Thursday, 29th March 2007

HEADLINES OF THE DAY

Women's Tennis Calendar Set for Major Overhaul

Women’s tennis is to get a major overhaul, after the board of the WTA, the women’s professional tennis governing body, approved plans for a streamlined tournament schedule in 2009. The schedule will include a longer off-season and fewer top-level events, in a bid to increase player participation and reduce injuries.

There will be four top-level events – existing events in Key Biscane and Indian Wells in USA and new ones in Madrid and Beijing - in which participation is mandatory, together with increased prize money and a drive into China. Prize money will increase to an estimated $72 million in 2009, a 30-per-cent hike on this year, but top-10 players failing to take part in tournaments will be subject to suspensions and larger fines than previously.

The streamlined schedule will consist of 20 events, comprising eight in North America, seven in Europe and five in the Asia-Pacific region. Previously there were 26 tier I and II events. The season-ending tour championships will be switched from November to October, extending the off-season to nine weeks from seven. Source: Sportcal, 28th March 2007


WHAT’S THE BUZZ?

Yahoo to Offer Unlimited Email Storage

Yahoo Inc. plans to offer unlimited e-mail storage to its quarter of a billion users, starting in May. The world's biggest e-mail service is scrapping its free e-mail storage limit of 1 gigabyte responding to explosive growth in attachment sizes as people share more photos, music and videos via e-mail. Microsoft has a 2 gigabyte free e-mail storage limit, while Google caps its Gmail service at 2.8 gigabytes.

The decision to remove e-mail storage limits reflects the plunging cost of storage as new computers store up to a trillion bytes of data and owners of 80-gigabyte iPods can carry 100 hours of video in their pockets. By contrast, Yahoo first introduced its e-mail service under a decade ago and capped storage at 4 megabytes per user. At that time, an "ultra high-density" floppy disk for personal computers then held 144 megabytes.

Starting in May, the changeover to unlimited storage should take a month. One caveat Yahoo makes is that the offer is for personal use and subject to guidelines against abuse that apply to Yahoo Mail. No one can build a business giving away unlimited storage to other consumers using Yahoo Mail, executives said.

Two countries -- China and Japan -- are excluded. "We will continue working with these markets on their storage plans," John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo Mail said in a statement. Yahoo is a minority owner with partner Softbank in Yahoo Japan Corp. and a part owner with Alibaba of the Yahoo business in China.

Yahoo is also looking at increasing storage for other services such as its Flickr photo-sharing service. "We are looking at those on a case-by-case basis," he said. It's a far cry from when giving away 2 megabytes of data was considered a big deal, said David Nakayama, Yahoo's group vice president of engineering and developer of RocketMail, which Yahoo acquired and relaunched as Yahoo Mail in 1997. Source: Reuters on Yahoo!, 28th March 2007


INFO BOX

Global Product Placement Spending

Global paid product placement grew 37.2% to $3.36 billion in 2006 and is forecast to grow 30.3% to $4.38 billion in 2007, driven by relaxed European regulations, emerging Asian markets and shifting American models, according to PQ Media. The U.S. remains the largest global market for product placement, accounting for 66% of spending. Growth in the European and Asian placement markets will accelerate going forward, as legal restraints are loosened and global brand marketers move to capitalize on emerging opportunities in these regions.

TV placements remain the dominant choice of brand marketers, accounting for 71.4% of global spending in 2006 at $2.40 billion, with projected growth of 33.9% in 2007. Film placements comprised 26.4%, or $885.1 million, in 2006 with forecasted growth of 20.5% this year, driven by cross-promotional packages linking movie placements to ad spots, websites and point-of-purchase displays, as well as virtual embedding for local targeting.

While placements in other media account for only 2% of total spending, growth will exceed 30% over the next several years due to increased demand for videogame and online placements aimed at the elusive 18- to 34-year-old demograp hic.

