Monday, 13th June 2011

RIGHTS FEES

=>  UEFA has reached an exclusive agreement with Italian pubcaster, RAI, for broadcast rights to 2012 European Championship in Italy. RAI will offer FTA coverage of all 31 matches across its two channels RAI Uno and RAI Due. RAI will also supplement its coverage with dedicated magazine and highlights programmes and comprehensive internet and mobile services on a live and on-demand basis. Reports suggest that fees were less than UEFA anticipated and less than was commanded by Euro 2012. In Spain, Mediaset will pay US$98 mil for Euro 2016, short of the US$105 mil UEFA required. RAI is thought to be paying below its previous deal with UEFA, believed to be worth between €100 mil (US$145 mil) and €110 mil (US$160 mil).

=>  When the International Olympic Committee announced it had agreed a new, $4.382-bil deal with NBC/Comcast for US TV rights of the four editions of the games between 2014 and 2020, its alacrity suggested that it was pleased with the money tabled. The previous 2-games deal was worth $2 bil, once a $200 mil sponsorship contribution from General Electric, NBC’s former parent company, is stripped out. This equates to $1 bil each for the 2010 winter and the 2012 summer games on average and compares with an average of $1.095 bil per games in the new deal. The share for the 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi is $775 mil and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro is $1.226 bil. NBC is to pay $963 mil for 2018 and $1.418 bil for 2020.

=>  Canal Plus is set to launch a tender for broadcast production of live coverage of French rugby union’s Top 14 from 2011/12 to 15/16. Production rights are currently held by Euro Media. Canal Plus recently retained Top 14 rights for the 5 seasons in a deal worth €31.7 mil ($46.5 mil) /season, or €158.5 mil in total. The deal came after lengthy negotiations between Canal Plus and the LNR after the pay-TV’s initial offer of €18 mil /year, over €10 mil /year less than it paid under the terms of the previous contract, was rejected, following a tender process launched at the end of last year.

=>  Canadian pubcaster CBC said it is interested in bidding for the rights of the 2014 and 2016 Olympic Games, despite earlier saying that it would not. CBC was the traditional Olympic broadcaster in Canada until rights for the 2010 and 2012 games were acquired by a consortium of commercial broadcaster CTV and pay-TV Rogers. The CTV-Rogers consortium paid a record $153 mil for the Vancouver 2010 winter games ($90 mil) and the London 2012 Olympics ($63 mil).

=>  Romanian cable operator, RCS-RDS, launched a third premium sports channel called Digi Sport 3 that will carry live coverage of sports events. Sports rights held by RCS-RDS include Romanian soccer’s top-tier Liga 1, English Premier League, Spanish Liga BBVA, Formula 1 and MotoGP. Liga 1 rights from 2008/09 to 2010/11 were acquired by a consortium formed by RCS-RDS and commercial network, Antena 1 in a deal worth €85 mil ($123.3 mil) plus VAT or €102 mil in total, but only three of nine packages were sold in a recent auction of the rights from next season onwards, with RCS-RDS picking up one package.

=>  Belgian telecom, Telenet, which offers digital cable TV, has acquired rights for Belgian soccer top-tier Jupiler Pro League, as incumbent and rival Belgacom lost a chunk of rights in new deals worth under €166 mil ($239 mil) over 3 years. Telenet acquired 5 of the six rights packages, including the top three live matches per week, with Belgacom acquiring one package that covers the remaining six live matches per week. Non-live rights acquired by Telenet include highlights rights and a Monday evening magazine show. The deal is averagely worth €55.25 mil /season, about €10 mil /season more than the deal from 2008/09 to 10/11. French language pubcaster, RTBF, retained FTA rights for the next 3 seasons in a deal with Telenet, while Flemish language VTM acquired FTA highlights, replacing VRT, which had vowed not to bid under government calls to cut costs.


