Friday, 22nd June 2007

HEADLINES OF THE DAY

Fifa Pays $90m to Shake off Mastercard and Embrace Visa

Fifa, soccer’s world governing body today freed itself to resume its controversial sponsorship deal with credit card company Visa by reaching agreement for an out-of-court settlement with Visa’s rival Mastercard. The settlement comes at a high cost, however. Fifa will pay $90 million in compensation to Mastercard, nearly half the value of the sponsorship deal it agreed with Visa.

MasterCard took legal action against Fifa for breaking off negotiations with the company over a new sponsorship contract covering its competitions from 2007 to 2014 and agreeing an alternative deal with Visa, worth $180 million, plus $15 million in so-called ‘marketing-in-kind’ benefits. The deal was worth only marginally more than Mastercard had indicated it was willing to pay.

The settlement comes the week before a Fifa executive committee meeting at which a major restructuring of the organisation is due to be finalised. Last week it emerged that Jérôme Valcke, the former head of Fifa Marketing and TV who was one of four top officials ‘dismissed’ by Fifa in December last year for their part in the controversial sponsorship deal with Visa, has been working with Fifa president Sepp Blatter on the restructuring.

Despite Fifa’s claim to have dismissed Valcke and three of his colleagues after a New York court found that they ‘lied repeatedly,’ both to Visa and MasterCard, it emerged that Valcke was only suspended, not sacked, and could even return to the organisation in a new role as a result of the restructuring in which he is directly involved. Fifa announced the ‘dismissals’ the week after the court ruled that it must ditch its lucrative deal with Visa and instead proceed with a deal with MasterCard that had been provisionally agreed. Source: Sportcal, 21st Jun 2007


THIS WEEK

Sat, 23rd Jun 2007
Masters Football: Yorkshire Masters

Sun, 24th Jun 2007
WWE Monthly Special: Vengeance, Houston, Texas
DTM 2007: Race Day, Norisring, Germany
BTCC 2007: Race Day, Oulton Park, UK


SPORTS SHORTS

* Personal physician to Diego Maradona told media on Tuesday that Argentine star is "better than ever mentally" and said the former player had made a tremendous effort to recover from alcoholism. Maradona will travel to Venezuela to give the first kickoff in the Copa America. He said that Maradona plays tennis daily, and when the time permits he will return to indoor football, a variant of soccer known as showbol in Latin America. Source: Vietnam Net, 20th Jun 2007

* South-East Asian countries are aiming to define guidelines and encourage adoption of digital television in the region by 2008. Spearheaded by Singapore and Brunei, the ASEAN Digital Broadcasting Cooperative Initiative is seeking to pave the way for over 540 million people in the region to enjoy sharper picture and sound quality of digital TV. When the 10-member countries would do away with analogue broadcasts has not yet been decided, but officials said ongoing discussions would provide clearer indication on when to make the switch. Source: Earth Times, 21st Jun 2007

* ESPN has announced a restructuring of its content division aimed at adapting the company’s organization in light of a changing media landscape. It will launch a division focused on content development that travels across multiple media platforms. That group will essentially replace ESPN Original Entertainment, as the company now looks to produce content for platforms in addition to TV, including print, radio, mobile and the Web. Keith Clinkscales has been appointed Senior VP, content development & enterprises. Source: Mediaweek, Mediapost, B&C, 21st Jun 2007

* USA Network green-lighted a companion to its WWE wrestling fare - a reality show hosted by Steve-O in a Queer Eye-inspired makeover series which will see him "de-wussify" wimpy guys by making them perform his trademark crazy stunts. The show will run weekly on Mondays at 11 p.m., directly following USA's WWE Monday Night Raw. USA has been looking for a companion for Raw, which regularly ranks as the most-viewed weekly cable program, for several years. Source: Broadcasting & Cable, 21st Jun 2007

* Premium TV has agreed a 3-year deal to manage internet and mobile production for the English Premier League. PTV will produce near-live mobile match clips, match highlights, preview and round-up programmes. For broadband, it will produce highlights and round-ups. The clips will be distributed to the EPL’s international rights holders. The same delays apply as those imposed on club sites: clips of Saturday matches can be shown from the first minute of Monday, while other matches can be shown from the first minute of the following day they are played. Source: Sportcal, 21st Jun 2007

* Yahoo has acquired leading college sports website Rivals.com. The acquisition expands Yahoo's exposure to over 2.5 million fans of high school and college football and basketball and will boost Yahoo's presence in US sports. The site has over 180,000 subscribers and its revenue comes from e-commerce, subscribers and advertising. The acquisition boosts Yahoo's presence in sporting area, with Yahoo Sports attracting over 15 million visitors monthly, more than ESPN's 12.7 million. Source: Earth Times, NY Times, Mediaweek, Brand Republic, 21st Jun 2007

