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RED CARD FOR THE KHAIYUM BROTHERS: The Three Big Lies At the Heart of the Fiji 7s Blackout; Qorvis own polling company Clarus blows whistle on pack of lies!

10/12/2014

12 Comments

 
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By VICTOR LAL
Fijileaks Investigation Team


A COPY of the Qorvis research document (prepared by their in-house polling company Clarus) is at the heart of the standoff between the Sayed-Khaiyum brothers and World Rugby/IRB over television coverage of the World 7s Series – and which again sees rugby fans starring at blank TV screens for a second weekend.

The Qorvis document is the crucial piece of misdirection that the Attorney-General Khaiyum has relied on to divert attention from a straight-forward commercial broadcast rights land-grab. The purpose of this brazen land-grab, titled the Television (Cross-Carriage of Designated Events) Decree is to disadvantage the already enfeebled Fiji TV, with less than 3 weeks of its current 6-month license remaining, while propping up the heavily-indebted FBC TV station run in profligate fashion by brother Riyaz.

But to achieve this, Aiyaz Khaiyum needed some kind of justification. So he reached out to the favourite political advisory and lobbying firm of repressive regimes around the world, Qorvis, who duly obliged.

According to the Qorvis document more than one thousand adults were polled by telephone and mobile over a two-week period in April and May, and the results tabulated and analysed by a Qorvis/Clarus research team headed by Dr Ron Faucheux, one-time MD of Qorvis, now a full partner in the company. Faucheux’s biography says ‘he is a recognized expert in using polling and research for strategy and message development’.

[It’s not clear who did the polling – an individual or entity in Fiji, a team from Qorvis/Clarus from Washington, or a third party in another country. Or what language was used for the questions. Or how the telephone and mobile numbers were sourced.]

The key to Khaiyum’s aggressive position with World Rugby – remarkably helpful to the government broadcaster FBC – is that the Qorvis research company produced a set of results showing that FBC TV had the larger audience share.

The audience share between FBC TV and Fiji One that has been repeatedly referenced within local media and in communication with World Rugby/IRB is FBC TV on 50 percent, Fiji TV on 43 percent (and Mai TV on 7 percent).

First lie – nowhere in the Clarus document is the 50: 43 percent split between FBC TV and Fiji TV’s audience share presented as a finding of the survey. There is not a single reference to, or conclusion drawn by Clarus in the document that reflects Khaiyum's assertion that the audience share between the two stations is 50:43.

But anyway, audience share means nothing in the context of live TV sport (acknowledged by the survey as the most popular programming of all). Audiences switch channels to whichever station is showing the live sport, which is why live sport is known amongst broadcasters as so-called ‘killer’ content. [Especially in Fiji where the spirit of doing whatever it takes to get where the TV signal is, in order to see the Fiji rugby team play, was referred to by letter writer Donald Pickering in the Fiji Times on December 10 – ‘MAYBE the Attorney-General has never heard the legendary stories about generators being carried to the top of mountains so that remote villagers could watch the Hong Kong Sevens.’]

But Khaiyum's usual smoke-and-mirrors and frequent references to Qorvis/Clarus being an ‘internationally-respected survey research firm’ allowed Khaiyum to present the issue as being about giving access to those who might be stuck with Fiji TV only.

Or as he told FBC News on December 3:  ‘There are many people for example in Naitasiri and Wainibokasi, who do not catch (the) Fiji TV signal.’ What the AG is talking about is audience reach, the technical ability of a broadcast signal to reach its audience.

Second lie
– the Clarus survey does not measure audience reach of any particular TV station and certainly does not indicate that FBC TV’s reach is stronger – quite the opposite, in fact, because of ….

Third and Biggest Lie
– which you only find if you drill into the small print on page 26 and 27 of the 36-page document.

The Clarus survey broke down the geographic spread of the 1000+ respondents into the four administrative divisions (North, East, Central, West) and also four population density groups (Urban, Peri Urban, Rural and Maritime).

If Khaiyum’s aggressive message to World Rugby/IRB is to be believed then FBC TV should be easily the most popular TV station in the Rural and Maritime groups (‘Naitasiri and Wainibokasi …’).

In fact, the survey completely undermines Khaiyum's bold claims for his brother’s TV station: 7 percent of Rural communities and 11 percent of Maritime said they ‘Never’ watched FBC TV (i.e. can’t watch or won’t watch) versus 6 percent and 13 respectively for Fiji TV.

