Thursday, 31st March 2011

RIGHTS FEE & DISTRIBUTION

=>  Recently promoted Campeonato Brasiliero Serie A club, Esporte Clube Bahia, is the 9th Brazilian club to sign a 4-year media rights deal contract from 2012-15, worth R$30 mil ($18 mil) per season with Globo. The deal will more than double its income from media rights, having received R$14 mil last season. Globo hoped that the rest of the Serie A clubs would sign up with Globo soon, a move which would simplify matters as legislation ensures media rights to each match belong to both the home and away team. Observers claim that if the media rights to the top division are split among two or more broadcasters, the system would be unworkable. Serie A soccer is extremely lucrative for Globo, which earns a huge profit on advertising around its live coverage.

=>  President of French Ligue 1 club Lille, Michel Seydoux, suggested kick-off times be spread across the weekend to maximize revenue from TV rights deals from 2012-13 onwards. Seydoux is part of a steering committee that is drawing up procedures for the new Ligue 1 broadcast rights tender. Ligue 1 matches are presently played on Sat and Sun, including 6 matches played simultaneously at 7pm (CET) on Sat. Ligue 1 rights are presently shared by Canal Plus and Orange in deals worth €668 mil ($940.3 mil) per season. The LFP said the launch date for a tender for domestic broadcast rights from 2012-13 onwards will be between Apr 30 and May 15.

=>  Austrian ProSieben-owned commercial broadcaster, Puls 4, won FTA rights to the UEFA Champions League from 2012/13 to 2014/15 in a deal that ends CL coverage on pubcaster, ORF. Puls 4 secured multi-platform rights to show one live match per matchweek, the Champions League final and the Super Cup. In 2009, ORF retained CL rights from 2009/10 to 2011/12, renewing a previous deal then worth an estimated €3 mil a year.

=>  In Germany, Team Marketing is poised to announce the award of FTA Champions League rights from 2012-13 onwards. However, allocation of Europa League rights could be decided after the Champions League rights award. Pay-TV and incumbent, Sky Deutschland, was the only bidder in Germany for the pay-TV CL rights. Deals with Sat.1 and Sky Deutschland for current period are believed to be €90 mil ($126.6 mil) per season.

=>  TV coverage in France of the Davis and Fed Cups could go back to France Télévisions after the pubcastersubmitted a bid. The International Tennis Federation issued invitation to tender and France Télévisions confirmed it will take part in the bidding. Currently, FT is paying €400,000 ($563,000) a year for first two rounds of the Davis Cup and an equal amount for when France reaches the final, plus added fees for Fed Cup. FT recoups its investment by sub-licensing matches to Canal Plus for €200,000 a year. The tender covers 4 years, split into five packages, comprising France’s matches in the Davis Cup, Fed Cup and matches not including France in both competitions plus highlights.

=>  French handball’s LNH says a drop in domestic broadcast rights revenue from 2011-12 onwards is ‘‘inevitable’’ after incumbent, Orange, decided not to bid in a recent tender. LNH issued its tender at end 2010, prompting a joint bid of €1 mil ($1.41 mil) per year from pubcaster, France Télévisions and Eurosport, in an offer worth half as much as the fee currently paid by Orange and Eurosport. LNH held discussions with different broadcasters and Amaury Sport Organisation, the agency appointed to negotiate its new broadcast rights contract.


BROADCAST

=>  The International Cricket Council had anticipated a record TV audience for an ODI when traditional rivals India and Pakistan met in the semi-finals of the Cricket World Cup and claimed the competition has been an endorsement for the 50-over format. The match, which India eventually won, seemed certain to attract more viewers than the India-England clash, the most-watched game of the tournament at the time. Estimates put the likely global audience for India-Pakistan at 800 mil.


DATA

=>  Video-on-demand (VOD) rapidly established itself as mainstay in pay-TV homes and will grow even faster as it integrates over the top (OTT) streams. In “On-demand Services Business Models: Video, Games & Over-the-Top – 2011 edition,” IMS Research estimates that at end 2010, 13.2% of the world’s digital pay-TV subscribers were requesting VOD content via their set-top box (STB). This figure will increase rapidly so that pay-TV households using VOD services will triple from 53.9 mil at the end of 2010 to 157.3 mil at the end of 2015. In 2010, operators generating $4.3 bil in on-demand revenues, with traditional closed-network VOD accounting for 99.5% although IMS forecasts in 2016, closed-network VOD’s share will decrease to 94% on total on-demand revenues globally.


OTHER BUSINESS NEWS

=>  Market intelligence and illegal betting sources have put betting at Rs70 bil for the India-Pakistan semifinal of the ICC Cricket World Cup fixture, but this may double after India got past Pakistan to meet Sri Lanka on Saturday. Furious betting had been going on through the night before the match and by dawn, betting on this match is understood to be near Rs 10 bil. The two types of betting were ‘generic’, whether India or Pakistan will win and on specifics, like whether Shoaib will play or Sachin will score a century. Betting in these matches started from ball one and ended just before the last run or wicket to fall.

=>  Panasonic Vietnam has agreed with the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) to be co-sponsor of Vietnam’s national Olympic men’s and women’s soccer teams. The multi-layered sponsorship deal sees PV provide US$1 mil annually, injecting US$2 mil overall into the men’s and women’s national soccer teams and national U-23 soccer team for their overseas training for the next 2 years. The sponsorship will assist teams in international tournaments and cover cost of coaching over the two-year period.

=>  Romania's boxers will compete at London 2012 Olympics despite their national governing body being hit with a ban by AIBA. AIBA's disciplinary commission has suspended the Romanian Boxing Federation from any activity at AIBA for the next two years and handed out a fine totaling SFr7,500 ($8,160), but ruled that the punishment does not extend to Romanian athletes, coaches, referees and judges. Earlier, AIBA provisionally suspended the RBF for failing to hold a presidential election, after the incumbent was last year banned for 11 years by AIBA. The provisional ban included all the country's boxers and coaches.