Tuesday, 5th December 2006

HEADLINES OF THE DAY

Staged Protest in Indonesia

Despite the fact that authorities have said the death of a nine-year-old boy in Indonesia had nothing to do with WWE®, local activists are still trying to fuel the fire by staging what is clearly seen as a contrived protest. In fact, AP posted a photo of a "protest" on-line. Here are the facts as we know them:

* The father of the boy claimed that three 15-year-old boys beat up his nine- year-old son in mid-October practicing wrestling moves they saw on TV.
* Yet it took the father a week after the incident occurred before he sought medical care for his son. The boy died one month later from causes not yet identified.
* The police noted an autopsy was forbidden by the child’s family for religious reasons. As a result the police have indicated in the media that because there is no permission to conduct the autopsy, they are seeking the child’s medical records from the hospital. The police are continuing their investigation into the actual cause.

WWE continues to monitor the situation. Source: WWE Site, Yahoo! Business, Business Wire, Stock Watch, Union Bank of California, Merrill Lynch, 3rd December 2006

China Eases Limits on Foreign Media For 2008 Olympics

China pledged to temporarily relax its strict limits on foreign media for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, saying foreign journalists will have unprecedented freedom to travel and report within the country beginning next year. The new regulations, revealed Friday by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, apply to foreign journalists covering the Beijing Olympics and "related matters in China," and are set to expire in October 2008, after the games are completed. A ministry spokesman, said foreign media would have freedom to write "not only to the Games itself," but also about political, economic and social issues. The announcement reflects pressure by the International Olympic Committee and human-rights groups for China to provide an atmosphere of greater freedom and openness for the Olympics, as well as the Chinese government's desire to be seen as an increasingly powerful, but benevolent global power.

Foreign journalists in China are required to obtain approval from local governments before conducting interviews in their territories. While that regulation isn't always enforced, it does enable local authorities to detain and expel reporters investigating issues officials deem sensitive. When China won the bid to host the 2008 Olympics Chinese leaders pledged that it would lead to greater freedoms and development of human rights. Source: The Wall Street Journal, 4th December 2006

Liverpool FC in £450m Dubai Buyout

Dubai International Capital is on the verge of a £450 million takeover deal for English Premier League club Liverpool. The club's board is reported to have given the company, the international investment arm of the Dubai government-owned Dubai Holdings, the right to study the club's books and complete a deal. The board rejected a £450 million bid from American multi-millionaire George Gillett Junior, as well as up to three other rival offers.

Dubai International Capital already owns several UK assets, including Madame Tussauds, the London Eye and the Travelodge chain. The deal faces opposition from Liverpool fans who are opposed to the club falling into overseas hands, although it remains unclear whether the company is mounting a full takeover, or acquiring a smaller controlling stake for an injection of cash. Source: Sport Business, EUFootball.biz, Indian Television, Sportal Australia, 4th December 2006


INFO DIGEST

Individual Events at Doha 2006 - Did You Know?
* Athletics: Many athletic feats, once deemed unattainable, were reached in the 20th century, including the 4-minute mile, a sub-10sec 100m dash and a 2.44m high jump.
* Gymnastics: Russian gymnast Nadia Comaneci scored the first perfect 10 in Olympic history at the 1076 Montreal Games – and did it six more times during the rest of the competition.
* Equestrian: The Doha 2006 cross country venue at the Sport City public park will feature 22 obstacles and 30 jumps including two water jumps.
* Equestrian Endurance: Veterinarians will regularly check horses for health and dehydration throughout races. To continue a race, horses must pass these checks including exhibiting a heart rate of no more than 64 beats per minute during each check.
* Weightlifting & Bodybuilding: The oldest man to win the Mr Olympia title – bodybuilding’s most prestigious event – was Chris Dickerson at age 43 in 1982. Today, he is an accomplished opera vocalist.
* Sepak Takraw: The name is derived from the Malay language where ‘sepak’ means kick and “takraw” means woven ball.
* Triathlon: The annual Hawaii Ironman Triathlon, far longer than the Olympic distance event, combines a 3.86km swim, 180.2km cycle and 42.2km marathon. Despite this punishing agenda, hundreds of traithletes flock to Hawaii to prove their physical and mental prowess.
Source: Doha 2006 Gold Magazine


