Tuesday, 11th September 2007

SPORTS SHORTS

* The Philippines’ leading cable provider, SkyCable, recently announced programming enhancements that will introduce all-new and exciting channels produced both by well-established international cable brands as well as locally syndicated ones. SkyCable will be one of the first cable providers in the world to carry AXN BEYOND by January 1, 2008. Other channels to be introduced include action and adventure-seeking men called MAXXX and new sports channel BALLS. With the entry of these new channels, SkyCable will no longer carry Basketball TV, Solar Sports, Jack, ETC, 2nd Avenue and Crime/Suspense effective December 31, 2007. Source: Sky Cable Release, 9th Sep 2007

* GMA Network’s GMA Pinoy TV, is considering a second international channel in the Philippines. Plans for the new service should be under way within 12 months. The network is also holding thumbs for its European entry before its third birthday, and says new pay-TV developments in Singapore and Hong Kong bode well for its launch in those two markets. The entertainment pay-TV service GMA Pinoy, launched in August 2005, claims about 140,000 subscribers in the U.S., Japan, Guam, Saipan, Papua New Guinea, the Middle East, North Africa and Hawaii. The channel targets 8 million Filipinos living and working outside of the Philippines. Source: Content Asia, 10th Sep 2007

* Malaysia’s dominant free-TV broadcaster, Media Prima, plans to spend RM250 million/US$72 million on content next year, the company said at its annual screenings earlier this month. The new s late for Media Prima’s four channels – TV3, 8TV, TV9 and ntv7 – includes Bionic Woman, Heroes and Ultraman Max, as well as a raft of local shows. 8TV’s schedule next year will include Grey’s Anatomy 4, Private Practice and Cashmere Mafia. Source: Content Asia, 10th Sep 2007

* Korean Broadcasting System’s (KBS) international channel, KBS World, launched in China on 1 September as part of the official SinoSat satellite platform. The channel will have access to 250 hotels from the platform, KBS said. Channels broadcast from SinoSat are also available to foreign compounds. KBS World will serve about 4.5 million Korean visitors to China every year. The channel will also be available to 700,000 Koreans living in China. Source: Content Asia, Worldscreen, 10th Sep 2007

* Indonesia’s Broadcasting Commission (KPI) has asked broadcasters to air cleaner content for Ramadhan. The request has gone to free-TV broadcasters as well as pay-TV and radio operations. No-go topics include violence, sex, and mystical beliefs, even if they are on comedy shows, KPI said. AGB Nielsen Media Research reports that comedy and quiz dominated last year’s Ramadhan schedule, especially the Sahur time slot (2am-5am, when Muslims eat before the daily fast begins). Out of 10 TV stations broadcasting nationwide, only Metro TV offered religious programming at dawn. Viewership data shows that other stations compete fiercely for comedy and quiz viewers. Source: Content Asia, 10th Sep 2007

* Neo Sports will be available to around 3 million more viewers after a deal was agreed with multi-system operator Amogh Broadband Services, the leading cable network in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. Neo Sports and Neo Sports Plus will be available to 600,000 of the 1.5 million cable and satellite households in Bangalore and 2.5 million of the 5 million in the rest of the region. Taking into consideration the recent deal with Tata Sky, India’s leading direct-to-home platform, Neo Sports is now available in 40% of cable and satellite homes throughout the country. Source: Sportcal, Indian Television, 10th Sep 2007

* The Indian Hockey Federation is reported to have proposed the city of Chennai to host this year’s Champions Trophy, should the tournament be shifted from Pakistan on security grounds. The IHF submitted its bid for the event on Friday. The FIH, field hockey’s world governing body, is said to have advised India and Malaysia to submit their bids before Sunday. Chennai hosted the Champions Trophy in 1996 and 2005. Reports say that South Korea has followed Australia’s lead in withdrawing from the tournament over safety concerns. It added that India and Malaysia were asked to submit their bids amid growing fears that more nations could withdraw. Source: Sportcal, 10th Sep 2007

* The Japanese motor racing circuits of Fuji and Suzuka will share the country’s Formula 1 grand prix from 2009 onwards. Fuji, which is owned by automobile giant Toyota, is due to stage the Japanese Grand Prix this year and next before Honda-owned Suzuka returns to the schedule in 2009. The two tracks will then alternate as hosts. Fuji staged the first two Japanese races in 1976 and 1977 but then disappeared from the calendar and Suzuka has been the home of the grand prix since it was revived in 1987. This year's race takes place on September 30. Source: Sportcal, 10th Sep 2007

