cover the Games. Other local broadcasters have only limited access in their coverage and are not allowed to film at any competition venues.
The Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) backed GOLDOC’s action.
CGF chief executive David GREVEMBERG (USA) said he was disappointed by Channel 9’s action.
“This is serious, this is taking away from everyone’s experience. This is taking away from the experience of the athletes, it is taking away the experience of the performers, it is taking away from the experience of the Commonwealth.
I can’t stress this enough, we are very disappointed,” GREVEMBERG said. —- GC2018
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