BROADCAST & RIGHTS DISTRIBUTION

=>  Hong Kong pay-IPTV, Now TV, has acquired rights to 2011 Rugby World Cup, to be held in New Zealand, and will show all 48 matches from the tournament live in HD. Now TV will also broadcast daily and weekly highlights, tournament review highlights and pre-tournament programmes. Now TV currently offers rugby content; the Six Nations, Tri-Nations and the Super 15 on the Setanta Sports Channel. The 2011 Rugby World Cup culminates with the final in Auckland on October 23.

=>  Chinese state broadcaster, CCTV, said that home player Li Na's victory over Francesca Schiavone in last week's women's final of the French Open drew a domestic television audience of 116 mil. This surpasses the 60 mil who watched Li Na's defeat by Kim Clijsters in the final of this year's Australian Open. Li Na is the first Asian tennis player to win a grand slam tournament.

=>  Kolkata’s Celebrity Management Group, which has commercial rights to Argentina’s 2 coming international football friendlies in Kolkata and Dhaka, expect to profit from the event through broadcast rights, sponsorship and gate receipts. Argentina will play Venezuela on 3 Sep at Kolkata and Nigeria on 6 Sep at Dhaka. CMG paid Rs460 mil to get the rights for these matches; a figure some say looks “unrealistic”. The company is expecting to earn $8 mil from the two matches. CMG claims that two channels - a sports broadcaster and an entertainment channel - have pitched for Indian sub-con TV rights, excluding West Bengal. CMG expects $1 mil for broadcast rights; a chunk will come from Indian sub-con. The match is expected to reach at least 150 countries.

=>  India’s football league is resolute it will find a broadcast partner for the I-League 2011/12 after this season came to a close without a single match being televised. The lack football on air has been blamed on a lack of time available to find a new partner, after I-League rights were sold to IMG Reliance following the sudden termination of the 10-year broadcast and marketing rights deal between the All India Football Federation (AIFF) and Zee Sports in Oct, 4 years short of expiry. AIFF is confident that IMG Reliance is now more knowledgeable about Indian football six months into their agreement, and that this experience will aid the planning of forthcoming broadcasts.

=>  A 200-channel expansion for Doordarshan’s DTH TV platform by end 2011 has been approved by India’s public broadcaster, Prasar Bharati. Guidelines for procurement by Doordarshan of Hindi movies have also been approved by the board, along with amendments to those of programmes commissioned by the state TV service. In another development, cross channel advertising is now allowed by other broadcasters and DTH operators, and a negiotiation team is also to investigate the possibility of out of court settlements of arbitration issues involving Prasar Bharati, which now amount to over INR 400 crore.


STATS & DATA

=>  Sports websites registered a 38% increase in visits over past year on the back ICC Cricket World Cup driving a major chunk of the share in growth. comScore’s report titled "State of Internet with focus on India" says sports websites in India had a growth rate of 40% this year as compared to 29% in 2010 in All India 15+ TG. Sports websites globally registered -5% growth while Asia Pacific saw a negative growth of -13% during the same period. The India-Australia quarter-final and semi-final between India-Pakistan attracted highest visitors traffic with both matches attracting almost 1.7 mil unique visitors respectively. The finals between India-Sri Lanka had 1.4 mil unique visitors. Internet audience in India skews dramatically young: three-quarters of the web audience is under the age of 35, compared to 52% of the global average and 57% of the regional average.

=>  China’s IPTV market revenue is set to grow at a CAGR of 38% from 2012 to 2014 according to RNCOS. This is attributed to the increasing disposable income of the Chinese, which per head increased at a CAGR of 12% during 2008-2010. RNCOS’ Chinese IPTV Market Analysis identifies factors that will help revenue surge, among which cheap rates of IPTV services due to the price wars between the telecom operators has been the most important one. IPTV is a niche in new technology and telecom operators are offering IPTV services at cheaper rates to attract more consumers. This will help the companies to boost their revenue and thus, the revenue of the IPTV industry as a whole.