* ESPN Star Sports, which holds the global media rights to ICC competitions for the next eight years, has concluded deals in as many as 110 countries. These include Geo TV in Pakistan, which is paying $5 million for the rights, including the Asian-language rights in the UK, and Ten Sports, which acquired the rights in the Middle East for around $500,000. As the rights holder, ESS and its affiliates will offer live coverage in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand and China. Source: Sportcal, 10th Sep 2007

* Spike TV has announced a two-year extension of its partnership with TNA Entertainment, keeping it as the exclusive cable television home of TNA (Totally Nonstop Action) Wrestling’s weekly athletic entertainment series, iMPACT!, which will expand to two hours beginning October 4 in the United States. TNA iMPACT! launched on Spike TV in 2005, and has nearly doubled its initial audience over the past two years. The series now averages a 1.1 HH rating and an average audience of 1.3 million viewers, up 15 percent and 18 percent respectively. Source: Worldscreen, 10th Sep 2007

* Swiss public service broadcaster, SRG SSR, has expressed interest in continuing coverage of F1, if it can generate sufficient advertising revenue. SRG SSR currently holds the rights in Switzerland, but has decided not to renew its contract, which expires at the end of this year. Commercial broadcaster RTL is also reported to be interested in acquiring the German-language rights in Switzerland, but has been asked to pay around €2.5 million ($3.45 million). Meanwhile, officials from U1 TV, the private German-language cable and digital terrestrial broadcaster from Switzerland are said to have been in talks with Bernie Ecclestone, offering around €2 million for the rights. Source: Sportcal, 10th Sep 2007

* Irish broadcaster, RTE, has a real fight on its hands to retain exclusive rights to all football and hurling championship matches. They have shown around 50 games this season and have a relationship with the GAA dating back to 1926, when 2RN became the first radio station in Europe to offer a live broadcast of a field sport. But behind the scenes the battle lines are drawn between RTE and Setanta with the GAA likely to announce its decision on the broadcast rights this side of Christmas. In 2004 RTE signed a 3- year television and radio deal with the GAA, worth close on £12.5m. A source close to the GAA reckons the TV rights alone for the next three years will cost between £17m and £21m. Source: Belfast Telegraph, 9th Sep 2007

* Officials from the Rugby World Cup presently under way in France were today due to hold another meeting with members of a media coalition that agreed to call off a suspension of coverage of the competition less than two hours before the opening match on Friday evening. The boycott was called off after world governing body the International Rugby Board agreed a last-minute compromise in a row over conditions for press accreditation for the event. Under the compromise agreement, the maximum number of still photographs that can appear on news and sports websites was increased to 200 during a game, subject to a maximum frequency of one per 30 seconds. Source: Sportcal, The Guardian UK, 10th Sep 2007


MORE NEWS

Japan/Rights: J Sports' Bidding Monopoly Delayed Premier League Deal

Sportfive has said that delays in signing a deal in Japan for English soccer’s Premier League were largely attributable to the lack of a competitive bidding process. Sportfive finally agreed a three-year deal with J Sports, the Japanese sports broadcaster, two hours before the opening game of the 2007-08 season, although not in time for J Sports to begin broadcasting coverage on the same day.

Robert Müller von Vultejus, Sportfive’s managing director, said that they was well aware that Japan was ‘a difficult market’ when it was appointed by the league to distribute the rights in the territory after GolTV, the satellite soccer broadcaster, faced difficulties selling the rights. He claimed that an agency such as Sportfive would always have ‘a different kind of patience to the original rights holder,’ as ‘the market is constantly changing and you don’t want to be forced into a deal.’ Despite the delays in agreeing a deal in Japan, Müller von Vultejus described the Premier League property as a ‘killer application that the broadcasters go mad for.’

But he said that in South East Asia, there had recently been an ‘over-proportional development of the value’ of the rights, not because the Premier League was a higher quality of competition than other top European leagues, but because of its unique history and tradition, and the fact that many viewers support teams in England. Bidders, he said, are ‘prepared to overpay market share to make sure they stay in the market.’ Competition generated by new pay-television broadcasters and telecommunications firms has also driven up the value of the rights in many countries, although Müller von Vultejus said that the acquisition of rights by the latter was ‘a temporary phenomenon.’

The sales process for the international rights for the Premier League for the next three seasons, which generated around £625 million ($1.27 billion), has meant the league controversially dropping from the schedule of many of its remaining free-to-air broadcast partners in South East Asia. WinTV, the Chinese pay-television broadcaster, spent around $50 million on Premier League rights from 2007-08, ending the widespread free-to-air coverage of the league.

