Friday, 20th April 2007

WHAT’S THE BUZZ?

Sanjaya’s Exit Makes Fox’s Night

Sanjaya Malakar , the divisive 17-year-old “American Idol” contestant better known for his hairstyles than his singing talent, reached the end of his run on Wednesday. Receiving the fewest votes of the more than 38 million cast, Mr. Malakar was told of his departure on Fox’s “American Idol” results show, which garnered 28.2 million viewers in the 9 p.m. hour, according to Nielsen’s estimates. Fox led the night’s ratings over all, but “Bones” at 8 (7.9 million) posted the slimmest of leads in the hour, ahead of CBS’s “Jericho” (7.8 million). Benjamin Toff on The New York Times, 20th April 2007

"I can promise you: We won't soon forget you," Ryan Seacrest, bidding farewell to "American Idol" cast-off Sanjaya Malakar. Source: Entertainment Quotes from Associated Press on International Herald Tribune, 19th April 2007


SPORTS SHORTS

* The New Zealand Rugby Union could face legal action after pay-TV broadcaster Sky revealed an expected, albeit controversial decision to withdraw 22 New Zealand All Black rugby players from their teams in this year’s Super 14 competition had badly hit television viewing figures which were down by nearly 23% for the Friday night games, and have not picked up since the return of the All Blacks from a three-month training camp. Sky is in the third year of a five-year, $420-million deal with Sanzar for Tri-Nations and Super 14 games. Source: Sportcal, 19th April 2007

* TNT will launch a MySpace page dedicated to coverage of the NBA. It will host exclusive videos featuring the network's Inside the NBA studio team as well as behind-the-scenes footage from the show. The TNT NBA Thursday MySpace page goes live on April 19. TNT also plans to post candid photos of the stars of Inside the NBA on a regular basis. Charles Barkley, Magic Johnson and others will occasionally post blog entries on the site throughout TNT’s playoff coverage, as will members of the network’s NBA production crew. Source: Mediaweek, 18th April 2007

* IP-based video service provider Glowpoint, Inc. has struck a deal with NASCAR to provide equipment and services allowing delivery of two-way high-definition video interviews over Internet Protocol. Glowpoint will provide the system to several NASCAR locations, enabling live-to-air and live-to-tape interviews. Glowpoint says NASCAR is the first major pro sport to provide content on ‘HD over IP’, marketed by Glowpoint as Team-CamHD. A service link will be provided to NASCAR’s headquarters in Florida and media outlets will be able to acquire driver interviews and such in between races via Glowpoint or satellite feeds. Source: Sports Media, 19th April 2007

* Poland and Ukraine pulled in heavyweight support for their successful bid to host UEFA EURO 2012™ with former world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko and the great pole vaulter Sergey Bubka among the ambassadors backing their candidature in Cardiff. Bubka was not just lending his fame to the tender but also attending in his capacity as president of Ukraine's National Olympic Committee, and could not hide his delight at the bid's surprise success. Klitschko, world heavyweight champion in 2004 and 2005, was also in exultant mood. Source: Uefa Official, 18th April 2007

* Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein has left the club with immediate effect because of “irreconcilable differences” with the rest of the current board. However, the 63-year-old former Football Association vice-chairman and current chairman of the G-14 group of elite European clubs, still holds around 14% of shares in Arsenal’s parent company. The differences are thought to be over the potential takeover by American, Stan Kroenke, who recently acquired ITV's 9.9% Arsenal stake in a £60 million deal and has taken his holding to 11.26%. Source: Football Insider, Sport Business, Sportcal, EUFootball.biz, 19th April 2007

* ATP president, Etienne de Villiers, is believed to have agreed to review aspects of a controversial overhaul of the structure of the season after meeting with prominent players opposed to the changes, led by Roger Federer. The Swiss star is particularly upset at plans to downgrade the Monte Carlo clay court tournament. The meeting in Monte Carlo followed public complaints by the players that De Villiers had not taken their views into account before drawing up plans to change the tournament schedule from 2009 onwards. Source: Sportcal, 19th April 2007

