Thursday, 24th July 2008

DATA BOX

Korea Outspaces Japan and China in Internet Usage
Korea National Internet Development Agency Statistics published on Telecomskorea.com, 24th July 2008

National Internet Development Agency released “Statistics on Internet Usage in Korea, China and Japan” which shows China has 210 million internet users, while Japan and Korean have 88 million and 34.8 million, respectively, as of 2007. However, Korea’s internet usage rate is 76.3%, the highest among the three countries, followed by 74.4% of Japan and 16.0% of China. The number of worldwide internet users is 1,470 million with 690 million among them are in Asia. Korea, China and Japan have 380 million internet users, accounting for 49% of Asian and 23% of the world internet population.

Report Forecasts Gains in Connected TV Market
Strategy Analytics Report published on Worldscreen, 23rd Jul 2008

By the end of this year, there will be 186 million connected TV devices in use around the world, according to a new report, allowing users to access web content directly on the television set. Ownership of web-connected TV devices is set to rise to 507 million by 2010, soaring to 1.7 billion by 2014.

“The web video explosion has so far been restricted largely to PC users,” says David Mercer, VP and principal analyst at Strategy Analytics. “Now it is moving to the TV screen. While business model and content partner issues are still to be resolved, the floodgates are open—web video is set to become a regular part of the TV viewing experience.”

A wave of Internet-enabled TV sets, gaming consoles and other devices have hit the market as of late. PS3, PSP and Xbox users, for example, can download content to their gaming consoles for TV viewing; AppleTV enables users to watch their favorite shows from iTunes on a TV set; and Sony’s Bravia line of TV sets is incorporating web connectivity. “Internet connectivity is becoming commonplace across a wide spectrum of consumer devices,” said Peter King, the director of connected home devices at the research firm. “By 2014 more than two-thirds of all products sold will integrate Internet access.”

Premiership Football has Mass Global Interest
ComScore Study Results published on Advanced-Television.com, 24th July 2008

ComScore has released the results of a study on visitation to the official Web sites of Premiership football clubs, based on data from the comScore World Metrix audience measurement service. The study revealed that the majority of traffic to the Web sites of the "Big Four" Premiership clubs – Manchester, Liverpool, Arsenal, and Chelsea – now originates from outside of the UK.

Premierleague.com, the official site of the FA Barclays Premier League, attracted an average of 1.2 million UK visitors per month during the 2007/08 season (August 2007 – May 2008). The website of Premiership Champions Manchester United ranked as the most popular club site with an average of 912,000 visitors per month. Liverpool ranked second with 887,000 visitors, followed by Arsenal (718,000 visitors), and Chelsea (402,000 visitors).

Premierleague.com attracted 55% of its total audience from outside the UK, demonstrating the broad global interest in the league. With the exception of Liverpoolfc.tv, all of the "Big Four" club sites drew the majority of their visitors from outside the UK, with Manutd.com generating the largest share of its audience from abroad (64 per cent).

Highest-paid Female Athletes Play Tennis or Golf
Forbes Research published on Sport Business, 23rd Jul 2008

The pay-gap between top female athletes and their male counterparts is narrowing, but levels of inequality continue to exist between sports, according to new research. US magazine, Forbes, reports that the highest-paid female athletes come almost exclusively from tennis and golf, which offer higher levels of prize money and greater opportunities for endorsement.

Golfers Annika Sorenstam, Michelle Wie and Lorena Ochoa have all broken into eight-figure earnings territory, whilst the four highest-paid female athletes in the world are from the tennis circuit: Maria Sharapova (Russia), Serena and Venus Williams (US) and the recently retired Justine Henin (Belgium).

By contrast earnings for women’s basketball players and football players are still a long way behind the pay-levels of top-male stars LeBron James or David Beckham. Industry consultant David Carter from strategic marketing company Sports Business Group, however, said that given the consistent, incremental growth of women's sports wages for female basketball and football players are likely to increase.


SPORTS SHORTS

* FIFA.com is offering comprehensive online coverage of the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup 2008, which kicked of in Marseilles last week and will run until Sunday. Fans can enjoy free access to webcasts of all 32 matches via FIFA.com TV. The site will back this up with a range of content including exclusive interviews, news and background content on the 16 teams taking part, comprehensive match statistics, two-minute highlights videos available moments after the final whistle and the chance to vote for the goal of the tournament. Sports Media, 23rd Jul 2008

* Ten Sports, the official broadcaster of the Sri Lanka-India cricket series currently under way, has syndicated the telecast rights of the Test matches in Britain to India's Zee International. The channel, in a statement issued here, said it has "syndicated the cable, satellite and terrestrial rights in the UK for India's tour of Sri Lanka to Zee International". With this deal, it said, the series will get the widest possible coverage. "The matches will command a potential audience in excess of half a billion fans spread across 100 countries," the Dubai-based broadcaster said. The radio rights in Britain and Europe have already been sold to BBC, while DirecTV will telecast the matches in North and Central America, Astro in Malaysia and Fox Sports in Australia. News.WebIndia123.com, Indiantelevision.com, 23rd July 2008

* SingTel’s mio TV IPTV platform has clinched agreements with Disney-ABC International Television, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros. International Television Distribution that bring a host of top American series to subscribers as early as a day after their U.S. broadcast. SingTel had 45,000 mio TV customers as at the end of June. Worldscreen, 23rd Jul 2008

