Tuesday, 11th March 2008

HEADLINE NEWS

IOC Honours First Female and Youngest Sports Minister in Malaysia

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) joined in International Women's Day and revealed the winners of its 2008 Women and Sport Awards. During the Opening Ceremony of the IV IOC World Conference on Women and Sport in Jordan, IOC President Jacques Rogge announced that the World “Women and Sport” Trophy has been awarded to the first female and youngest Minister of Youth and Sports in Malaysia, Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said. Azalina was honoured for boosting the number of women practising sport in Malaysia – and this just under four years since her appointment.

As well as the World Trophy, five continental trophies were presented to women who have made outstanding contributions to strengthening the participation of women and girls in sport around the world. The 2008 winners - a mix of political personalities and former top athletes - were selected by the IOC Women and Sport Commission from 70 candidatures submitted by the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and International Federations (IFs):

- Trophy for Africa: Ana Paula Dos Santos (Angola)
- Trophy for the Americas: Abby Hoffman (Canada)
- Trophy for Asia: Lingwei Li (China)
- Trophy for Europe: Stefka Kostadinova (Bulgaria)
- Trophy for Oceania: Debbie Watson (Australia)

The ceremony took place at the Dead Sea in Jordan, in the presence of HM King Abdullah II bin Al Hussein of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; HRH Prince Feisal bin Al-Hussein, President of the Jordanian NOC; IOC President Jacques Rogge; Anita DeFrantz, IOC member and Chairwoman of the IOC Women and Sport Commission; the members of the IOC Women and Sport Commission; and the attendees of the IV IOC World Conference on Women and Sport.

During the next two days, more than 600 participants from across the globe will debate the topic "Sport as a vehicle for social change" and the role women and girls can play in this. Keynote speakers include former top athletes, representatives from governments, businesses, UN agencies and the media, and academics. The event is under the patronage of Their Majesties King Abdullah II and Queen Rania of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and is jointly organised by the IOC and the NOC of Jordan.

Information on the winners:

Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said
As the first female and youngest Minister of Youth and Sports in Malaysia, Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said has completely revolutionised the participation of Malaysian women in sport. In addition to her role as Youth and Sports Minister, Azalina is a sports book author, a founder of a sports festival and a women's sport and fitness foundation and, last but not least, an enthusiastic sports woman. She set up the Women's Games, attracting 3,400 Malaysian women in 2007; developed the power walk manual, which currently reaches some 60,000 people across the nation; and established 580 community centres, enabling about 100,000 female participants to practise sporting activities.

Lingwei Li
Li Lingwei from China is one of the very few icons who continue to share their experience and expertise even after giving up active competition. As badminton champion in the 1980s and having won over 50 Grand Prix and international titles, she has been the catalyst to attract women and girls to her sport. Later she became the coach of China's badminton women’s national team and inspired young athletes to greater heights. Today she demonstrates how women can lead by example by being a Council member of the Badminton World Federation, a member of the IOC’s Olympic Programme Commission and Deputy Director General of BOCOG's International Relations Department. Sportcal.com, 10th Mar 2008


SPORTS SHORTS

* Japan's NTT is to sell its entire stake in Sri Lanka Telecom to Malaysia's Maxis Communications after a long legal battle, a Reuters report said. The Reuters report quoted Sri Lanka Telecom head of investor relations Upali Mahamithawa as saying that "Maxis has agreed to buy the whole NTT holding," soon after a court ruling that allowed a sale to proceed. The 35.19 % stake would be worth about $214 million at current share prices, the report said. The Reuters report also said a company official, who asked not to be named, said the court ruling had put three conditions on the share transfer. The last condition is for transparency and prior public notice in the event of a management agreement, the report said. telecomasia.net, 11th Mar 08

* Henry Tan, the chief executive of GroupM Malaysia and Singapore, is tipped to be joining regional media company Astro All Asia Networks as the company's new COO. The COO position was left vacant following David Butorac's departure from Astro when his contract with the company ended in December 2006. Astro is a cross-media group with significant presence in DTH (direct-to-home) and commercial radio. Recently, there was speculation it was making a bid to acquire Virgin Radio in UK. MarketingInteractive.com, 4th Mar 2008

