Despite the animal abuse scandal, plenty of punters still love a bet – and the media loves the money that pours in from the industry

This article is more than 10 months old

This article is more than 10 months old

The Melbourne Cup is “in every sense a sacred occasion, unique to the Western world”, a commentator in the Australian wrote on Monday, the day before the big race.

The Daily Telegraph printed a 28-page liftout but it was the Herald Sun, being the tabloid in the hometown of the Melbourne Cup, which devoted the most space in the lead-up: 39 pages of racing and gambling pages on Saturday, 43 on Sunday and 40 on Monday.

There is no shortage of hyperbole when it comes to the print media’s obsession with the horse racing industry’s two biggest events: the Melbourne Cup and in recent years, Sydney’s Everest. The Sydney Morning Herald and the Age also embrace the events, but their coverage is more modest and their racing guides are a fraction the size of the Murdoch papers’ pages.

damon johnston (@damonheraldsun) Today’s @theheraldsun special #MelbourneCup front pages pic.twitter.com/kbC3gjw0au

The spring racing carnival is an opportunity for front-page stories, colourful wrap-arounds, liftouts, fashion features, racing guides, office sweep guides and endless reports on the jockeys, trainers and horses.

And the animal cruelty scandal has not diminished the coverage of the Melbourne Cup. Streem media monitoring says in the week leading up to the cup there were 4,044 news items across online, print, radio and TV in 2018. It is slightly up this year, to 4,284.

But has it had an impact on what the public thinks?

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The horse racing writer Ken Callander says race attendances are down but gambling keeps the sport alive.

“You’ve only got to look at the money that’s invested in horse races with the corporate bookmakers and you realise that there’s still a great interest,” Callander told Guardian Australia. “If you go into any hotel or club on a Saturday afternoon … you’ll be amazed by the interest of the punters in the TAB areas.”

The interest is not so much in the racing itself but in the gambling.

“As much as the purists like to kid that it’s not, gambling supports racing,” Callander says. “And I love the horses and I love the race. But it’d be naive to say that the average Joe’s interest in racing extends far past the dollar.”

Herald Sun (@theheraldsun) The Melbourne Cup is more than black ink on a balance sheet.



These are the moments that define the magic of the Cup.https://t.co/icMujXD1xz

The key to why the newspapers are such fans of horse racing lies in the amount of money that pours in to the depleted coffers of the newspapers from the racing and gambling industry each year.

Over the past 12 months, Nielsen Ad Intel reports an estimated advertising spend of $27.9m on horse racing. There are dozens of advertisers including Moonee Valley Racing Club, Racing NSW, Racing Victoria and TattsBet Ltd, the parent company for betting brands TAB, Unitab and UBET and others.

A former News Corp executive said at one stage in the 1990s some of the tabloids were running a form guide of 60 or 70 pages each week. “The TAB came to us and said, ‘You’re running 20 pages a week, what about you run 50 pages a week,’ and then it was increased dramatically to 60 or 70 pages a week,” he said.

“We ran everything, including the overseas exotic races, in exchange for a significant amount of money. It’s nothing like an advertising page rate but when you add it all up over the year it’s a significant amount of money from each of the state-based organisations, which was then backed up as well by advertising spend.

The TAB doubles down and buys more advertising when there’s a negative story Former News Corp editor

“The deals started to get more complex when the newspapers were trying to defend their position. Like everything in the print media in the last 10 years everything has been renegotiated. Then you got the entry of the private bookmakers and the online bookies, and they started sponsoring some of the pages.”

After a 50-year career as a leading racing commentator Callander stormed out of the Daily Telegraph in 2015 because he felt he was being censored when he wrote about the governing body of the industry, Racing NSW.

Now retired, Callander wants to put the stoush with News Corp behind him but at the time he said the Daily Telegraph is a “propaganda sheet for Racing NSW”.

The commercial arrangements around the publication of the form guides and the lucrative broadcasting rights make it tricky for journalists to report critically on the industry, sources say.

It was the public broadcaster, which has no commercial ties, that revealed widespread acts of animal cruelty against racehorses on ABC’s 7.30 last month.

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A former News Corp sports editor told Guardian Australia the form guide drives circulation and in some states the form guide was so lucrative it paid for the newsprint. “Friday is always the bestselling paper because of the form guide,” he says.

“Journos used to pour scorn on the advertising guys but when the revenues turned sour attitudes changed.

“The TAB’s relationship with the paper is powerful. I can tell you for a fact they’re hopelessly compromised. The TAB doubles down and buys more advertising when there’s a negative story.”

Figures are hard to come by, but the Sydney Morning Herald reported in 2016 that the Tele received $4m to $6m every year from Racing NSW to publish the form guide.

Peter Blunden (@PeterBlunden_) Delighted for Good Friday Appeal to receive $65,000 from Racing Victoria, super jockey Craig Williams and CEO Giles Thompson. And thanks to Michael Felgate. So many fabulous institutions joining in the spirit of community generosity in Victoria. pic.twitter.com/Q09D5X4T41

A devotion to the races runs deep at News Corp, especially in Victoria where the managing director of the Herald and Weekly Times, Peter Blunden, is an enthusiast of horse racing and a director of the Moonee Valley Racing Club.

The journalist and anti-gambling campaigner Stephen Mayne believes Blunden’s close links to the racing industry are in conflict with his role on the Herald Sun.

“Blunden has an obvious conflict of interest being a director of the Moonee Valley Racing Club,” Mayne told Guardian Australia. “How can the Herald Sun possibly cover the racing industry objectively when the man in charge is one of the people responsible for stewarding and directing Victoria’s racing industry?”

But Blunden denied there was a conflict.

“As a lifelong racing enthusiast, a horse lover and unashamed supporter of the sport, I also know how to balance the challenges confronting the industry,” he told Guardian Australia. “We have led the media coverage of cruelty and integrity issues, fully aired the ABC claims and led our paper with the industry’s response.

“I am more than comfortable with how the Herald Sun covers racing issues, both on and off the track.”

Mayne also called for TattsBet (the parent company of the TAB) and News Corp to “come clean about the scope and extent of their close commercial relationship”.

Peter Blunden (@PeterBlunden_) We’re all set for the most momentous day in Australian racing history. Go Winx.

🏇🏼🏇🏼🏇🏼🏇🏼 pic.twitter.com/OUK4CHRYeY

“By running 122 pages of racing and gambling industry content in the three days to Monday, the Herald Sun has shown itself to be completely captured by gambling/racing interests and tone deaf on where community sentiment is shifting on the animal cruelty question.”