* Manchester City has today backed a takeover bid of £81.6 million ($162.7 million) from former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The telecoms billionaire is proceeding with an offer despite facing corruption charges in his home country. The offer comprises £0.40 in cash for each share, valuing the existing issued share capital of the club at £21.6 million plus net debt of approximately £60 million. There is speculation that Sven-Goran Eriksson will come in as team manager if the takeover goes ahead. Source: Sportcal, Channel News Asia, 21st Jun 2007

* Some of UK’s top tennis players will join former Wimbledon champs Goran Ivanisevic and Pat Cash in Turbo Tennis, a short-form knockout competition at London’s O2 Arena later this year. Six players will compete in 30-min matches in which there will be no lets and deuce is replaced by a single deciding point. The winner is whoever is in front at the end of the timed period. Andy Murray will be joined by his brother Jamie, Tim Henman and James Blake. The one-day event takes place on September 15. Source: Sportcal, 21st Jun 2007

* Six international golf tournaments taking place before the end of 2007 will form the early part of the European Tour’s 2008 schedule, beginning with the HSBC Champions tournament in Shanghai, from Nov 8 to 11. The $5-million event will be jointly sanctioned by the European Tour, the Asian Tour, the PGA Tour of Australia and the China Open. Other early events in the schedule are due to take place in Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa (two events), concluding with the South African Airways Open in Cape Town, South Africa. Source: Sportcal, 21st Jun 2007

* The Gold Coast Airport Marathon has broken last year’s record of 13,814 entries and the event will be beamed to an audience of up to 40 million people in Japan thanks to a landmark broadcast deal. The marketing campaign secured a dedicated television program to be shown on the TBS in Japan in a prime afternoon slot on Sunday, July 15. The program is produced by Kyodo Television. The Gold Coast Airport Marathon has a sister marathon relationship with the Senshu International Marathon which is held in Osaka each February. Source: Sports e-Media, 21st Jun 2007

* The Olympic future of cycling is secure despite massive doping problems, IOC president Jacques Rogge said. Rogge said the sport's governing body UCI can not be held responsible for doping offences of riders and that the UCI was doing its best to restore credibility in the sport. Cycling has been battered by doping over the past years. Rogge said that the IOC will highlight its zero tolerance policy against doping by further raising the number of doping tests from 3,700 in Athens 2004 to 4,500 next year in Beijing and 5,000 in London 2012. Source: Earth Times, 21st Jun 2007


MORE NEWS

WWE: New Broadcast Deals in Central, Eastern Europe

WWE has secured new deals with free and pay-TV broadcasters in Poland, Serbia, Greece and Turkey, totaling 196 hours of original programming to these four new markets. In Poland, WWE Raw will be broadcast on Extreme Sports Channel, a cable channel wholly owned by Liberty Global Europe. Extreme Sports Channel is available on digital cable as well as on many digital satellite services, airing in more than 50 territories and in 12 languages.

In Greece, Multichoice Hellas will broadcast WWE Raw on Supersport, terrestrially and via satellite on Nova, a DTH satellite service owned and operated by Multichoice Hellas. WWE Raw will launch in Serbia on Fox Televizija, and Digiturk, a DTH operator, will broadcast WWE Raw on S’NEK in Turkey.

“These television deals are milestones in the roll-out of WWE programming in Eastern and Southern Europe; it’s a direct response by program buyers who have seen the strong commercial potential of WWE throughout Europe,” said Andrew Whitaker, the deputy chief executive for international TV at WWE. “We appreciate the buyers’ confidence and are certain that our branded products will deliver the anticipated advertising, subscription and viewing results.” Source: Worldscreen, 21st Jun 2007

India/Broadcaster/New Media: Nimbus Launches Online Platform for Cricket

Nimbus is launching a new website which will offer live coverage of top international matches. The site – www.nimbuscricket.com – is going online in time for the ‘Summer Series’ of one-day internationals in Northern Ireland and Scotland, which begins Saturday. There will be live coverage of matches between India and Ireland, South Africa and Ireland, the three-match Future Cup series between India and South Africa, all of which take place in Belfast, and the Future Friendship Cup match between India and Pakistan in Glasgow.