* Joost has aligned with the TOM Group to launch its Internet TV offering in China. Joost and TOM Group’s Internet arm, TOM Online, have launched a Chinese version of the service, delivering broadcast-quality content, at joost.tom.com. Both companies will primarily source programming from within China. TOM has already secured 16,000 hours of Chinese programming for Joost from providers such as CCTV, BTV Media, Huayi Brothers Media Group and CAV Warner Home Entertainment. TOM will secure advertising for the localized version of Joost, and Joost will provide the underlying technology. Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, a majority shareholder of TOM, also owns a minority stake in Joost. Rapid TV News, Worldscreen, 23rd Jul 2008

* China Mobile has begun the marketing push for a public beta of 3G (third-generation) telephony services, signaling that full deployment may be available soon after the Olympics. Published rates for eventual commercial service set a 50 yuan (US$7.33) per month minimum and 0.40 yuan per minute for data charges within the user's home city. For users who choose to make video calls instead of plain voice calls, made from their home cities, charges of 0.60 yuan per minute apply, and for the first time, China Mobile will not charge users to receive calls. The current package, offered until Sept. 30, offers set price trial services. A minimum package of 58 yuan per month in voice services and 100 yuan per month for data services is required. However, the package includes 800 yuan of free voice services and free handset rental during the period. News.Yahoo!, 24th July 2008

* Infront Sports and Media has appointed Helios Partners, the US sports marketing and consultancy firm that specialises Olympic Games, as its exclusive marketing and consulting partner in China. The partnership will capitalise on opportunities arising from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Helios will support Infront on several projects, with emphasis on the Chinese Basketball Association. With 16 teams in 14 major Chinese cities, the CBA drew more than 1 million spectators during the 2007-08 season. Earlier, Helios helped develop the marketing strategy and sponsorship sales for the series of North American Major League Baseball games in China. Sportcal, 23rd Jul 2008

* Romanian sports channel, GSP TV, will launch this week armed with rights to the country’s top-tier soccer league. GSP TV will show all games from Liga 1 for the next three years. It won these rights earlier this year as part of a consortium which also included cable and satellite operator RCS/RDS. The consortium paid €85 million ($133.8 million) for the rights, having seen off bids of €84.5 million from Realitatea TV, the Romanian news channel, and €72.5 million from Kanal D, the Turkey-based broadcaster which launched a channel in Romania last year. The 2008-09 Liga 1 season starts this weekend. Sportcal, 23rd Jul 2008

* TVNZ Pacific Services has reached an agreement with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Oceania National Olympic Committees to broadcast the Olympic Games across the Pacific Islands. TVNZ Sport will provide satellite coverage of the Games, with a mixture of live and pre-recorded action from Beijing hitting television screens around the clock. TVNZ hopes to supply Olympic coverage for up to 17 television stations throughout the islands. TVNZ Pacific Service will deliver the TVNZ Sport Olympic feed from Auckland to the Pacific region from August 6. Sports Media, 23rd Jul 2008

* Italian police arrested seven people yesterday in a crackdown on an organized crime group that attempted to buy Lazio football club with laundered money. Three people here still at large in a probe that targeted nine Italians and a Hungarian, who tried to acquire the club through money coming from the illicit activities of the Casalesi clan, a group of the Naples-based Camorra crime syndicate, Rome police said in a statement. Among those still being sought was former Italy and New York Cosmos striker Giorgio Chinaglia, who is believed to have fled to the United States two years ago when authorities first ordered his arrest on chargesof extortion and insider trading at Lazio, police official Gianluca Campana said. Soccer Investor, 23rd July 2008


MORE NEWS

Mid-East/Rights: ART in 5-Yr Deal with Arab Volleyball Association

ART, the pan-middle Eastern and north African broadcaster, has agreed a wide-ranging broadcast deal worth a reported $1 million with the Arab Volleyball Association, the regional volleyball body. The deal gives ART rights to all AVA tournaments for the next five seasons.

The partnership was announced at a signing ceremony in Manama, Bahrain, attended by AVA president Shaikh Ali bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, ART general supervisor Mohi El Deen bin Saleh Kamel and Shaikh Fawaz bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, the head of the general organisation for youth and sports in Bahrain.

Pan-Arabian volleyball tournaments include the Arab Volleyball Championships, featuring the top club teams in the region, and the men’s Arab Indoor Volleyball Championships, an international teams event. Teams from the region also take part in competitions sanctioned by the Asian Volleyball Confederation, the sport’s continental governing body. Sportcal, Gulf Daily, 23rd Jul 2008

Elsewhere/Broadcast: Wireless HDTV On The Way

Israeli company Amimon is reportedly in discussion with heavyweight technology companies Sony, Samsung and others to develop a system that will deliver fat HDTV signals around the home without wires. Amimon says it is part of a new consortium that contains Sony, Samsung, Motorola, Sharp and Hitachi which is behind Amimon’s chip development which the business sees being incorporated in TVs, gaming consoles, DVD players and set-top boxes. The development will add about $100 to the cost of units, and the first kit with the technology enabled should start appearing next year.

The technology under development, WHDI, isn’t the only would-be “standard” that is seeking this HDTV-based Holy Grail, but Amimon’s development enables wireless delivery of uncompressed HDTV throughout the home with video rates of up to 3Gbps (uncompressed 1080p) in the USA’s 5Ghz unlicensed band, with – they say – “the same quality as a wired connection and no latency”. It has been tested at ranges up to 100 ft, and through concrete and other dense building materials.

The business is based in Herzlia, Israel and has offices in Santa Clara, California and Tokyo. Amimon is backed by Argonaut Private Equity, Cedar Fund, Evergreen Venture Partners, Motorola Ventures, STATA Venture Partners and Walden Israel. RapidTVnews.com, 23rd July 2008