In Indonesia, where rights were sold to Astro, the pay-television satellite broadcaster, a representative from Trans7, the commercial network, said it ‘wouldn’t be able to cover the cost of buying the rights even if we sold all the advertising spots, combined with income from other sponsors.’

In Japan, Sportfive not only awarded the lion’s share of rights to pay-television, but also worked with the Premier League to carve out free-to-air rights packages. Japanese terrestrial networks Fuji TV, TBS, Nippon TV and TV Asahi all signed deals with Sportfive, while a bigger free-to-air deal will ‘be announced in the next couple of weeks,’ according to Müller von Vultejus. A shift towards pay-television over free-to-air has also increased the threat of piracy in many countries, and many Japanese fans watched the opening weekend of Premier League matches illegally on the internet after J Sports were unable to produce coverage in time. Source: Sportcal, 10th Sep 2007

The Philippines/General: Pacman KOs Channel 2 with Transfer

Ring idol Manny Pacquiao has moved to GMA-7 from ABS-CBN as the struggle continues for the TV rights over the most exciting Filipino boxer of all time. Pacquiao signed the agreement with the network Saturday and appeared to be in a good mood, but nobody was prepared to reveal details of the deal, which is expected to run into the millions like his previous deals. “It’s something Manny is happy with” was all Eric Pineda, Pacquiao’s business manager, could say. “Since he is now a talent of the network, Manny’s next fights, which are with Solar Sports, will be on GMA-7,” he added.

Pineda said Pacquiao’s initial show for the network would be “a reality show [that] will have something to do with sports—about Filipino records in sports and other activities”—that would run for an initial 13 weeks. The network is said to be considering actress Rufa Mae Quinto as Pacquiao’s possible co-host, but no firm decision has been made. “This is not all. There are other activities including a possible telenovela,” Pineda said.

Solar Sports first moved in on Pacquiao after Viva Vintage Sports had nurtured his career for seven years, starting with his first pro fight in Manila when he was a skinny 16-year-old kid, and all the way to two world titles up to his title defense against undefeated Mexican Emmanuel Lucero, for which Pacquiao was paid $30,000 for the Philippine TV rights in July 2003. Solar Sports paid Pacquiao $200,000 for three fights beginning with the November 2003 bout with Marco Antonio Barrera, but it has since declined to reveal details of its agreements with Pacquiao.

Still, Viva Sports/Manila Standard Today has learned that before the May elections, in which Pacquiao ran for Congress but lost to incumbent Darlene Antonino Custodio, Solar Sports gave him a P60-million advance for his April 14 fight against unbeaten but unknown Jorge Solis. ABS-CBN increased its original offer of $200,000, but Pacquiao signed up with Solar, which had entered into a co-production type deal with ABS-CBN for the second Morales fight, and then got the theater and cable rights for Pacquiao-Morales III, while the network did the coverage on free TV.

In July 2006, the network spent $4 million to bankroll Pacquiao’s clash with Oscar Larios at the Araneta Coliseum, which gave it the edge in the rights for the second fight in the classic trilogy with Morales. But in the end, the buildup cost ABS-CBN as Pacquiao’s worth to the networks in the ratings battle ballooned. Source: Manila Standard Today, 10th Sep 2007


ARTICLES, COMMENTS & OPINIONS

Expected & Unexpected: Moments from the 2007 US Open
By Neil Schlecht on the US Open 2007 Official Site, 8th Sep 2007

The Expected

* Nike dresses all its male players exactly alike, so it’s nearly impossible to tell them apart. Thankfully, Feliciano Lopez is tall, fair and blonde, and Donald Young is not.
* Roger Federer glides into the men’s final, his fourth Grand Slam final of the year, on his way to a fourth consecutive US Open championship.
* Andy Roddick plays as well and hits as hard as he possibly can against his nemesis King Fed. The American hits 42 winners and commits just 24 unforced errors. He averages 130 mph on his first serve. He loses in straight sets.
* Serena loses in straight sets in the quarterfinals to Justine Henin, including a second-set throttling, 6-1. In her press conference, Williams states that Henin “hit a lot of lucky shots.”
* Venus loses in straight sets in the semifinals to Justine Henin. In her press conference, Williams cites dizziness as a factor in her loss.
* Richard Williams seems to be reading from Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body as he offers a litany of health-related excuses for his daughters’ losses to Henin. He says Serena should never have played the tournament, due not only to her thumb injury but an undisclosed hamstring pull and swelling in the knee.
* Rafael Nadal, hobbled all tournament by patella tendonitis in the knees, loses to 15th-ranked David Ferrer in the fourth round. In his press conference, Nadal says, “I prefer don't speak about my body right now because always if I speak something about my body, later someone thinks about is an excuse. So I don't want to put any excuse. He play very good, and he beat me. Maybe another day we can speak about the injuries.”
* James Blake shows again that he has the shots and the speed to go deep in a major; once again, he demonstrates that he may not have the self-belief or heart to go all the way.
* Novak Djokovic routinely bounces the ball more than two dozen times preparing to serve.
* Frenchman Fabrice Santoro, the 34-year-old magician who has befuddled plenty of great players over the years, including Marat Safin and Pete Sampras, whips out the wizardry yet again in a brilliantly entertaining match against James Blake.
* Serena and Justine meet for their third consecutive quarterfinal in a Grand Slam match this year.
* New York is dazzled by the fresh faces and smiles of the young Serbs Ana Ivanovic, Jelena Jankovic and Novak Djokovic.

