Overview
TVN (Thoroughbred Vision) was an Australian thoroughbred horse-racing TV channel. It was carried on Foxtel, Austar and Optus TV, as well as other subscription TV services. The channel was set up by the Victorian thoroughbred racing industry and Sydney metropolitan racing clubs as an alternative to Sky Racing and as an attempt by the racing clubs concerned "to capture the valuable assets of racing media rights and leverage them to the benefit of racing".
TVN was 50% owned by Victorian racings organisations Melbourne Racing Club, Victoria Racing Club, Moonee Valley Racing Club and Country Racing Victoria; and 50% by the Sydney-based, Australian Turf Club. It launched in May 2005 and ceased almost 10 years later in March 2015.
History
Prior to the launch of TVN, Sky Channel purchased the rights to broadcast race meetings from almost all racing clubs across the country and then resold the rights to pubs and clubs, back to the racing venues and also to DTH subscribers.
TVN was formed after TabCorp, the owner of Sky Racing, pulled out of plans it was developing with Racing Victoria Limited in February 2005 to launch a dedicated thoroughbred racing channel apart from Sky Channel's other broadcasts, which included harness racing and greyhound racing, with Sky Channel chief executive Peter Caillard stating that "the fledgling TVN model is a risky proposition to all the racing codes and is not in a position to showcase thoroughbred racing to its full potential".
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).