Given that the survey acknowledged a sampling error of +/- 3 percent, Clarus could show no statistical difference whatsoever between the two stations’ popularity in the remotest areas of the country, whose rugby fans the Khaiyum brothers say they are waging war on behalf of.  In fact – given that the sampling error may ‘over-state’ FBC TV’s popularity in the Rural and Maritime – there is the possibility that in these remote areas Fiji TV has both the more popular and better technical service.

As letter writer Pickering concluded to the Fiji Times: ‘If we don't get to watch the Dubai or Port Elizabeth Sevens because of some decree, then all I can say is, "lucky the elections were not held next week"’.

Fijileaks Editor:
http://www.fijileaks.com/home/despite-being-shown-the-red-card-and-match-blackout-the-khaiyum-brothers-continue-to-assert-they-are-right-and-no-mention-of-polling-company-clarus-research-link-to-qorvis

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 In his signed letter (3 December 2014) to World Rugby, Khaiyum claimed that viewers in rural and outer islands would be better off with FBC TV to catch signal, adding that Fiji TV agrees, but just look at Clarus Report (below): the survey noted that over 80 per cent were satisfied with their TV reception in rural and outer islands!

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In 2013 and 2014, Khaiyum dished out to Qorvis $1.39M, $19,900 and $1M respectively; the money belonged to the people of Fiji - how much was paid to Clarus Research Group?

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From Fijileaks Archive, 2012
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12 Comments
thug rule link
10/12/2014 12:37:52 pm

this is just a reminder that Fiji is still very much under thug rule.

Reply
tualeita
10/12/2014 01:06:48 pm

Most of us do not realize that we have been lied to by this government. Why should we believe that even the elections last September were free and fair.

Reply
Yep link
10/12/2014 02:45:10 pm

You shouldn't because the elections last september was NOT free and fair.
Nevermind what any idiot - including the international ones - tell you.
The elections was stage managed by the dictator and his cronies to ensure he retained his hold on power and did not end up in Naboro.

Reply
plea to Khaiyum;
10/12/2014 11:37:02 pm

We just want to watch the Sevens - Please that's all.

Reply
pathetic link
11/12/2014 02:14:09 pm

So it's come to this : the people of Fiji - the Fijians - having to beg Khaiyum to watch rugby. How low have the Fijian people fallen!
Shame on them, shame, shame, shame!!!

Reply
Pitiable!
12/12/2014 01:33:07 pm

Don't call me low! - I just want to watch Sevens- Now what crime is that? I beg, I grovel but I have seen people do worse - I don't have affairs with my cabbie's wife - at least!

Fiji First Party
11/12/2014 12:12:37 am

One needed Qorvis for his $3Million Dollars worth of INADEQUACIES. When ones’ words were failing to express the truth…And who's the One, we ASK?

And despite Three (3) Million dollars of TAX squandered on their PR -Bainimarama and Aiyaz, unfortunately, remain the ‘pitiable ‘Intellectual Property Thieves’ (CHORS) that they actually are.

No, Money can’t buy RESPECT man. No amount of Qorvis can cover-up the ‘Fiji First Naam CHORI Story’. But that’s beside the point.

The point is, a simple pleasure, the poor people of Fiji, enjoy the most, cheering for their boyz, playing the Rugby Sevens, around the world, is denied to them, entirely due to - Who?? -we ASK.

Reply
Good Question
11/12/2014 12:24:15 am

Good Question -FijiLeaks- Where is the Hon. Minister of Sports in this Sordid Affair ???

Reply
yep link
11/12/2014 02:12:01 am

Hon Sports Minister and every other Hon Minister is just for show. That we are a parliamentary democracy with an elected government and Cabinet etc. Fact is Fiji is still a dictatorship with Bai and Kai still calling the shot on EVERYTHING!

Reply
Glorious Qorvis
11/12/2014 04:09:50 am

Can we believe this?? - $3 F@#King Million! - spend towards meeting which Millennium Goal?

Oh... Project PR, – of making the bad, the ugly, the ROTTEN…all look good in the eyes of the stupid 'pleep' people.

Reply
The King and his Paupers…
11/12/2014 04:47:44 am

Now the whole world has seen what jolly good FUN, Hon. Bainimarama and his Mosese and Co.,had in Dubai Sevens.

Now compare that to the ‘blankness’ of our TV screens. Are we not people Bainimarama? Who love Rugby too??


Reply
Who Paid??
12/12/2014 01:53:21 pm

Who Paid for Baini's Mosese's Jolly Good Fun??

Reply

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