Mike Dillon: TV cuts could hit turnover

No, Thursday's bomb scare at the Racing Board/TAB headquarters in Wellington was not the act of a disgruntled former employee.

It's an open secret a raft of TAB presenters, directors, producers and support staff have been made redundant by the Racing Board this week.

On Thursday someone found a discarded bag at the TAB offices with something inside that sounded like it might have been ticking.

Staff stood outside while the bomb squad's robot dismantled the bag that contained a cellphone returned by one of the redundant staff members.

The TAB is tied until next week by the niceties of the Employment Contract regulations and could make no official comment yesterday.

But the list of those facing redundancies was becoming widespread yesterday.

We all know we are in tough financial times. Prudence is important.

The Racing Board was told earlier this year it had to makes savings of $10 million.

But someone once said you can't find glamour in a balance sheet.

And racing is a glamour game.

And because its wall-to-wall racing these days it is also very much an information game.

You can strongly argue that levels of betting closely parallel the amount of information that is made available to punters.

Retrenchment only works if it works. It doesn't always.

Quite often the front foot approach is best and there will be plenty prepared to declare that this is one of those situations.

Go all out to improve the product to generate more betting.

You have to hope that Trackside Television's not having on-course presenters for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday race meetings does not have an enormous detrimental affect on betting levels and that savings by redundancies is followed by lower returns.

That is a totally undesirable downward spiral.

Trainer Graham Richardson might breeze past Steve Davis on camera at a Wednesday Te Aroha meeting and mention his horse could be a rough trifecta chance in Race 7.

Tony Herlihy might do the same at a Tuesday night Cambridge harness meeting.

That won't happen now.

Let's hope the effects of these moves aren't felt with further drops in turnover.

While the TAB is not saying how many jobs are under review, there have been suggestions as many as 36 may be lost.

Three of those affected by the changes are presenter Justin Le Leivere, northern area flood manager Mark Claydon and Central Districts' Adrian Jones.

Claydon has been a major player behind the scenes for 22 years with the TAB, before Trackside began.

It is understood they were asked to submit to management how their skills could now be best used by the channel.

New Racing Board CEO Andrew Brown, reportedly on a $900,000 salary, said in a statement yesterday that the board was reviewing costs in all areas to "minimise the impact of the current economic environment on the long-term sustainability of racing".

It said it had started a consultation process with employees around changes, largely in information technology and broadcasting.

The board was assessing the future of its Trackside shows NZ Retro, Box Seat Retro, Lures and Leads and Born To Run, Brown said. The First Call and Box Seat preview shows would continue.

Last week Brown said the board was reviewing the commission fees that it pays to many of the pubs and clubs which provide TAB services.

Board chairman Michael Stiassny announced in March that management had been charged with delivering savings of $10 million a year.

ARC TO MAKE 12 STAFF REDUNDANT

The Auckland Racing Club yesterday announced 12 redundancies as the major cost-cutting review got underway at the New Zealand Racing Board, which runs the TAB.

The ARC has cut 12 jobs in its marketing and hospitality departments following its own review of costs.

ARC chairman Bill Gianotti said the club's marketing budget had been reduced after a review which looked at all areas of its business. "We wanted to ensure that the business was as strong as it could be with reduced stakes payouts from the industry, fewer sponsors and reduced totes," he said.

"The priority is providing returns to owners."

In the new racing season, which starts today, $10.145 million would be offered by the club in stakemoney - a fall from the $11.691 million distributed this season.

- additional reporting NZPA