RIGHTS FEES

=>  Romanian cable, RCS-RDS, agreed to buy the remaining 6 unsold packages of broadcast rights for Romanian football top-tier Liga 1, adding to the package it acquired in April. RCS-RDS agreed a deal with the Romanian pro league, for unsold rights, agreeing to pay €45 mil ($64.2 mil) +VAT for the six packages from 2011/12 to 13/14. The deal raises RCS-RDS’s outlay on Liga 1 rights for the next 3 seasons to €58.2 mil +VAT. In April, Romtelecom, agreed to pay €12.9 mil +VAT and commercial Antena 1, agreed a deal of €10.5 mil +VAT for one package each; this means LPF’s nine packages of rights now fetch a total of €81.6 mil +VAT. Liga 1 rights from 2008/09 to 10/11 were acquired by a consortium of RCS-RDS and Antena 1 in a deal worth €85 mil +VAT or €102 mil in total. The new €81.6-mil deal is equal to over €100 mil (€101.2 mil) once VAT is included (VAT in Romania rose from 19% to 24% in 2010).

=>  Italian broadcasters, Rai and La7, have both submitted bids for rights to Italian basketball’s top-tier Serie A for next 2 seasons. Lega Societa' di Pallacanestro Serie A said Rai has bid for the ‘gold’ package and La7 has bid for the ‘silver’ package in private negotiations. Pay-TV Sky Italia presently holds rights in an exclusive deal but there have been calls from clubs for more visibility for the league, which has also considered the idea of launching its own TV channel. Sky Italia’s rights also cover the Coppa Italia and the Supercoppa tournament and is thought to be worth around €3 mil ($4.3 mil). Italian sports business consultancy, StageUp, is advising the league on the rights sale.

=>  The Argentinian government added all away matches of River Plate to its portfolio of 'listed events,' meaning that the games must be shown on free-to-air television. The move came after the club lost their battle to remain in the top-tier Primera Division and will play in the second-tier Nacional B for the first time in their 110-year history next season. The TV rights to Nacional B are held by pay-TV TyC Sports, in a deal valued at 38 mil pesos ($9.28 mil) /season and it will retain River's home games. Under the terms of TyC Sports' deal, each club's local free-to-air channel is permitted to show that club's away matches.


BROADCAST & RIGHTS DISTRIBUTION

=>  The AFC Asian Cup 2011 in Qatar had record TV viewing. Japan, China and Korea were top three viewer markets. Japan had 43.2% of total audience growing from 131 mil in the 2007 tournament, to 209.2 mil this year and in Korea from 29.5 mil to 41 mil, according to CSM Media Research. 63 mil viewers watched the semi-final between Japan and Korea, the highest rated match of the tournament, with Japanese and Koreans making up half of the viewers. In Japan, TV Asahi drew 24.46 mil viewers while KBS2 had 8 mil in Korea. Nearly 3,600 hours of TV was delivered to over 484 mil viewers in 80 countries across Asia-Pac, Europe, North America and North Africa. The event generated a total reach of more than 2.5 bil.

=>  [Continued] The second most watched AFC Asian Cup 2011 match was the Japan-Australia final with 54.4 mil viewers, which Japan won a record fourth time. The Japan and Qatar q-final drew 45.63 mil, the 3rd highest rated match in TV viewership. Saudi Arabia and the UAE accounted for 5.8% and 1.1% of total audience. Despite China’s early exit, total views in China was 156.6 mil – 32% of total audience. Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam had a combined audience of 24 mil. The event also enjoyed significant following on internet and social media platforms. Nearly 7 mil fans visited Asian Cup 2011’s official website while 2.5 mil followed the event on Facebook.

=>  Korean pay-TV KBSN Sports acquired rights to sepak takraw's international calendar, including the inaugural ISTAF World Cup. KBSN, which reaches over 11 mil households in Korea, will show live coverage and highlights of the World Cup, followed by the first season of the ISTAF Super Series. The five Super Series tournaments will take place in Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Iran and China. The deal was brokered by UFA Sports Asiaon behalf of the International Sepak Takraw Federation. Indonesia’s TVRI,Filipino Solar Sports, pan-European Eurosport, Singapore’s StarHub and Thai Channel 3 have already signed similar deals.


STATS & DATA

=>  A new ABI Research reports warns that subscription platforms must embrace online video to keep up with changes in media-consumption habits. Of the 2,000 U.S. consumers surveyed about consumer-electronic products in their households, only 10% did not subscribe to pay-TV. Consumers own connected devices are watching up to 8 hours of online video on those devices every week. Pay-TV should tap into this trend in its early days. Netflix and YouTube are the clear consumer favorites for online video, while the divide is greater for social networking where Facebook captures 97% of social networkers on CE devices (compared to 32% for MySpace, the next closest competitor.