SPORTS SHORTS

* The National Basketball Association (NBA) expects to have set up a new entity in China that might operate a local NBA-branded league. NBA commissioner David Stern said last week that the American league is exploring a model to place all of its assets in China in an enterprise with all NBA rights, including sponsorship and merchandise revenue, TV deals in China, and the ability to operate a league "such as NBA of China”. Stern said: "It's something that will be articulated by the close of the (2008) Beijing Olympics.” Source: Sports Media, 4th December 2006

* Direct satellite television subscribers in China will exceed 15 million by 2010, according to the 2006-2007 Report on China’s Satellite Television Industry. Cable-TV subscribers in China reached 140 million in the first half of 2006. Two thirds of these households still receive wireless TV signals and some regions fail to receive any signals, People’s Daily Online reports. The report says that direct satellite television has an advantage in signal coverage and can be applied in commercial operation. The report was jointly compiled by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) and a research and consulting institute specialising in digital TV called GL Research. Source: Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union, Worldscreen, 4th December 2006

* China Central Television (CCTV), the national broadcaster of China, has renewed a multi-year contract for the global distribution of its programming with Intelsat. CCTV is also utilising Intelsat for its international backhaul transmission of the Asian Games from Doha, Qatar, back to Beijing. A long-standing customer since the launch of PAS-2 in 1994, CCTV became the world’s first global Mandarin Chinese television service when it expanded its services internationally via the PAS-3 satellite in 1995. Intelsat currently provides full-time programme distribution services for CCTV via its PAS-1R Atlantic Ocean Region satellite, PAS-9 Atlantic Ocean Region satellite and PAS-10 Indian Ocean Region satellite. Source: Digital Media Asia, 1st December 2006

* Italian public broadcaster RAI, after emerging from a long stalemate with Italy’s football federation (FIGC) over rights to the TIM Cup (Coppa Italia), is certainly making the most of them. RAI 3 showed Palermo versus Sampdoria live on Thursday night, the third night in a row that RAI showed live matches in the competition in prime time. RAI Sport director Massimo de Luca told Gazzetta dello Sport: “The ratings are modest but they’re in line with what we expected. This is the round of 16 with match-ups that are not particularly appetising. It will be more interesting from the quarter-finals on.” RAI has agreed to pay €12 million for the rights, which is less than half the €26 million it paid last season. Source: Sports Media, 4th December 2006

* London-based Airtime International is handling sponsorship sales and television distribution of the inaugural PDC (Professional Darts Corporation) Dubai Masters darts event, featuring the world’s top players, scheduled for June 21-22, 2007. Matchroom Sport will produce coverage of the event, with Showtime Sports Net Dubai showing seven or eight hours live in prime time. Broadcasters planning to take the event will be Sky Sports (UK), Sport 1 (Netherlands), ESPN Star (pan-Asia), SuperSport (South Africa), Fox Sports Australia, Viasat (Scandinavia) and DSF (German, Austria and Switzerland). Source: Sports Media, 4th December 2006


MORE NEWS

China/Business: Cottbus To Forge Gouan Partnership

German 1.Bundesliga club Energie Cottbus has announced it is set to forge a partnership with Chinese top flight outfit Gouan Beijing. Gouan is a former club of Jiayi Shao, who moved to Cottbus from TSV München von 1860 in the summer. Gouan vice-presidents You Wen and Wie Ke Xing visited Cottbus at the weekend to begin talks. Cottbus was promoted to the German top flight last season. “The aim of the visit is to discuss the structure of a co-operation between Gouan Beijing and the Energie Cottbus in the area of youth and talent development,” read a statement on the German club’s official website, www.fcenergie.de.

As part of the trip the Chinese duo had a look at the Cottbus Under-19 team in action, and later on today they will visit the local Lausitzer elite sports school. Cottbus was i n the news last month when it was confirmed that German Chancellor Angela Merkel will become an honorary member in the New Year. Cottbus is the only team in the top flight from the former East Germany. It is currently 13th in the 1.Bundesliga. Source: Football Insider, 4th December 2006

India/Broadcaster: TRAI-India mulls replacing CAS with DTH

The tussle between Indian cable operators and Multi-System Operators (MSOs) on the implementation of Conditional Access System (CAS) may prompt broadcasting regulator the Telecom Regulatory of India (TRAI) to replace CAS with Direct-to-Home (DTH) service. TRAI has reviewed the progress among three parties - broadcasters, MSOs and cable operators - for offering CAS and has noted that the agreement between cable operators and MSOs is not “adequate” to ensure implementation of CAS by the 1 January deadline set by the Delhi High Court. In such a scenario, TRAI is left with no option but to look for alternative rules and one of the options could be replacing CAS with DTH services, Zee News reports.