* Chinese mobile service operator China Unicom will invest no less than 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) to upgrade its GSM network in 2008. China Unicom chairman Chang Xiaobing also said the pending reshuffle of China's telecom industry will not influence China Unicom's investment scheme. And the company will maintain the investment policy to make decisions according to its business requirement. telecomasia.net, 11th Mar 2008

* CDC Games, a business unit of CDC Corporation and pioneer of the "free-to-play, pay for merchandise" model for online games in China, announced today it has licensed "Digimon RPG" and "Digimon RPG2," the massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) based on a Japanese television animated series, for distribution in North America and The People's Republic of China from SK Telecom, a leading mobile telecommunications operator in South Korea. CentralDaily.com, 10th Mar 2008

* Intel and the Shanghai Media Group (SMG) have announced that the two companies would join forces to promote wireless DTV. The transmission network for the solution promoted by the two companies would be a blend of DMB-TH (for the wireless HDTV signal) and Wi-Fi hotspot networks (for interactivity relating to television programmes). Wireless broadcasting for this plan will be provided by Tsinghua Tongfang Legend Silicon Tech; interactive solutions will be provided by i-Vision Interactive. As the platform manufacturer, Intel will provide Centrino-based technology solutions and developer coordination, while SMG will be responsible for content, operations, and market promotions. Users of the service will be able to use Centrino-based notebooks paired with DTV signal decoders to watch television programming, at a market price of approximately RMB 300. ATV, 11th Mar 2008

* Thomson has revealed that leading Hong Kong-based broadcaster, Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB), has selected Thomson’s Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) solutions for its deployment in Hong Kong for the MFN and SFN networks. ATV, 11th Mar 2008

* Thailand’s cable and satellite channels will be able to carry advertising for the first time following a temporary licence from the government. The country’s new Broadcasting Act has now been enforced by the government, allowing pay-TV advertising to go ahead. For the next year, channels will be able to screen six minutes of advertising per hour per day. Cable operators are also planning on establishing an audience measurement service to offer stats to advertisers. That project will be run in association with AGB Nielsen. However, the country’s only fully legitinate pay-TV operator is True Corp’s True Visions, which has around 600,000 subscribers. Rapid TV, 10th Mar 2008

* World Wrestling Entertainment announced it will spend $12 million to upgrade its production facilities in Stanford, Conn. with a file-based system provided by Thomson to produce content in high definition. WWE, which recently completed a $20 million HD makeover of its television studio late last year, plans to move to a server-based HD production and distribution workflow using Thomson's Grass Valley K2 media servers, an Aurora high-definition production editing system, Kalypso HD production switchers, a Trinix HD router and Kameleon and GeckoFlex signal conversion modules. WWE's HD digital production system includes 16 HD ingest channels and will have a minimum capacity of 2,000 usable hours of HD with 15,000 hours or online disk base proxy storage. When completed, the system will support 200 named users and 50 simultaneous users, 20 full-resolution viewing seats and 36 full-featured multistream editing systems. Broadcastnewsroom.com, 11th Mar 2008

* Supersport International agreed a four-year $13.5 million deal TV rights deal with the Kenya Premier League. Kenya Premier League’s Bob Munro said, “This is a new dawn for Kenyan football. We are moving forward. Our vision is to become the best competition in Africa.” The broadcasting deal is already attracting interest from the country’s corporate sector, with several players seeking to sponsor the Premier League. A number of corporate institutions are said to be lining up to purchase the naming rights of the league which will mean more income for clubs and better pay for players, coaches and referees.The Supersport deal will finance the payment of referees' allowances and fund club activities while spending $5.5 million on broadcasting rights and a further $8 million on new media rights, production costs and website maintenance. Sportbusiness.com, 3rd Mar 2008

* The BBC is reportedly ready to pay around £400 million to secure the broadcast rights for Champions League games from 2009-10. As the bidding process gets underway, the Daily Mail newspaper claimed that the BBC is preparing to splash out millions of license fee money on the competition that currently airs on free-TV rival ITV. BBC sports chiefs are ‘desperate to wrest top European football from ITV’, which pays £120million for its three-year deal for the Champions League, the newspaper said. UEFA is believed to be looking to at least double the current £120million deal. On top of that, UEFA would expect the BBC to make up the revenue lost by not showing adverts for sponsors such as Ford and MasterCard, which get repeated exposure as official sponsors on the ITV coverage. Sportbusiness.com, 4th Mar 2008

* ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation in the Philippines has named Charo Santos-Concio as its new president, from her previous role as executive VP. Santos-Concio has been with the Filipino broadcasting giant since 1987, when she joined as a consultant, before being named director of programs in 1989. Rising through the ranks, Santos-Concio took over all of ABS-CBN’s entertainment content in 1998 when she was named executive VP. WorldScreen.com, 5th Mar 2008

* Badminton England has appointed Sunset+Vine New Media to act as their exclusive New Media Partner and in particularly to this week’s Yonex All England Open Badminton Championships – creating a broadband portal http://www.planetbadminton.tv/ that will be launched at 15.00GMT on Wednesday March 5th 2008. Sportcal.com, 5th Mar 2008

* Effective May 14, Man Shu Sum will resign from his post as the director of the Singapore Film Commission (SFC) and the director of strategic relations at the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA), to begin his new role as CEO of Mark Burnett Productions Asia. Shu Sum played an instrumental role in helping Singapore’s local media film companies gain a higher international profile by leading teams of local producers to international markets, including MIPTV, MIPCOM, AFM and others. He will stay on as a board member at SFC. WorldScreen.com, 3rd Mar 2008

* MediaCorp is expanding its portfolio of free-to-air offerings in Singapore with plans for two new networks, one targeting kids and the other focused on the island nation’s Indian community. Vasantham, slated for a Q4 rollout, aims to provide family entertainment, locally produced long-form serials, reality series and talk shows, plus Tamil-language news and current affairs. Predominantly broadcasting in Tamil, Vasantham will also feature content in other Indian dialects. The channel grows out of MediaCorp’s Vasantham Central block, and will see the broadcaster increasing its Indian-language content options from the current 29 hours to 65 hours each week. Once the Indian content migrates off the Central channel, Central itself will be positioned as an English-language service for kids. It will feature content for preschoolers and their caregivers in the morning, primary-school students in the afternoon and teenagers and young adults in the evening. Thereafter, Central will switch to lifestyle programs, local productions, acquired documentaries, arts performances and anime for more mature audiences. WorldScreen.com, 29th Feb 2008

* After closing the first of its kind deal in Europe, Globo TV Sports, the sports distributor of TV Globo and the leading distributor of Brazilian sports, has conquered the North American market in partnership with Media Zone, a company specializing in Online Broadcasts. The deal, covering Internet and mobile phone media, includes the live transmission of the 82 games from the Brazilian Magic Football package of 2008 and 46 editions of FootBrazil, a weekly program about Brazilian football. Sportcal.com, 29th Feb 2008

* THE UFC suffered a hammer blow when it was announced rival promotion EliteXC have signed a TV deal with American network CBS. ProElite Inc., the parent company of Elite Xtreme Combat, announced a deal with CBS that will put MMA on major network television for the first time. The two companies have signed a multi-year agreement that includes four live EliteXC events per year. The two-hour live primetime specials will be held on Saturday nights. The Sun, 28th Feb 2008


MORE NEWS

Malaysia/General: Famous four in Olympic Torch Relay

Samsung Malaysia has chosen four Malaysian icons to participate in the Malaysian leg of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch Relay. They are Sharifah Mazlina Syed Abdul Kadir, first Asian woman to conquer North and South Poles; Ras Adiba Radzi, former TV3 top anchorwoman who after a series of ill-fated incidents became a paraplegic and now advocate for the disabled; Nicol Ann David, international top squash player; and Lee Chong Wei, Malaysia's top badminton player. They were chosen by Samsung for their notable contributions to society and their tenacity to overcome challenges and achieve success.

This will be the second time since 1964, for the Olympic torch to pass through Malaysia. The Beijing Olympic Torch Relay will have the longest route in the Olympic Torch Relay history, involving 21,880 torchbearers who will cover a total distance of 137,000 km in 130 days. The torch will be carried in Kuala Lumpur on 21 April 2008.

