Totalisator Agency Board in Australia and New Zealand, universally shortened to TAB, is the name given to monopoly totalisator organisations. All were originally government owned. In Victoria for instance, the State government owned Victorian Totalisator Agency Board began operating in March 1961.
The Australian TABs have been progressively privatised, beginning with Victoria in 1994.
The TABs have extensive radio networks in Australia, except in Victoria and Tasmania where other parties own equivalent networks. All these networks share the National Racing Service, a continuous broadcast of thoroughbred, harness and greyhound racing. This makes up the bulk of these networks' content. Collectively, these networks own more radio licences than any other group in Australia - however their terrestrial coverage is less than the ABC as they generally have tiny wattages.
The heir of the NSW TAB also owns a national racing subscription TV service. In New Zealand, the TAB owns a near-national free-to-air and national subscription TV service. Most New Zealanders can sit at their analogue TV with a standard aerial and watch racing.
Throughout the mid-2000s, the TABs in Australia were involved in a dispute with Betfair, attempting to deny the organisation access to a license in Australia. The Tasmanian government granted access to a licence in 2005 (with advertising prominent throughout the state). In a media smear campaign, one of the TABs at one point ran advertisements that aimed to undermine Betfair's credibility (due to horses being laid to lose).
The New Zealand TAB was replaced by the New Zealand Racing Board in 2003.
Radio TAB is also used to live sports coverage (including horse racing) in parts of Australia.
Famous quotes containing the words agency and/or board:
“It is possible that the telephone has been responsible for more business inefficiency than any other agency except laudanum.... In the old days when you wanted to get in touch with a man you wrote a note, sprinkled it with sand, and gave it to a man on horseback. It probably was delivered within half an hour, depending on how big a lunch the horse had had. But in these busy days of rush-rush-rush, it is sometimes a week before you can catch your man on the telephone.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“Midway the lake we took on board two manly-looking middle-aged men.... I talked with one of them, telling him that I had come all this distance partly to see where the white pine, the Eastern stuff of which our houses are built, grew, but that on this and a previous excursion into another part of Maine I had found it a scarce tree; and I asked him where I must look for it. With a smile, he answered that he could hardly tell me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)