The Unexpected

* Maria Sharapova takes the court in an eye-catching, glittery evening dress, looking like an ice skater decked out with Swarovski crystals. Her outfit makes a more lasting impression than her tennis.
* It does not rain for a solid two weeks of play, and the worst that can be said weather-wise is that there were a few clouds one day in the first week and heat and humidity at the tail end of the second. Other than that, pure perfection.
* The women’s draw is unusually top-heavy, with five of the top six contenders for the championship, including both Williams sisters, Henin, and the two top-five Serbs, Ivanovic and Jankovic, all in the top half. By the time the quarters roll around, one side looks like the final weekend of a Slam, while the other looks more like the Tier II Slovenia Open.
* Richard Gasquet, the 13th seed from France who made it to the semis at Wimbledon, withdraws and cites a lame excuse: a sore throat that made playing and winning against unseeded youngster Donald Young “impossible.” As in, c’est pas possible.
* Novak Djokovic trots out his comic impressions of fellow players Maria Sharapova and Rafael Nadal on national TV after his quarterfinal triumph over Carlos Moya, and he brings down the house.
* Justin Gimelstob, in his final Slam singles appearance, grabs the mic and interviews Andy Roddick after losing to the top-ranked American, turning it into a late-night talk show in Ashe Stadium.
* Andre Agassi drops by the announcer's booth and proves, with his adroit and relaxed commentary, to be the most formidable of tennis analysts. Network executives pray Agassis soon gets bored with foundations, furniture and real estate.
* The Spanish Armada, consisting of a legion of indefatigable clay-courters who habitually swarm in Paris every spring, make their presence known on New York asphalt, with four players reaching the round of 16.
* Sharapova, who looked to have a cakewalk of a draw to the final, is upset in the third round, losing to a fearless 18-year-old, braces-wearing Pole, Agnieszka Radwanska.
* Other Eastern European teenage girls – not from the usual suspect tennis farms like Russia and the Czech Republic – make a huge impression. The Hungarian Agnes Szavay and the Belarussian Victoria Azarenka, in addition to the Pole Radwanska, all make the fourth round.
* The snappy, candy-colored striped shirt Fabrice Santoro wears against Blake is vintage Lacoste, pulled from the Frenchman’s closet and not available in stores, including the branch at Flushing Meadows. Frustrated hipsters trawl eBay in vain.
* Rather than wilt under the whiff of a betting scandal, Nikolay Davydenko of Russia plays his best tennis, sailing into the semis as though without a thought on his mind.
* Old guys make a last stand: Carlos Moya, 31, resurrects his career with a nice, quarterfinal showing; Hyung-Taik Lee, also 31, upsets 20-year-old Andy Murray and makes it as far as he’s ever gone in a major, the fourth round. American Justin Gimelstob, better known as Gimel, makes his last stop at the Open and goes down in entertaining, crowd-pleasing style against his buddy Roddick.
* The Bryan brothers, holders of five Grand Slam doubles titles, flame out in the quarterfinals against Aspelin and Knowle, the 10th seeds.
* American Express trots out nifty, hand-held TV screens to its card members. The “L-Vis” units have clear 4 3/8-inch screens that allowed tennis fanatics to keep a watch on five courts at once, audio commentary included.
* A traffic jam ensues on Tuesday, Day 9, when the Djokovic-Monaco match goes long, and day-session fans and throngs of night ticket holders waiting to enter Ashe Stadium for the 7 p.m. start time of Henin vs. Serena make it a sea of people out on the South Plaza. No injuries are reported.
* Donald Young proves he’s a man and pulls out of the junior boys’ draw, based on his newfound pro-level success.