Wednesday, 11th May 2011

RIGHTS FEES

=>  French pay-TV, Canal Plus, has finalised broadcast rights for French rugby union’s Top 14, signing a 5-year deal with the LNR. Canal+ secured exclusive rights for five seasons (2011/12 to 2015/16), including mobile rights, in a deal worth an average of €31.7 mil ($45.5 mil) /season, or €158.5 mil in total. The deal also includes VOD rights from 2012/13 onwards and a €4.5mil portion of the annual €31.7mil fee is variable as it is linked to the size of the broadcaster's Top 14 audiences. The final offer from Canal+ was accepted by LNR but was still below the league’s target of increasing domestic broadcast rights value by 50%.


BROADCAST & RIGHTS DISTRIBUTION

=>  A 22.4% jump in subscriber growth for India’s DTH satellite TV offerings was recorded for Q4 2010. 32.05 mil people in India received pay-TV services from six private DTH providers by Dec, up from 26.4 mil at end Oct 2010, TRAI said. This compares to 23.77 mil new DTH subscriptions In India by Jun 2010. India’s love for pay TV over satellite shows no signs of abating with Airtel Digital recently announcing it had added 3.07 mil subs in 2011 alone. RNCOS anticipates DTH subs in India will reach 69 mil by 2014, at a CAGR of 23% between 2011 and 2014. However, Indian DTH continues to face challenges like low returns on average revenue per user (ARPU), expense of acquiring content and subscribers and high taxation.

=>  IMG Media has signed a new 4-year broadcast rights distribution deal with equestrian’s FEI. The new deal runs until the end of 2014 and covers distribution of broadcast outside Europe for the quadrennial FEI World Equestrian Games in 2014, the FEI European Championships in 2011 and 2013 in jumping, dressage and eventing and the annual finals of the Rolex FEI World Cup Jumping and the Reem Acra FEI World Cup Dressage. IMG’s contract renewal with the FEI follows on from a new deal in Europe announced last month with the European Broadcasting Union, the umbrella body of mainly public-service broadcasters.

=>  Australians are applying for satellite TV smart cards at a rate of up to 600 /week, according to the Department of Broadband, Comm. and the Digital Economy (DBCDE), indicating that the on-going move away from analogue TV is not only to digital terrestrial broadcasts, but also to satellite. The government-funded Viewer Access Satellite Television (VAST) was established to prevent anyone from being left out in the switch and offers existing free-to-air (FTA) channels over satellite. DBCDE says VAST has about 21,000 viewing households across Australia. However, major population centres are, not yet eligible for VAST.

=>  UK ESPN has snatched British rights to two major soccer tournaments in July away from Sky. The Copa América and Emirates Cup will be shown on ESPN UK. Both had been Sky Sports staples in previous British summers. On top of the Emirates Cup, ESPN UK also took rights of all pre-season tours involving Arsenal (touring Asia), Everton (USA) and Tottenham Hotspur (South Africa). Sky Sports has held TV rights to every Emirates Cup, a 4-team friendly tournament played at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium during the off- season, since its inception in 2007. The Copa América had been a Sky Sports fixture since 1997, with the past 5 editions of the South American national team tournament broadcast live


NEW MEDIA

=>  The 2011 edition of tennis’ Power Horse World Team Cup, the annual teams ATP Tour event in Düsseldorf, will receive internet exposure with spobox.tv providing live coverage. The internet broadcaster will show free live coverage from May 15 to 20, having also streamed coverage of the tournament in the past. Spobox.tv will produce live and on-demand internet coverage to be shown on the official www.world-team-cup.tv website, along with player interviews, press conferences and magazine segments. Live TV coverage will be shown in Germany on FTA Sport1 and regional pubcaster, WDR. This year’s tournament was close to being scrapped before Triumph Media Group signed up Power Horse, the Austria-based energy drink brand, as the new title sponsor.


STATS & DATA

=>  New research by Rentrak revealed the enduring popularity of TV-based video on-demand (VOD) services. Aggregating data from its OnDemand Essentials service, Rentrak found that in 2010, an average of 38 mil STBs /month accessed VOD content, an 11% increase over 2009. The survey also found 44% of all enabled STBs access VOD, which looks set to rise with VOD users making an average of 17.1 transactions /month in 2010 and movies-on-demand being up 9.1%, to accrue almost $1 bil in revenue. Not surprisingly, “free on demand” represented 74% of all VOD transactions in 2010 with music, kids and TV entertainment being the top FOD categories. TV entertainment was the fastest growing sub-sector up 31% year-on-year.

=>  Eurosport is the best-known sports channel among French people over the age of 15, according to the CSA, France’s broadcast watchdog. Eurosport topped the poll of sports channels distributed on cable, satellite, digital terrestrial or IPTV with a recognition rate of 72%, ahead of pay-TV sports channel, Canal+ Sport, with 64%. Eurosport’s figure is 6% higher than last year. Infosport, Canal Plus’ sports news channel, was recognised by 40%, while Equidia, horse racing channel of PMU, France’s state run sports betting organisation, received 31% recognition.