Friday, 1st February 2008

HEADLINE NEWS

EM.Sport Takes Stake in Sports Production Business

EM.Sport Media has taken a 15-percent stake in Cologne-based Wige Media, a film and TV production outfit that specializes in sports content. The shares were acquired from the securities trading bank Close Brothers Seydler for a sum in the “low single-digit million euros range,” the company said today.

Wige, a long-time production partner of EM.Sport’s Plazamedia, produces more than 200 sporting, music, cultural and light entertainment events every year. Rainer Hüther, Board Member of EM.Sport Media, noted: “The European production market is currently undergoing a phase of consolidation and EM.Sport Media is playing an active role in this process. Our specific objective is the expansion of our largest production area—outside production. In this field Wige Media, with its market leadership in the motorsport sector and its top level equipment and expertise in soccer is the perfect fit for the core competences of Plazamedia and its soccer focus.” Worldscreen, Sportcal, 31st Jan 2008


DID YOU KNOW…?

That when a source of Vitamin C (orange, lemon, grapefruit, strawberry, tomato, potato, etc.) is eaten with meat or cooked dry beans, the body makes better use of the iron in the protein food.


INFO BOX

Global Consumer e-Commerce
Info IQ, 31st Jan 2008

More than 85% of the world’s online population has used the internet to make a purchase - increasing the market for online shopping by 40% in the past two years. Globally, more than half of internet users have made at least one purchase online in the past month, according to Nielsen. Internet shopping trends two years ago were approximately 10% of the world’s population (627 million) had shopped online. Within two years (2007), this number has increased by approximately 40% (to 875 million).

* Among internet users, the highest percentage shopping online is in South Korea, where 99% of those with internet access have used it to shop, followed by the UK (97%), Germany (97%), Japan (97%); the US is eighth, at 94%.
* In South Korea, 79% of these internet users have shopped in the past month, followed by the UK (76%) and Switzerland (67%); the US is at 57%.
* Globally, the most popular and purchased items over the internet are books (41% purchased in the previous three months), clothing/accessories/shoes (36%), videos/DVDs/games (24%), airline tickets (24%) and electronic equipment (23%).
* Some of the biggest buyers of books on the internet are from developing countries - China, Brazil, Vietnam and Egypt - indicating massive growth potential for online retailers that can specifically target these fast-growing markets.
* More than 70% of Indians and more than 60% of Irish and UAE internet users said they bought airline tickets/reservations on the internet in the last three months, making travel the fourth most popular shopping category on the web.


SPORTS SHORTS

* Korea Telecom’s Mega TV could launch its real IPTV service with as many as 80 channels, according to local reports. South Korea’s legislature at the end of 2007 gave the nod to telcos to launch real-time IPTV as well as on-demand services. All the country’s major telcos, including KT and Hanarotelecom, are planning real-time IPTV. Mega TV had 320,000 subs at the end of 2007. The company will launch its real IPTV service in the second half of 2008 and is aiming to have 1.5 million subscribers by the end of the year. Rapid TV News, 31st Jan 2008

* Limited internet service was restored to India and the Middle East yesterday following a region-wide outage caused by damage to undersea cables. Full restoration is expected to take 10-15 days. Two vital undersea telecoms cables near Alexandria, Egypt, were damaged on January 30 badly affecting internet traffic. Reports claim over half of India’s internet bandwidth was lost, while 70% of Egyptian internet was down. Telecom operators on the Arabian Gulf also reported severely damaged services. Reportedly, Cairo was without an internet service for much of Wednesday. It seems most major service providers were re-routing traffic from the Mediterranean basin to Indian and Pacific Ocean traffic routes. Rapid TV News, 31st Jan 2008

