THE head of Australia's most powerful racing club yesterday slammed a decision by Queensland Racing to align itself with Sky Channel and not industry-owned broadcaster TVN, reports The Age.It says: The chief executive of the Victorian Racing Club, Dale Monteith, said he believes that the Queensland racing industry has denied racing in Australia an opportunity to take control of its own destiny.Monteith was speaking after a deal in principle between Queensland Racing and Tabcorp was agreed on Fri

THE head of Australia's most powerful racing club yesterday slammed a decision by Queensland Racing to align itself with Sky Channel and not industry-owned broadcaster TVN, reports The Age.

It says: The chief executive of the Victorian Racing Club, Dale Monteith, said he believes that the Queensland racing industry has denied racing in Australia an opportunity to take control of its own destiny.

Monteith was speaking after a deal in principle between Queensland Racing and Tabcorp was agreed on Friday, a decision seen as a strategic loss for TVN.

''If Queensland Racing had joined with TVN, it would have furthered the commercialisation of our media assets,'' he said.

''TVN was created for this very purpose when Sky, then owned by TAB Ltd, made it very clear that clubs would no longer receive rights fees for their pictures.

''Yet, obscenely, Sky then, and now, continues to make tens of millions of dollars profit each year from racing pictures.''

Monteith said he understood that Queensland Racing had benefited significantly from TVN's existence and maintained ''that they have achieved rights fees well in excess from what they were previously getting''.

Monteith said: ''Mark my words, when the current memorandum of understanding between TVN and Sky expires in 2012, that TVN shareholder clubs will not accept anything less than full value for their rights and this will be considerably more than is received at present.''

Last Friday's decision for Queensland to join Sky and reject TVN has ended TVN's hopes that it would have all the eastern seaboard for its pictures in the future.

But Monteith is fearful that the hard-fought war between Sky Channel and TVN could flare again in 2012 unless a reasonable agreement is achieved beforehand.