The Americas will remain the largest and fastest-growing region for paid product placement in 2007, with projected spend of $3.79 billion and growth of 31.2%, followed by Asia and Europe. The United States will remain the world's largest market for product placement in 2007 with spending of $2.90 billion, followed by Brazil, Mexico, Australia, and Japan. China will be the world's fastest-growing product placement market in 2007 with spending growth of 34.5%, trailed by the U.S., Italy, India and Canada. Source: Info IQ, 28th March 2007


SPORTS SHORTS

* Malaysia’s government will push ahead with its digital-terrestrial project, starting in 2009 and due with analogue switch-off due in 2015. Malaysia has formally adopted DVB-T and is aiming for digital transmissions to start in Kuala Lumpur first, before extending signals countrywide. A recent 1,000-home six-month trial of the technology by Radio Television Malaysia (RTM) showed 60% of respondents rating signal quality as either good or very good, with 88% saying picture quality improved overall. Two multiplexes were approved for the trial. Source: Rapid TV News, 28th March 2007

* China may order mobile networks in Hong Kong to tear down their 'trail' 3G networks in favour of TD-SCDMA. Although no 3G licences have been issued to cover the mainland yet, the government had announced that 'trail' TD-SCDMA networks are to be built in eight Chinese cities. TD-SCDMA is China's own version of 3G and a direct competitor to W-CDMA, already offered in Hong Kong. However, Franklin Lavin, U.S. undersecretary of commerce for international trade, has urged China to let carriers make their own choice. China is the world's biggest mobile phone market with 461 million phones, and the decision would have far-reaching effects on the equipment market. Source: Ken Radio, Telecom Asia, 28th March 2007

* Qualcomm, developer of code division multiple access (CDMA) and other advanced wireless technologies, and KDDI Corporation, who together established MediaFLO Japan Planning Incorporated in December 2005, have revealed results from an extensive consumer survey of attitudes towards mobile TV. The survey included more than 3,000 Japanese consumers and showed subscribers are more likely to take up mobile broadcast services when they experience it firsthand, providing evidence of commercial viability for MediaFLO services in the Japanese market. Source: Advanced Television, 26th March 2007

* Thailand’s telecom industry is headed for a showdown between the independent regulator and the government's ICT Ministry. The dispute centers on a proposal by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to license the country's power utilities to offer telecommunications services over their existing fiber optic lines. Three state-owned electricity agencies are interested in earning money by leasing their fiber optic networks to operators to provide data and broadband Internet services and possibly broadband power lines in the future. Source: Telecom Asia, 28th March 2007

* The ATP Board approved Shanghai to host the ATP’s Asian Masters Series tournament, starting in 2009. Shanghai has hosted the men’s season-ending Tennis Masters Cup on three occasions. The first was in 2002 followed by 2005 and 2006 and will continue to stage the tournament in China for the next two years. Tennis Masters Cup Tournament Director and ATP CEO International, Brad Drewett said the tournament had played a significant role in the development and popularity of the game in not only Shanghai, but also China as a whole. Source: Sport Business, 28th March 2007

* Canada’s CBC has reached a six-year deal with the National Hockey League (NHL) until 2014. The national English-language broadcast rights - plus multimedia rights - will start when the current agreement expires after next season. CBC will continue to air Live Hockey Night In Canada - now in its 54th season. Local press estimates put the deal at C$85 million. Versus will remain as the main NHL broadcaster in the US, who earlier exercised an option to pay US$72.5 million for the 2007-08 season and picked up the rights for the following three seasons. Source: Sports Media, Sportcal, Sport Business, 28th March 2007

* Diego Maradona will lead a team of fellow retired stars of Argentina’s national football team as the ShowBol Tour hits Central America to play indoor matches in Costa Rica and Ecuador. Buenos Aires-based Nexus Entertainment is selling the rights to the ShowBol Tour. The company said there are plans to visit Italy, Egypt, France and Spain. Source: Sports Media, 28th March 2007

* UK commercial broadcaster, ITV, has appointed digital rights company Premium TV to stream live internet coverage of the Boat Race, the high-profile rowing race between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The event will be shown simultaneously and free of charge on both ITV1 and itv.com on April 7. Viewers who miss the race can catch-up the video-on-demand service, which is also available at no fee. Premium TV already provides live streaming of ITV’s coverage of the Champions League, European soccer’s top clubs competition. Source: Sportcal, 28th March 2007

