Thursday, 21st June 2007

RESULTS

Source: International Herald Tribune, 21st Jun 2007
Juan Roman Riquelme scored a pair of second-half goals and Boca Juniors defeated Gremio 2-0 to win its sixth Copa Libertadores title on Wednesday. Riquelme, playing his farewell match with the Argentine club, scored with a well-placed shot from outside the area to give Boca its fourth title in seven years. He added another in the 80th minute on a rebound from a shot by Palacio. The Argentine club won the first leg 3-0 last week in Buenos Aires and could have clinched the title even if it had lost by two goals. The victory sparked a shower of fireworks over the Argentine capital.


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


INFO BOX

The World’s Most Expensive Cities in 2007
Source: Info IQ, 20th Jun 2007

Moscow is the world's most expensive city for expatriates for the second consecutive year, according to the latest Cost of Living Survey from Mercer Human Resource Consulting. London is in second, climbing three places from last year. Seoul moves down one place in the ranking to take third place, followed by Tokyo in fourth. Asuncion in Paraguay is the least expensive city for the fifth year running.

The survey covers 143 cities across six continents and measures the comparative cost of over 200 items in each location, including housing, transport, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment. It is the world's most comprehensive cost of living survey and is used to help multinational companies and governments determine compensation allowances for their expatriate employees.

Europe, Middle East, Africa: Europe dominated the top 50, placing 30 cities on the list and capturing six of spots in the top ten. Strong currencies helped push most European cities higher for 2007. Eight Asian cities were on the top 50 list, led by Seoul, Korea in third place. The biggest mover was Taipei, Taiwan which dropped from 28th to 48th.


SPORTS SHORTS

* According to rumours in Ezeiza, where Argentina prepare for the Copa America, Juan Roman Riquelme has indicated to national team boss Alfio Basile that he is available for a part in the Copa America. If Riquelme is selected, it will be a huge surprise, especially since he hasn’t played for the national team since Basile’s debut as manager when they lost 3-0 to Brazil. The former Barcelona and Villarreal star is in outstanding form since returning to Argentine football earlier this year, and played a key role in Boca Juniors’ Copa Libertadores success. Source: Goal.com, 21st Jun 2007

* Protests near stadia, airports, hotels and major roads have been banned during the forthcoming Copa America in Venezuela, as the country’s government bids to prevent opponents of President Hugo Chavez from disrupting the tournament. Protesters, provoked by a decision to force an opposition television station off the air, have nevertheless denied that they plan to disrupt the Copa America, which involves national teams from the continent. The tournament is scheduled for June 26 to July 15. Source: Sportcal, 20th Jun 2007

* Kurt Angle continues to give the impression that he's considering switching from the WWE to mixed martial arts. In a recent press conference with reporters, UFC president Dana White spoke about the possibility of Angle stepping into the octagon. Regardless of which organization Angle chooses to sign with, the final decision might be left to a doctor since, in the course of his pro-wrestling career, Angle has broken his neck twice. However, Angle is optimistic about his health and he's got a good feeling about his chances in the world of MMA as well. Source: Bodog Beat, 19th Jun 2007

* Qatar yesterday formally submitted a bid to host soccer’s 2011 Asian Cup, two days before the deadline for applications. India and Iran have also expressed interest, but have yet to formalise their bids, according to the Asian Football Confederation. Qatar, which hosted the Asian Games in Doha last year, also played host to the Asian Cup in 1988. The host of the 2011 Asian Cup will be decided on July 29, the day of the final of this year’s competition in Jakarta, Indonesia. Source: Sportcal, 20th Jun 2007

* CyberFund, Inc. announced that Malaysian telco, Celcom, has penned a collaboration with ROK TV, a UK-based mobile entertainment specialist. The agreement will enable Celcom to offer mobile TV service to customers via GPRS and 3G, making Celcom the first telco in Malaysia to do so via both networks. Users will enjoy best picture quality and end-user experience without increase in hardware requirements. Celcom will leverage on ROK TV's mobile television solution to offer multimedia content in line with evolving market interests. Service kicks off in August 2007. Source: Prime Newswire, 20th Jun 2007