=>  An increase in multi-play services is a key driver in seeing worldwide pay-TV industry grow in subscriber numbers and service revenue. According to ABI Research, bundled services are more cost-effective than subscribing to each service separately and its uptake has been key to Q1 2011 service revenues growing 10% year on year to $53 bil. ABI said many operators have witnessed triple-play services reduce churn and increase ARPU for all of the different pay-TV platforms. ABI believes that analogue switch-off progress across the world drives increase in the number of customers receiving digital TV services and HD TV services. Asia Pacific is predicted to gain a larger market share than Western Europe in next two years driven by the cable TV sector, especially in China and India, with its potentially high number of cable TV subscribers.


EVENTS

=>  The Bahrain Grand Prix has been cancelled after F1 teams complained about competing in the country on 30 Oct this year, as originally scheduled. By procedural limitations, the date for the Indian GP had been shifted to Dec 11, as announced by FIA. Changes in mid-season require the unanimity of all the F1 teams, which will have to be sought, but their consent seems a foregone conclusion. F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone had announced the Bahrain race was now "not on" after a complaint from teams at the rescheduling of the event, which was initially put back to 30 Oct amid condemnation from human rights groups as clashes intensified between Bahrain's majority Shia population and the Gulf kingdom's security forces.


BIZ & BITES

=>  Mumbai-based entertainment company, Dream Theatre Private Ltd, has been appointed as a licensing agent in India for WWE. WWE products will be available in leading stand-alone stores as well as retail chain stores across the country including Lifestyle, Shoppers Stop, Hamleys, Pantaloons, Central, Crossword, More, Hypercity, Lilliput and others. 9 hours of WWE programming is broadcast each week on Ten Sports; WWE Superstars, Divas and Hall Of Famers can be seen on more than 68 mil homes across the country.

=>  Premier League clubs’ revenue reached a record £2.03 bil in 2009/10 and will exceed £2.2 bil in 2010/11, according to the 20th Annual Review of Football Finance from Deloitte. The top 92 English clubs saw revenues increase by 5% to almost £2.7 bil in 2009/10. However, increase in PL clubs’ wage costs of £64m (5%) exceeded the rise in revenue (£49m), driving total wages up to over £1.4 bil, resulting in a record wages/revenue ratio of 68%. Revenue in the FL Championship exceeded £400m for the first time in 2009/10 (up 9%), largely due to the change in clubs and the presence of Newcastle United. Of the £2.6 bil net debt in the PL, around 40% (£1.0 bil) is in the form of non-interest bearing ‘soft loans’, majority relating to two clubs - Chelsea (£740m) and Fulham (£187m). On the plus side, PL clubs had £1.8 bil value of tangible fixed assets, reflecting the huge investment in facilities seen over the past 2 decades, and the carrying value of player registrations, which exceeds £1 bil.”

=>  [Other Excerpts] The total European football market grew to a record £13.3 bil in 2009/10. The top 92 English clubs invested £179m in facilities in 2009/10 and £3.5 bil has been invested in English football clubs’ stadia and facilities over the last 20 years. Net debt in respect of PL clubs fell by 20%, from £3.3 bil in 2008/09 to £2.6 bil in 2009/10. The Government’s tax take from the top 92 football clubs will exceed £1 bil in 2010/11 due to increase in VAT (to 20%) and introduction of 50% rate for earnings over £150,000. PL clubs generated highest revenue (£2.0 bil) of any league in Europe in 2009/10, followed by Germany (£1.4 bil), Spain and Italy (each £1.3 bil), and France (£0.9 bil). The PL remained the second most profitable football league in the world, with slight increase in operating profits (up £4m to £83m) but op profits fell by 20% to £113m in the Bundesliga.

=>  A Swiss MP and former employee of ISL, the now-defunct sports agency that was previously the marketing partner of FIFA, has claimed that the Zurich-based world governing body should lose its tax privileges unless it improves its governance. FIFA has appealed against publication of court documents concerning a bribery scandal involving ISL. The appeal is FIFA’s second after the public prosecutor’s office initially decided the documents could be revealed, in response to requests from journalists. Roland Rino Buechel, an MP for the Swiss People’s Party, who worked for ISL for a year before it went bankrupt, has introduced a motion demanding that FIFA improves its governance by the end of this year or faces new legislation on its tax privileges.