Tuesday, 25th January 2011

RIGHTS FEE & DISTRIBUTION

=>  (Excerpt) Russia’s NTV Plus is close to a US$60 mil deal with the Russian Football Union under which it would obtain broadcast rights to all Russian Premier League games in the 2011-2012 season. Whether any Premier League matches will be free-to-view remains unanswered. Russian Football Union officials maintain that selling TV rights is vital for the country’s leading football clubs, which would receive their share of the pie. If football is broadcast for free, clubs’ incomes are going to be insignificant.”

=>  US University of Oklahoma is hoping to launch its own channel this autumn, after talks with Learfield Sports, which holds the university’s multimedia rights, and broadcasters including Fox Sports Net, Cox Cable and ESPN. The university signed a 10-year, $75-million extension of its rights deal with Learfield in Sep 2007. The university claims to have broadcasting infrastructure already in place. The new 24-hour channel will include live and recorded coverage of Olympic sports with the possibility of showing men’s and women’s basketball matches and perhaps occasional American football matches.


BROADCAST

=>  Competition among India’s DTH satellite TV operators have resulted in lower subscription costs for cable TV connection in 22 Indian cities. A nationwide decline is seen in average fees levied by cable operators. Pay-TV in India is still dominated by cable TV, with 73% of pay TV homes subscribing to analogue cable services and 2% to digital cable services. There are currently 40,000 local / last mile cable operators (LCOs) in India and between 4 and 6 thousand multi-system operators (MSOs). Only 7 to 10 of the latter are large corporate-backed bodies.

=>  US pay-TV, Showtime, will air Manny Pacquiao's defence of his WBO welterweight title against Shane Mosley at MGM Grand in Las Vegas, May 7. Pacquiao and Mosley have never fought with Showtime's involvement, with their major bouts having been aired on a PPV on HBO. Top Rank chairman, Bob Arum, said he hoped national network CBS, Showtime's parent, will become involved in the build-up to the fight. CBS reaches 115 million people while HBO only reaches 30 million. Arum is reportedly also angered at HBO's decision not to air the first title defence of Top Rank’s Miguel Cotto on March 12.

=>  F1's global TV audience increased from 520 mil to 527 mil viewers in 2010 with growth in 9 out of the 11 largest markets. Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel secured the championship in the thrilling final race of the season, which helped boost viewing across the globe. The 2011 season will see Formula One racing televised in “native” high definition (HD) for the first time, with all of FOM’s broadcast partners offered HD coverage of all sessions. The 2011 F1 World Championship will begin in Bahrain on March 13.


CONTENT

=>  MP & Silva has unveiled its inaugural ‘Fight Code’ European kickboxing series, with the opening event to take place in Turin. The new series, launched by MPS and Taipan SrL, will begin in the Italian city on Jan 29, before the next events in Nitra, Slovakia on Feb 5, in Milan on Mar 12 and in Budapest on Apr 30. The 2011 series will feature 10 events and a minimum of 60 fights across two new weight categories: Rhinos (under105kg) and Dragons (under 72.5kg). Each of the 10 events will feature a series of prestige fights, with local stars from the host countries taking on fighters from around the world. MPS will handle high-definition broadcast production, event management and worldwide broadcast rights distribution.


NEW MEDIA

=>  On the first birthday of Wi-Tribe, Philippines’ first 4G Wi-Max service provider, has been marked by renewed interest in service expansion from its Qatari telco shareholder, Qtel. Wi-Tribe 4G has attracted 50,000 subscribers to its wireless broadband service but Qtel sees room for growth, given broadband penetration as of 2010 stood at just 17% of a population of about 94 mil. The launch of Wi-Tribe in the Philippines follows similar Wi-Tribe branded WiMax ventures by Qtel and Saudi Arabia’s A A Tukri Group (Atco) in Jordan and Pakistan.

=>  The BBC has committed not to use iPlayer as an on demand aggregator or launch its own social network as part of commitments issued to scale back online operations. BBC Online’s service licence budget be reduced by £34m from £137m today to £103m by 2013/14, a move means the loss of up to 360 jobs over the next 2 years. This will be achieved by reducing top-level domains run under BBC Online while a new unified strategy will run 10 distinctive products, including ones dedicated to Sports & iPlayer.


OTHER NEWS

=>  With Nielsen Malaysia tracking pay-TV ad spend for the first time, 2010 saw the category command a 20% share of the Adex pie, taking more than RM1.9 bil in ad dollars. Free-to-air and pay-TV advertising put together totaled RM4.8 bil. FTA TV still outpaces pay-TV with a 30% share. Nielsen showed spending across all media jumped to RM7.66 bil in December 2010 compared to 2009's RM6,61 bil. This excludes advertising via Astro's pay-TV platform with newspapers still commanding 40.5% of the Adex and FTA TV close behind at RM2.9 bil. Top-3 advertisers for 2010 (exc. pay-TV ad-spend) are Celcom, DiGi and Maxis totaling RM330 mil.

=>  Controversial president of the Indian Olympic Association, Suresh Kalmadi, was sacked as head of the organising committee for last autumn’s Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India, amid alleged corruption in the preparations for and staging of the games. Lalit Bhanot, Kalmadi's deputy, was also sacked by Ajay Maken, India’s new sports minister. Maken said he decided to fire the pair to ensure a fair investigation into the corruption allegations. In November, Kalmadi was sacked from his position in the governing Congress party over the allegations.

=>  The World Taekwondo Federation is seeking to retain 'core' status in the Olympic Games. Taekwondo was a demonstration sport at the 1988 and 1992 games and became a full medal sport at Sydney 2000 and has been in the Olympic programme since. Although taekwondo is confirmed on the list for the next two Olympics as one of 26 IOC 'core' sports [there will be 28 sports in Rio 2016 with rugby sevens and golf], its place could come under threat for 2020. At its general assembly in 2013, the IOC will vote to drop the number of core sports to 25, with up to 3 additional sports added to the programme for each games.

=>  Manchester United has again denied that it is the subject of a takeover approach from Qatar Holding LLC after reported talks about a £1.5bil deal. The Glazer family bought Manchester United in 2005 for £790 million. Qatar Holding has assets of around £40 billion. In June, Sheikh Abdullah al Thani, a member of the Qatari royal family, completed a buy-out of Spanish top-flight club Malaga, while in December the Qatar Foundation, the charity wing of the ruling family, agreed a €150 million deal to become FC Barcelona’s first paying shirt sponsor.