Monday, 25th July 2011

BROADCAST & RIGHTS DISTRIBUTION

=>  Malaysia’s Star Publications has invested RM35 mil ($11.7 mil) for 51% share in the Asian channel operator LI TV Holdings. LI TV Holdings' owner, Juita Viden, will hold 49% equity in .LI TV Holdings which operates Life Inspired (Li), an Asian HD pan-regional lifestyle channel. The service, which features first-run and exclusive programs focused on food, home, wellness, travel and style, launched in August 2009 and expanded onto ten other platforms over two years. Its reach includes Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan. By next month, the channel will launch on three additional platforms in North Asia.

=>  Bloomberg TV has expanded its reach over 20% this year and is now the most widely distributed full-time, pan-regional business and financial news channel in the region’s key financial hubs of Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and Korea. BTV achieved this distribution lead by strategic territories in Asia-Pac, the result of a concentrated distribution drive. In Singapore, BTV is available to all StarHub and mioTV homes, totaling over 840,000 subs. In Australia, BTV is seen in in 2.2 mil homes while in Hong Kong, it stands at over 1.6 mil and 3.2 mil households in Korea. BTV is now in more than 12 mil home across the region.

=>  Neo Sports acquired broadcast rights to the Rugby World Cup 2011, from 9 Sep to 23 Oct in New Zealand. Neo will broadcast all 48 matches live to 100 mil homes. Japan is to host the Rugby WC in 2019, a first for Asia. Along with the inclusion of rugby sevens in the Olympic Games, increasing the popularity of the sport right across Asia is key to the International Rugby Board’s development plan over the next 10 years. Neo also televised the last Rugby World Cup, held in France.


STATS & DATA

=>  The FIFA Women’s World Cup Germany 2011 set a new TV viewing benchmark as it smashed several TV audience records. The final 3 German games in later stages averaged audiences 16 mil – the highest audiences for WWC matches in Germany. Average audience of 17 mil watched Germany bow out to Japan, nearly a quarter of the German population. Comparatively, an average of 15.5 mil watched Klitschko v. Haye boxing match and 14.8 mil watched Germany v. Serbia in the 2010 FIFA WC. Japan achieved record audiences at home for the final despite the match airing in the early hours of Monday morning. 10.4 mil Japanese watched as their women beat the USA, with peak audience of 15 mil during the penalty shoot-out. This is over 3 times higher than Japan’s semi-final last week and it is 50% higher than the 2010 FIFA World Cup finals.


EVENTS

=>  The inaugural World Series Hockey, formed by Nimbus Sport and the Indian Hockey Federation, will play from 15 Dec to 22 Jan in 8 cities. Nimbus Sport signed up 176 players (136 Indian and 40 foreigners) who will all be assigned to eight franchises based on the Draft system with eight teams having 21 players each. Some big names include Lucas Villa and Pedro Ibarra (Arg), Rehan Butt and Shakeel Abbasi (Pak), Rodrigo Garza (Spa), Brent Livermore (Aus), Jiwa Mohan (Mas) and Sung Min Lee (Kor). Indian stars include Rajpal Singh, Sandeep Singh and Adrian D’Souza.


BIZ & BITES

=>  AFC president, Mohamed Bin Hammam, expects to be found guilty of bribery allegations but continues to maintain his innocence. Bin Hammam is due to appear at a hearing of the FIFA ethics committee in Zurich. CFU officials Debbie Minguell and Jason Sylvester are also facing charges at the hearing. Verdicts are expected tomorrow but Bin Hammam is not optimistic of being cleared, writing in an online blog: “It seems likely that FIFA has already made its decision weeks ago. So, none of us should be completely surprised if a guilty verdict is returned.”