* As it attempts to put the disaster of the ESPN-branded phone behind it, ESPN announced a programming lineup for its new mobile channel, ESPN Mobile TV, which is being offered in the US through Verizon V Cast and MediaFlo’s platform. The channel will stream live ESPN events, including Arena Football games and the Summer X Games, while also feature made-for-mobile news shows, including ScoreCenter and ESPN ReSet. Source: Mediaweek, 28th March 2007

* The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) has signalled bold intentions to stage the 2014 World Cup by launching a logo it will use to promote the event. The logo was unveilled in the Swedish town of Trosa ahead of Brazil’s 1-0 friendly win over Ghana in Stockholm (Sweden) on Tuesday. “Brazilian football, because of what it represents in the world, and our people deserve a World Cup,” Brazil coach Dunga told the CBF’s official website, CBFNews.UOL.com.br. “The time has arrived for Brazil to host a World Cup once more.” Source: Football Insider, 28th March 2007

* Swimming legend Mark Spitz has launched an attack on FINA, the sport’s world governing body, accusing them of having no respect for athletes' well-being. Spitz is upset that this month’s world championships programme was not switched to have morning finals and evening heats, mirroring the controversial decision at next year's Beijing Olympics. Spitz said it was ludicrous the needs of the athletes were not put ahead of revenue. Source: Sportcal, 28th March 2007

* The FAI, the international aeronautics federation, will take over supervision of the Red Bull Air Race. Beginning with the race in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates on April 6, the FAI said its ‘experienced safety expert Roger Schad will supervise the preparation and conduct of each of the 12 races in the 2007 series.’ The series involves planes flying low to the ground over an obstacle race between air-filled pylons at speeds of up to 250mph. IMG Media last year agreed a three-year deal to acquire the complete worldwide media rights for the series. Source: Sportcal, 28th March 2007


MORE NEWS

Hong Kong/Broadcaster: PCCW Achieves Forecast

Hong Kong’s PCCW ended 2006 with 758,000 IPTV subscribers, which is just over the 750,000 that it had forecast for the year. This is an increase of 209,000 over IPTV subscribers at the end of 2006. PCCW's broadband subscribers grew to 1.117 million at the end of 2006 from 953,000 at the end of 2005.

PCCW received HK$739 million (US$95 million) in IPTV and content revenue in 2006. 501,000 of the 750,000 IPTV subscribers are pay TV subscribers. (The remaining 249,000 IPTV subscribers take only the free channels included in the broadband subscription.) The ARPU for IPTV and interactive services grew to HK$140 (US$18) at the end of 2006 compared to HK$114 (US$15) at the end of 2005.

PCCW added more than 30 TV channels in 2006 bringing its total to 120. This included exclusive rights for broadcasting the English Premier League (EPL) and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) soccer matches. PCCW plans to introduce HD in H2 2007 using ADSL-2+ at 18 Mbps. Source: Bob Larribeau Blogs on Telco TV View, View PCCW’s 2006 Results, 28th March 2007

Elsewhere/General: TWI Keeps Big Production Deal

The contract to deliver the Premier League internationally has gone to TWI again. The production arm of IMG Media, has been re-appointed as the EPL’s production partner, producing and distributing all of its matches for the overseas TV market for another three years. The deal kicks off with the 2007-08 Barclays Premiership season.

TWI, producer of the Premiership’s international coverage since 1998, will offer international licensees all 380 matches live via satellite, including 92 in high-definition. The deal - comprising 900 hours of production in total per season - also includes weekly production of a highlights show, a midweek magazine and a Friday night preview programme.

Graham Fry, managing director of TWI Production said: “We are delighted to continue our successful relationship with the Premier League. The League is broadcast in over 160 countries with a global home reach in excess of 570 million, making it the world’s most watched domestic league competition. As a partnership, we are confident that we will be able to achieve even greater heights in building its popularity and profile worldwide over the next three years.” Source: Sports Media, Sport Business, Sportcal, EUFootball.biz, 28th March 2007