Nimbus, which shows India’s matches on Neo Sports, already has distribution deals for the ‘Summer Series’ with five domestic broadcasters including state-owned Doordarshan, but is said to be struggling to attract advertisers. Nimbus stepped in to cover the matches after Zee Telefilms pulled out of its five-year, $219-million deal with the Board of Control for Cricket in India to show matches played at neutral venues. It already holds the rights to India's home matches until March 2010. Source: Sportcal, 21st Jun 2007

Global/General: Rosy forecast for HDTV by DTH

According to IMS Research, high-definition take-up will grow worldwide to some 148 million homes by 2011, with almost 41% receiving HD transmissions from satellite. IMS’ latest study, The Future of High-Definition TV - 2007 Edition, says growth in satellite-delivered HDTV over the next four years will be driven by US and European subscribers. IMS says that in Europe, slow deployment of digital cable opens opportunities for satellite to be the more common method of receiving pay-HDTV.

"Europe is expected to surpass the Asia Pacific region by the end of 2011 to become the second-largest HDTV market in the world behind the Americas," said Paul Erickson, market analyst at IMS Research. "Much of this growth will be fuelled by reduced MPEG-4 AVC set-top box costs for both operators and consumers, higher availability of local HD content, more competitive pricing for HD services, the growing popularity of flat-screen TVs, and sports-driven demand for HDTV." Source: Rapid TV News, Advanced Television, 21st Jun 2007

Global/General: Entertainment, Media Industry to Hit $2 Trillion in 2011

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the global entertainment and media industry will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 6.4% to $2 trillion in 2011, with the Internet, TV platforms and video games as the fastest-growing sectors, and Brazil, Russia, India and China as key markets for rapid growth.

The PricewaterhouseCoopers' Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2007-2011 predicts double-digit growth for digital and mobile spending during the next five years, rising to $153 billion by 2011. Furthermore, the spending on the distribution of entertainment and media on convergent platforms will exceed 50% of global spending by 2011.

Within the next five years, nearly half of the total industry growth is expected to be generated through online and wireless technologies and, during the same period, broadband households will grow by 300 million to 540 million subscribers and wireless subscribers will increase by 1.1 billion to 3.4 billion. Global advertising will increase at a 5.4 % CAGR to $531 billion in 2011 from $407 billion in 2006. The Internet will remain the fastest growing advertising medium, with a projected 18.3% CAGR to $73 billion in 2011, comprising 14 % of the global advertising market.

Spending on convergent platforms will grow faster than other platforms and will account for 72 % of the total entertainment and media growth during the next five years. Asia Pacific will be the fastest growing convergent platform region, with a projected 13.5 % increase. Double-digit growth is expected in Latin America.

Economic expansion and a surging entertainment and media market are driving significant growth in Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). Led by India and China, E&M spending in BRIC will increase by a 14.7% CAGR to $251.5 billion in 2011, accounting for 24% of global E&M growth during the next five years. In Asia Pacific, spending on distribution of TV programming on mobile phones is expected to reach $6.5 billion in 2011 from just $26 million in 2006.

Led by Saudi Arabia/Pan Arab and South Africa, Middle East/Africa will continue grow, averaging 8.5 % CAGR during the forecast period. TV distribution, Internet advertising and access spending and video games will be the fastest growth segments. Asia Pacific will remain the fastest-growing region. Spending in Asia Pacific will average 9.6 % annual growth, increasing from $297 billion in 2006 to $470 billion in 2011. India will be the fastest growing during the next five years at 18.5 % CAGR, followed by China with a 16.8 % CAGR. Latin America's E&M market, the second fastest-growing region, is projected to rise at an 8.9 % CAGR to $68 billion in 2011. Canada is projected to expand at a 5.6 % CAGR to $47 billion in 2011.

The global Internet market rose 21.8 %, the fastest-growing segment in 2006. Advertising rose 37.9 % and access spending increased 18.8 %. Globally, Internet advertising and access spending is expected to grow from $177 billion in 2006 to $332 billion in 2011. The global television distribution market, the second fastest-growing segment, increased by 9.4 % in 2006, an improvement compared with the 6.5 % increase in 2005.

Aggressive rollout of Internet protocol television from telephone companies is stimulating competition and fueling subscriber growth. Globally, the television distribution market will increase from $161 billion in 2006 to $251 billion in 2011.

The TV network market rose 6.2 % in 2006. Globally, spending will increase from $172 billion in 2006 to $228 billion in 2011. Sports increased 12 %. Spending in the sports segment is expected to increase from $96 billion in 2006 to $124 billion in 2011. Filmed entertainment rebounded in 2006 with a 2.9 % advance following a 2.6 % decline in 2005. Globally, filmed entertainment spending will rise from $81 billion in 2006 to $103 billion in 2011. Source: Worldscreen, Reuters, 21st Jun 2007