* ESPN, the US cable sports broadcaster, will this year air its most extensive coverage of Wimbledon, tennis’ UK grand slam tennis event. The coverage will include more than 120 hours of coverage on ESPN2 and three separate channels on ESPN360.com, ESPN’s broadband service. Day-long live coverage will run the length of the tournament, from June 25 to July 8. Source: Sportcal, 20th Jun 2007

* Qualcomm’s MediaFlo reckons it will beat DVB-H by end of year. Omar Javaid, VP/business development for MediaFlo, said he expected MediaFlo to overtake other TV-to-mobile rivals by the end of the year. MediaFlo has a commitment from Japan’s KDDI to start transmissions and capacity is expected to be available for mobile TV broadcasts in Taiwan next year. He said Nokia's patent counter-suit against Qualcomm, alleging infringement of six patents in MediaFlo mobile TV and Brew technology, had not had impact on the business. Source: Rapid TV News, 20th Jun 2007

* Research by UK-based mobile VoIP company Vyke reveals that a user who sends a 160-character text message — approx. 160 bytes of data — it costs about 12p working out at more than £700 per MB. In comparison, NASA spends £61.50 per MB downloading data from the Hubble Space telescope located some miles above the Earth. Voice and text are huge revenue generators for mobile and Vyke is highlighting the costs in a bid to educate users worldwide on a way to send free text messages worldwide using Vyke Pro, a downloadable programme compatible with all recent Java enabled handsets. Source: Vyke Communications, 19th Jun 2007

* Justine Henin has been a finalist in the last 5 Grand Slam events she's played in and is #1 women's seed at Wimbledon this year. She collected her third consecutive French Open title this month and is early favorite to win her first Wimbledon title. She finished second to Amelie Mauresmo last year and to Venus Williams in 2001. Roger Federer, who won the 2007 Australian Open and was second at the French Open, is the top men's seed. Federer is seeking to be the first man to win five consecutive Wimbledon titles since Bjorn Borg in 1976-80. Source: Earth Times, 20th Jun 2007


MORE NEWS

WWE: Licensing Deals for Branded Apparel

World Wrestling Entertainment has reached licensing agreements with fashion distributors Hybrid Tees and Fifth Sun to roll out WWE-branded apparel into major mass and mid-tier retailers as well as specialty and independent stores throughout the U.S. Traditionally, WWE-branded product has been sold primarily at WWE live events and online at WWEshop.com. Hybrid Tees has produced WWE branded T-shirts, tank tops, fleeces and hats for distribution to mass and mid-tier stores.

These two new license agreements are in addition to the WWE’s partnership with the national casual apparel retailer Steve & Barry’s. WWE-branded apparel now available at Steve & Barry’s includes sweatshirts, T-shirts, hats, and more. WWE branded T-shirts, first introduced in early January 2007, have sold well at Steve & Barry’s stores. A full apparel line will rollout at the retailer this fall. Source: Worldscreen, 20th Jun 2007

Mid-East/Rights: ART Fights Back in Gulf Soccer ‘Wars’

Regional pay-TV platform Arab Radio & Television, having lost exclusive rights to English Premiership soccer, is fighting back. ART has acquired rights to broadcast English Premier League games 24 hours after their initial live transmission on arch-rival Showtime Arabia’s pay-TV bouquet. Additionally, ART has secured this coming season’s Saudi League, arguably at least as important as English soccer, and is bidding for the UAE soccer league.

Showtime has paid a small fortune to secure the English games away from ART, and will make the games the backbone of its promotional activity this coming season. Broadcasts will be on offer in either original English or Arabic, along with live local analysis of the matches. Showtime's CEO, Marc-Antoine d' Halluin, is sceptical about the prospects of regional games to attract large audiences.

d' Halluin also stated that few sporting competitions have the power that the English Premier League wields over audiences, and defended the huge price Showtime paid to secure the rights to the Premiership. "It is completely worth it as it is one of the only sporting competitions that drives extensive viewing figures," he added. One local insider cautioned: “There are three important sports in the region,” he said. “National soccer, regional soccer and international soccer. ART might have got it right.” Source: Rapid TV News, 20th Jun 2007

Singapore/New Media: Eyeing Mobile TV

A status report on the mobile TV market in Singapore was presented at the mobile TV forum in Broadcast Asia. There are trials being conducted by three operators and the ministry of information is hoping that the service would launch after several months. As for HDTV, there is one commercial service already on and two trials are running. Five operators are already offering IPTV.

