I'm confused how you think the ARU has any control over whether Channel 10 show the match live.
Don't the Channels have to bid and pay to show the games? The ARU could have dropped their price to televise the games on free to air tv. Their are 2 other networks who could have televised it too.
I work in finance. The first thing you learn is, make sure you save enough money in the good times so you can get through the bad times. They did not do this. Now it seems when they need to take some hits, eg. Take a lower offer to air free-to-air so they can win back supporters for the long-term. But they can't afford to do this. IMO They are making desperate short-term decisions which will have short-term financial benefits. Eg. Making another fixture on the EOYT when it is clearly not the best for player performance. Quality over Quantity. And getting rid of the mid-week matches against club sides as their is no financial benefit. But those fixtures could have increased our performance which in the long-term would get back supporters who enjoy watching a more high performance game.
Big business is not as simple, TEN don't want to show it on TV, so it not the ARU's fault. The ARU are the controlling body, they have obviously made some poor decisions somewhere (hiring poor coaches, finance, staff, grass-roots development, failing to compete with the marketing of its competition) for rugby to be in this poor position.