Samsung has been a worldwide Olympic sponsor since 1998 and a presenter of the Olympic Torch Relay from 2004. As the Worldwide Olympics Wireless Communications Partner for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Samsung contributes the wireless technologies and mobile phones through the company's Wireless Olympic Works (WOW) initiative to transmit real time information related to the Olympics. MarketingInteractive.com, 4th Mar 2008

India/Rights:Ten Sports Acquires Raft of Programming

Taj Television’s Ten Sports channel has acquired the rights to several golf and motor programs, including the live telecast of the Johnnie Walker Classic, the European Tour’s golf tournament of Asia Pacific, currently underway at the DLF Golf & Country Club in Gurgaon, near New Delhi. The channel has picked up the rights to the golf tournament for 2008 and 2009. In addition to the European Tour, Ten Sports also has the exclusive rights in the subcontinent for the U.S. PGA Tour, the U.S. PGA Championship and the biennial Ryder Cup match-up between the U.S. and Europe, to be played at Valhalla, Kentucky, in September.

Furthermore, the channel has renewed its rights deal with GP2 Series, an F1 racing event. The channel will also telecast the GP2 Asia Series and the Champ Car series. India has seen a spike in interest in both golf and auto sport in recent years. The nation has recruited its own F1 team, including star driver Karun Chandok, and plans to host a Grand Prix in 2009. In golf, the country has hosted two European Tour events in a single month, and has witnessed Indian-native Shiv Shankar Prasad Chowrasia win the first-ever European Tour event in the country.

Other sporting events the channel has acquired include the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup finals; NCAA Basketball Championships; beach cricket from Australia; and the Olympic qualifiers for field hockey in Santiago, Chile. Ten Sports already broadcasts international cricket action from Sharjah, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, West Indies and Zimbabwe. It is also the exclusive home in the subcontinent for all WWE action. WorldScreen.com, 3rd Mar 2008

Thailand/General: Thailand should promote leisure

Thailand has high potential to promote international events, in particular sports events to bring in more foreign currency, says Paul Poole, the owner of the marketing consulting company Paul Poole (South East Asia). The British consultant has set up an office in Bangkok to serve Southeast Asia, saying Thailand's advantages include its geographical location, climate, fewer legal restrictions and improving infrastructure.

However, the country should promote the leisure industry aggressively to entertain visitors, including family members of athletes, said Mr Poole, who has run a commercial sponsorship and partnership marketing business locally for three years. ''International sporting events will bring a reputation to the country. In addition, they could promote tourism and earn income taxes for the government,'' he said.

Neighbouring countries such as Malaysia and Vietnam are also eager to build reputations in international sporting events. One local issue that could create problems for organisers, in Mr Poole's view, is the ban on alcoholic beverage advertising and uncertainty about sponsorships, which are an important marketing tool for beverage firms. Though the new Alcohol Control Act is now in force, the sponsorship restrictions are still a grey area. Regarding sponsorship and partnership marketing, he said this sort of marketing was growing here. According to unofficial figures, the sector was worth eight billion baht last year.

In the global market, the values have steadily grown, from $23.5 billion in 2001 to $37.7 billion last year. The majority of the money invested in acquiring sponsorship rights is spent on the sports industry, making up about 80% of all spending in this segment. In Thailand there was a similar spending pattern, he said. Mr Poole said his agency was the only one in Thailand focusing solely on this kind of marketing. But recently, the UK-based Aegis Group Plc, one of the world's largest media and research groups, pledged the company would focus on this segment too in the local market. Bangkok Post, 11th Mar 2008

Elsewhere/Rights: Fox Sports to distribute ‘Free Kick Masters’

US-based sporting and entertainment events producer, Camelot Island Entertainment, has signed an agreement with Fox Sports International Distribution for the global distribution of the ‘2008 Free Kick Masters’. With a format similar to the NBA's Slam Dunk Challenge, and MLB's Home Run Derby, the Free Kick Masters is a skills-based international soccer competition featuring top players competing against wekll-known professional goalkeepers.

The last Free Kick Masters was a sold out event held in Marbella, Spain which was broadcast to over 30 countries with an estimated 110 million viewers, Fox Sports International said in a press release. The Free Kick Masters 2008 will be held July 5, 2008 in Houston's Reliant Stadium, home to Super Bowl XXXVIII. The player crowned Free Kick Master will receive $1 million in prize money, and the ‘Golden Goalkeeper’ title winner will receive $500,000.

Among the free kickers expected to appear are Ronaldinho, Rafael Marquez, Lionel Messi, Alessandro Del Piero, Deco, Sun Ji, and Sun Xiang. The list of goalkeepers includes Oliver Kahn, Francesco Toldo, and Kasey Keller. Sportbusiness.com, 5th Mar 2008