* France’s professional soccer league, LFP, was this evening set to allocate rights pacakages for the top-tier Ligue 1, with incumbent rights holder Canal Plus, the pay-television operator, under threat from a range of competitors. Canal Plus currently pays €600 million ($889.2 million) a season for live Ligue 1 rights and faces competition from Orange after the telecommunications group bid for all available lots. France Télévisions, the French public service broadcaster, and commercial networks TF1 and M6 are the other main players threatening to disrupt Canal Plus’ monopoly. Other bidders with qualitative offers were Eurosport, Direct 8, the digital terrestrial channel, SFR, the mobile phone operator, and DailyMotion, the video sharing website. Sportcal, 31st Jan 2008

* Poland’s top-tier soccer league, the Ekstraklasa, has awarded broadcast rights to a consortium of Canal Plus Poland and Telekomunikacja Polska, in three-year deal worth 360 million zlotys ($147.4 million). Incumbent holders Canal Plus and TP were awarded the rights ahead of commercial broadcaster, Polsat, and ITI Neovision who were reportedly ready to offer around 100 million zlotys a season for rights. The deal with Canal Plus and TP runs for three years from the 2008-09 season. TVP, the Polish public-service broadcaster, has won the highlights rights. Canal Plus paid around $52 million for its present three-year contract, allowing the broadcaster to show about 240 matches a year, of which 100 are live. Sportcal, 31st Jan 2008

* EPIC Corporation has announced its intention to produce a weekly half-hour show featuring mixed martial arts (MMA) and boxing . The show, which will be hosted by long-time boxing announcer Jeff DeForrest and broadcast through multi-media outlets, is expected by the EPIC Corporation to eventually reach 80 million homes. "EPIC, to ensure revenue streams, is signing exclusive marketing agreements with independent promoters of MMA cage fighting and other sports experiencing growth and that have a large fan base. We want to be where the action is," said Mick Bazsuly, the president and CEO of EPIC. "We have identified several cage fighting promoters which we believe will outlast this crowded field, all of whom are trying to build their brand name." Sports Media, 31st Jan 2008

* Gary Lovejoy is to join Sportfive, the international sports agency, as vice president international TV production from tomorrow. Sportfive said: The post is a newly created position which reflects the growing opportunity and influence of traditional television and new media activities within the entire Sportfive group. Lovejoy previously worked at ITV, the UK’s commercial broadcaster, Eurosport, the pan-European sports broadcaster, Premium TV (now Perform), the UK-based digital media group, and was most recently chief operating officer of the Zee Sports channel in India. Lovejoy will Initially be based at Sportfive’s Paris office and will continue to advise Zee on soccer matters this year. Sportcal, 31st Jan 2008

* A Liverpool fans group will today present a plan to the media to organise a takeover of the Barclays Premier League club from Tom Hicks and George Gillett. The 'Share Liverpool FC' group will propose a buy-out of the Anfield club by 100,000 fans, with the model based on a member-share scheme in place at Primera División giant FC Barcelona. The Catalan club's 'socio' model sees around 150,000 members own the club, and the the newly-established Liverpool group believes the success of Barcelona at home and in Europe in recent years proves the model can work in the modern game. Football Insider, Sport Business, Sportcal, 31st Jan 2008

* A trial of six former executives of ISL, the now-defunct sports agency that sold television rights on behalf of Fifa, is expected to unveil the identity of an as-yet-unnamed individual who allegedly repaid £1.2 million ($1.78 million) to the agency. The money was allegedly paid into a bank account for ISL executives, before a sum of £1.2 million was repaid to liquidators three years later and Fifa was asked to drop the investigation, according to Thomas Hildbrand, the Swiss magistrate who has investigated the case for the past seven years. The identity of the mystery individual who repaid the money will be revealed at the court case set for March 11 in Zug, Switzerland, according to the Guardian, the UK newspaper. Sportcal, 31st Jan 2008


MORE NEWS

China/New Media: China Telecom Online targets VAS, Social Networking

China Telecom’s 2008 internet business strategy is taking shape, as the firm aims to build 10,000 to 20,000 social network sites. The first one “financial world – internet sky – biz channel” will be launched soon, Sohu IT reports. The plan follows CEO Wang Xiaochu’s talk during the company’s 2008 work meeting earlier this month. He said the company would actively develop social network sites featuring sport, movie, financial and digital music applications.