TV Mobile, a subsidiary of Mediacorp, was the first channel in the world to pioneer the use of DVB-T technology to deliver content to consumers on the move. TVMobile is currently available in 1,500 buses, shopping malls, food courts, ferries and academic institutions. It airs from 6 am to midnight and currently has one transmitting site, nine filler transmitting sites and two transponders located island wide. The digital signal is carried via ATM and microwave transmitting medium to the main transmitting site before being retransmitted to the filler sites.

Meanwhile, TV2Go is the first independent mobile TV broadcasting network in Singapore. It is undergoing trial on multiple platforms and on consumer appliances. It supports over 20 digital channels and is available on a variety of electronic devices like PDA, laptops and PCs. GK Media is also launching new broadcast advertising platforms that will support the live reception of TV2go on taxis, buses and OOH billboards. It functions on the Terrestrial DVB-H standard. Source: Indian Television, 20th Jun 2007

Swedish mobile video specialist, Kamera, has been selected as a broadcast partner for Singapore’s first live DVB-H mobile TV service TV2GO which will be launched this summer by operator PGK Media. The service will broadcast Kamera’s entertainment news channel WOW!TV. It will line up alongside CNBC Asia Pacific, ESPN Star Sports and others. Henrik Eklund, CEO of Kamera, said: “South-East Asia is one of the world’s most interesting markets for 360-exploitation of TV rights and TV2GO is a DVB-H project totally in tune with our ambitions.” WOW!TV has been picked up by over 25 mobile operators worldwide. Source: ScandAsia Singapore, 20th Jun 2007

Elsewhere/Rights: Euro 2008 TV Rights News

In the United Kingdom
An impasse over UK television coverage of soccer’s 2008 European Championships has been broken, with free-to-air broadcasters BBC and ITV today announcing a deal to show all 31 matches exclusively live during the three-week tournament in Austria and Switzerland. The agreement also includes highlights and internet and mobile rights. The joint deal is said to be worth over £50 million ($99 million) and values the rights at a higher price per match than the broadcasters' joint contract covering last year’s World Cup.

The BBC, the UK’s public-service broadcaster, and ITV, its commercial rival , are believed to have paid £105 million for the rights to all 64 matches at the 2006 competition in Germany, as part of a deal which also included the 2002 World Cup. Uefa, European soccer’s governing body, had hoped to raise as much as £90 million from Euro 2008 television deals in the UK via Sportfive, the international sports agency that is distributing the rights on its behalf. Source: Sportcal, Sporting Life, 20th Jun 2007

In Austria
Meanwhile, Austrian public service broadcaster, ORF, says it has still not agreed a deal with Sportfive, the for the rights to 2008 European Championships. Austria is due to co-host the event with Switzerland and ORF is seen as the leading candidate to acquire the rights after ATV, the commercial network, pulled out of the race earlier this month. However, it is refusing to meet the asking price of €18 million ($24.2 million) for live coverage of all 31 games.

Elmar Oberhauser, ORF’s news director, told Austrian news website, oe24.at, that, as things stood, he could not foresee ‘a conclusion or a result,’ and also described reports that a deal could be agreed in the next few days as ‘complete nonsense and unthinkable.’ In October, Austrian press reports claimed that ORF had won the rights to Euro 2008 after agreeing a €15 million fee, but no deal was forthcoming. Oberhauser today repeated his warning that he was ‘not ready to pay €18 million to Uefa when other countries were getting the rights for less money.'

