Friday, 27th May 2011

RIGHTS FEES

=>  The Philippine Basketball Association is looking at a minimum bid of P900 mil for the TV rights of Philippines’s most successful and longest-running professional sports league. The previous contract between the PBA and Solar Sports was worth P483 mil over 3 years but the contract up for bidding is for a 5-year period. Two broadcasters are in the running to secure TV rights; ABS-CBN and TV 5. The former has long history in sports broadcasting and actually televised the latter games of the Commissioner’s Cup over Studio 23 but TV 5, when it was still owned by a Malaysian conglomerate, won the TV rights in 2006. The PBA is hoping to get “impressive” proposals from the both networks which are in a battle for broadcast supremacy along with GMA 7. Solar Sports is in the final season of a three-year deal that will end Aug. 31. It has decided not to bid for the next contract.


BROADCAST & RIGHTS DISTRIBUTION

=>  Neo Sports has entered a 3-year agreement with Total Sports Asia to acquire media rights of the OSIM BWF World Superseries from 2011 to 2013 for the Indian Subcontinent. The Series comprises of 7 Superseries events, 5 Superseries Premier Events and 1 Superseries Finals. The calendar comprises of premium events like the All England Badminton Championships, Indonesia Open, China Open and other leading badminton events from across the world.


STATS & DATA

=>  Increases in monthly fees from pay-TV platforms to TV stations could drive overall U.S. broadcast retransmission fees to $3.61 bil in 2017 from $1.14 bil in 2010, says SNL Kagan. SNL Kagan notes that retrans revenues rose from $631 mil in 2009 to $766 mil in 2010. For pure-play TV station owners, revenue stream was equal to 52% of cash flow on average in 2010, rising to as much as 76% of cash flow. Retrans fee has been a contentious issue in the U.S., leading to a number of spats between networks and pay-TV platforms. Networks have taken issue with the fees they receive from pay-TV, which are often considerably lower than fees paid by cable networks. Broadcast retrans revenues are forecast to rise 28% this year to $1.46 bil.


BIZ & BITES

=>  Mohamed Bin Hammam, FIFA presidential challenger accused of bribing voters, has conter-accused his opponent, Sepp Blatter, of effectively approving the alleged payments and called for him to be investigated as well. The Qatari alleges that his co-accused, Jack Warner, had told Blatter about the payments but the FIFA president took no action. FIFA’s code of ethics places a duty of disclosure on any official to "report any evidence of violations of conduct to the Fifa secretary general", for transfer to the ethics committee. Bin Hammam formally wrote to Fifa's secretary general, Jérôme Valcke, to request investigation be widened to include Blatter. If Bin Hammam is to be condemned he will seek to take Blatter down with him and, in a high stakes strategy, appearing to accept that payments were made but claims Blatter knew about them and said nothing.

=>  Australian pay-TV FOXTEL has made a bid to acquire rival AUSTAR for A$1.52 (US$1.61) /share to create a merged subscription TV provider that, when combined, could generate revenues of over A$2.8 bil ($3 bil) annually. The A$1.9 billion acquisition would create a merged operation with more than 2,500 full-time employees, anticipated revenues of over A$2.8 billion and combined investment in original Australian content of more than A$500 million ($530 million) per annum.
 FOXTEL notes that a merged platform would be able to accelerate the rollout of new digital products and services. Plus, customers in regional areas would receive access to new digital subscription channels as well as flexible packages and pricing options.