Under the plan, the existing “internet sky” service will be divided into three areas: the entertainment zone covers film, TV drama, music, game and video-sharing; the information zone includes digital information, IT, business and finance, cars; the tool zone will offer 114 yellow page search and downloads. Internet sky had previously worked with New Media Sports and entertainment firm Stella Megamedia to co-build several content channels.

“We will work with the best companies available to add them to the China Telecom platform,” Ye Lisheng, deputy director of China Telecom’s internet and VAS department, told Sohu IT. Ye says all financial services would initially be free but would likely charge for services as the market matured. ChinaWire, Telecomasia, 31st Jan 2008

Global/Rights: Sportfive Reports On Encouraging Euro 2008 Sales

Broadcast sales of the UEFA Euro 2008 tournament to countries outside of Europe will beat all previous revenue and exposure records for the event, according to Stefan Felsing, executive vice-president of Sportfive. The rights agency, which also looks after selling the competition within Europe, was handed the responsibility of closing deals in various markets beyond the host continent by UEFA. In all, for the previous edition of the competition in Portugal in 2004, the total revenue generated by the sale of media rights (television, radio and new media) worldwide was Eur552.6 million (US$812.5 million), according to UEFA. However, the 2008 competition is apparently set to top those figures on all counts.

"We have closed deals in 40 markets with approximately 46 European broadcasters and many more will follow," Felsing told Sports Media . "Euro 2008 will beat all records and set new benchmarks. The tournament has never had as many broadcast partners as we will have in 2008." With this summer's event in Austria and Switzerland marking the first time UEFA has opted to use a market-by-market approach to selling rights to the tournament, Felsing believes Sportfive's experience of 'local' markets is crucial. "Knowledge of markets in individual countries and territories is very important," he added. "Some markets are rather mature at a certain point in time, but in the media industry changes happen often very quickly and unexpectedly. Therefore the agency in charge needs to ensure that the sales timing is right when going market by market." Sports Media, 31st Jan 2008

Global/New Media: Thomson Eyes DTH, Mobile TV Market

Thomson, the $9-billion French technology & entertainment media group, is planning a big India play in its next phase of growth. It now sees a huge potential for growth in India in broadband network, the growing Indian DTH market, video over broadband, and even mobile TV, whenever the service is launched in India. Moreover, it will increase headcount in India from 700 to 3,000 in about 18 months. And in another two-three years, Thomson, whose clients include Reliance, Bharti and Tatas, sees the Indian market contributing 5% to its global revenues, up from almost insignificant at present.

The company, which sold its picture tubes business to Videocon in 2005, has now completely changed focus from consumer electronics to providing services in video networks and entertainment media a few years back. Thomson does not plan to divest its holding in Videocon Industries, which it had taken in 2005. In an interview with ET, Thomson chairman & CEO Frank E Dangeard said that the increased focus on India now will help the company to not only tap the growing local market for entertainment media services, but also as a source of specialised skills to do backoffice work for the global market. “About two years back we had almost nothing here. Today we have a 500-people centre for animation excellence in Bangalore, which we will be expanding to cater to local and global needs. We will expand both services and systems in India as specialised skills are available here,” he said.

Thomson recently entered into a strategic alliance with DreamWorks Animation (an American film studio which made the computer animated series Shrek) and most of the work arising out of this partnership will be done out of Bangalore. The Thomson centre will also help the company tap the growing animation film and gaming market, which has increased demand for animation design and gaming services outsourcing.

At present over 50% of the Thomson business comes from the US market and just about 8% from the Asian market. The company expects that Asia will contribute about 15% in a few years and India about 5%. Commenting on the US slowdown and the Asian market, Mr Dangeard said, “A slowdown will impact all of us, but on the brighter side Asia is growing and European market is also good.” EconomicTimes, 1st Feb 2008