As per the rules for CAS, notified by the country’s Information and Broadcasting Ministry, in case of any snag in the implementation of CAS, TRAI has to look for alternatives so that subscribers do not suffer. According to the review undertaken by TRAI on preparation for CAS implementation, set top boxes have not yet been given to subscribers and even cable operators have not approached users in their respective areas as per the requirement. Although the broadcasters and MSOs have reached an agreement for this, the tussle between MSOs and cable operators may derail the entire process. Source: Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union, 4th December 2006

Elsewhere/Business: UFC’s next set of goals

Global. That’s where Dana White, president of the UFC, wants to go. That's the word surround the next set of five-year goals. The UFC may be the biggest MMA organization in the United States, but there is a lot of competition overseas, including PRIDE. "We just opened an office in London. We'll have four to six fights in the UK and we're starting to creep out into Europe. We're in about 160 countries right now in some form of television."

However, the push to move worldwide won't curb growth in this country. White says the UFC will continue to move around the country, and certainly won't forget the markets that were on their side in the early days. "We're talking about going to Texas," White said. "We'll definitely be in Louisiana." Source: Shreveport Times, 2nd December 2006

Elsewhere/Broadcaster: 50,000 register for BT Vision

Telco BT has claimed that 50,000 of its three million UK broadband customers have already signed up for its BT Vision service, which launched today, and will be connected over the coming months. A year from now, BT aims to have more than 100,000 customers connected to its hybrid digital terrestrial television/IPTV service and is targeting two-three million in "the medium term."

The company is taking a cautious approach in the early stages of the roll-out, and is delaying an advertising push until next year. It is keen to avoid the kind of customer backlash suffered by rival telco Carphone Warehouse when it was swamped by demand for its free broadband service. BT Vision, which comprises an 80-hour personal video recorder, 40 Freeview TV channels, a one-week TV replay service and 1,000 hours of on-demand movies, music, TV and sport, is being offered free apart from a £90 (US$178) installation fee.
The most eye-catching part of the package is live Premiership football, pitching BT into direct competition with Sky. BT has struck a deal with Setanta Sports, which has the rights to screen 46 live Premiership games and 242 'near live' matches for the 2007-2010 seasons. The ability to watch live matches on a pay per view basis and without the need for a fixed subscription – which with Sky ranges from £34 to £43.50 per month – is likely to be a major selling point for BT and could re-draw the battle lines in the UK pay-TV market. BT says it is investing £100m in supporting BT Vision over the next financial year and hopes it will be profitable within three or four years. Source: C21 Media, Times Online, Igoo UK, 4th December 2006


ARTICLES, COMMENTS & OPINIONS

Cricket still matters to channels and advertisers

The cricket dilemma comes to light again. Recent cricketing events have consistently delivered inconsistent results. The latest – the India-South Africa series – gets added to this list, and with one game being a washout and the India team demonstrating its worst performances ever in the other matches, the credibility of cricket as a property for both channels and advertisers comes into question again. The match was aired on both ESPN and STAR Sports. TAM Media Research data shows that for the target CS 15+ in the all India market, ESPN has a total rating of 3.37 for the match and STAR Sports has 1.11.

Looking at the channel shares, ESPN is the new leader for this week, closely followed by Ten Sports (which has been the leader in the genre otherwise) and then STAR Sports. The difference between ESPN and Ten Sports might have been different had the numbers of the first match been reflected, but at present, the gap between the two is marginal. Observers felt that from a channel's point of view, cricket would continue to be important for a long time, but the stability in the property's pricing might be near. Neo Sports was the top rate channel a couple of months back in the week the channel aired cricket. Another vindication comes in channels queuing for the ICC rights and players like Sony Entertainment Television backing out – cricket is still important, but not important enough to burn your fingers completely.

From an advertiser's point of view, cricket is still hot. In a recent interview, HLL's GM, Media Services, Rahul Welde, had said that cricket was perhaps the only property left that allowed a mass impact for male and family audiences together. Throwing more light on what the property meant to brands, he said, "The male delivery on cricket cannot be questioned or matched when seen for involvement. The closest that television otherwise has to offer are events like STAR Parivaar Awards or other film awards and so on."

The media approach to cricket was not so different last year as well. Whether media experts foresee or plain hope, the expectation is that cricket rates would rationalise going forward. Article by Noor Fathima Warsia on Exchange4Media, 4th December 2006