These include Switzerland, where a deal worth €6.8 million deal was signed with SRG SSR, the public-service broadcaster, for live and highlights rights to all 31 games. Oberhauser added that he was responsible for licence-payers money and had to handle it carefully. ORF paid around €5 million for the rights to the European Championships in Portugal in 2004.

Deals were reached earlier this week in Germany with public-service broadcasters ARD and ZDF, which have agreed to pay €115 million ($154 million) for exclusive free-to-air rights to 27 of the 31 matches at Euro 2008. Agreements are also in place in France with commercial broadcasters TF1 and M6 and in Italy with public-service broadcaster Rai, leaving Spain and hosts Austria as the most prominent countries where rights to the tournament have yet to be sold. Source: Sportcal, 20th Jun 2007

Elsewhere/General: Real Madrid Deal Raises Question on Online Gaming

Spain's communications watchdog, Asociación de Usuarios de la Comunicación (AUC), has logged a formal complaint with Spain's Ministry of Economy and Taxes, demanding an investigation into online gaming company, bwin's sponsorship of Real Madrid. Real Madrid earlier this month signed a deal to make Austrian on-line betting firm Bwin its main sponsor. The Spanish media reported the deal to be worth between €15 million and €20 million.

The AUC believes that the shirt sponsorship is breaking up to as many as eight Spanish laws which they claim make it illegal for unlicensed online gaming companies to advertise their services in Spain. 888.com’s shirt sponsorship of Seville and Miapuesta’s deal with Figueres have also caught the attention of the AUC. Source: Sport Business, 20th Jun 2007


ARTICLES, COMMENTS & OPINIONS

Malaysian Sports Cable TV Viewers Get Better Deal
Source: The Electric New Paper, 20th Jun 2007

Are Singapore sports cable television subscribers getting the best value for money? From next month, subscribers of the Basic Tier will have to fork out an additional $4 more per month (amounting to $24 before the new 7 per cent GST rate). This will affect all of StarHub's 490,000 home cable television subscribers. And sports fans will have to pay an extra $10 more for the Sports Group from October onwards (amounting to $25 before GST).

While StarHub is yet to announce its new sports plan details, The New Paper studied current cable subscription packages of three neighbouring countries - Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. The verdict: Malaysia's Astro seems to be the best deal on paper. Like StarHub subscribers, Astro viewers have to sign up for a basic package before they can add on the sports channels, along with one other mini-package of three to four channels.

But here's the crucial difference.

Football lovers in Malaysia have a wider variety to choose from, with J-League, Copa Libertadores and the Cocacaf Gold Cup on offer, in addition to the EPL, Spanish Primera Liga and Italian Serie A. What's more, the cheapest Astro Family Package (with a mini-package and sports) is about $12 less than StarHub's present minimum sports package of $36.75. And it offers seven more channels than Singapore's StarHub.

On the surface, the Paket Prime and Paket Sport combination offered by Indonesia's IndoVision seems similar to StarHub's minimum package in terms of price and sports programmes on offer. The Indonesian broadcaster does not show the Spanish league matches, but offers the Italian Serie A instead, and only a two-dollar difference separates them.

But if you look beyond the sports channels, you will see how IndoVision also trumps StarHub. IndoVision offers 40 non-sports channels in its Paket Prime, compared to StarHub's offer of a maximum of 14 similar channels at the same price. What's more, the former offers channels such as Playhouse Disney Channel, Celestial Movies and Fashion TV, which StarHub subscribers have to pay an extra fee of between $4 and $8 per month to add each channel on.

Of the four countries, only Thailand's TrueVision subscribers have to pay about $22 more (or about $15 more after the new StarHub hike) than current StarHub subscribers under their Gold Package. The package also includes more exclusive content such as Manchester United TV and Liverpool TV, which StarHub packages under Football Favourites, an 'add-on' group that comes at a separate price. While the cheapest True Knowledge package offers a sports channel as well, viewers will only get to watch sports such as boxing, and WWE wrestling.

Conclusion: At its current prices, StarHub's offerings seem to lag way behind Astro's deals for Malaysian viewers, and appear on par with Indonesia's IndoVision.