* MIPtv delegates were treated to 3D-HDTV television from Japan’s NHK, which is shot on a single camera fitted with a pair of side-by-side lenses, each taking compressed image signals into a single video stream. This means that the images can be recorded conventionally on a standard HD VCR, or transmitted. The results are spectacular, and exceptionally vivid. The 3D demo-images comprised of nature and wildlife scenes, excerpts from a specially shot drama, animation and documentary footage. This will not revolutionize broadcasting just yet, but end results are interesting and could breathe fresh life into 3D. Source: Worldscreen, 19th April 2007


MORE NEWS

Elsewhere/Rights: Telstra Blow After Court Ruling

Telstra has suffered a blow in its legal wrangle with Fox Sports over National Rugby League (NRL) material on websites and multimedia services. Telstra claims that Premier Media Group is guilty of screening excessive highlights of NRL matches on Fox Sports which are owned by Vodafone and Hutchison, its major rivals. The NRL sealed a A$90 million (US$75 million) deal with Telstra earlier this year, with the latter securing the rights to air league matches on its Internet and mobile services, leaving Fox Sports with the pay-TV rights.

Telstra had sought an urgent ruling to restrict Fox Sports to using a limited amount of NRL action for news reports before the full trial, which takes place later this year. It claimed that 45 seconds of footage should be the maximum and that footage should only be used for only 24 hours after a match. But Federal Court ruled that Fox would be able to continue broadcasting the highlights, which Telstra claims are reducing traffic to its own websites. Source: Sports Media, Sport Business, 19th April 2007

Elsewhere/Rights: EPL to Vote on New TV Revenue Distribution

Clubs in the Premier League were set to vote on proposals for more equitable distribution of television rights revenues, following a new rights deal worth £2.7 billion ($5.3 billion) for the three years starting with the 2007-08 season. The clubs, led by Charlton Athletic, want adjustments to the established revenue distribution in which 50% is split equally between the 20 clubs, 25% distributed according to league position at the end of the season and 25 % according to the number of television appearances that each club makes.

However, a proposal for 70% of the revenues for equal distribution, 20% on league position and 10% on television appearances has already been rejected fearing that the formula would lead to relegated clubs receiving a disproportionately large payment. Richard Scudamore, the league’s chief executive, is said to be planning an alternative in which quotas of TV appearances for each club are handed to the league’s broadcasters, BSkyB and Setanta, to prevent them from focusing their coverage mainly on the most successful (and richest) clubs.

It is feared that under the new deal, which will result in 60% more TV revenue for clubs from next season, the gap between rich and poor clubs is set to grow still wider. This is despite arguments that differentials between the top and bottom will be the smallest yet. The winners of next year’s title are forecast to earn £50 million in TV revenues, compared with £30 million for the bottom club. The differential between top and bottom club at the end of the 2005-06 season was £13.6 million. At least 15 clubs would be required to vote for the proposals in order to change the league's present system. Source: Sportcal, 19th April 2007

Elsewhere/Rights: Premiere/Arena Soccer Deal Scrapped

Following talks with the German federal cartel office, Premiere has decided to discontinue “until further notice” its marketing of Bundesliga channel Arena to DTH homes. The decision was in view of ongoing investigation into the agreement which Arena’s parent company Unity Media, Arena and Premiere made in February, granting Premiere non-exclusive satellite marketing rights for Arena. In return, the company was to receive a 16.7% stake in Premiere’s equity, turning Arena into the pay-TV broadcaster’s largest single shareholder.

Households which receive Premiere via satellite and have a subscription for Bundesliga live will not be affected. Unity Media will continue to market Premiere and Arena on cable networks of its subsidiaries ish and iesy, while in regions served by Kabel Deutschland, Premiere will continue to offer Arena to cable viewers. According to Premiere, the broadcaster intends to develop a model with Unity Media and Arena which complies with competition law by 31 May. Source: Rapid TV News, 19th April 2007


ARTICLES, COMMENTS & OPINIONS

TV Economy Has Room for Expansion: Subhash Chandra

As a prelude to GoaFest, the AAAI organized an AD conclave with the participation of Zee Group Chairman Subhash Chandran, ABP Group MD Pramath Raj Sinha and a streaming video statement by WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorell. The other speakers were Prasoon Joshi, SK Swamy and Raj Nayak and the session saw active participation from senior advertising executives including Sam Balsara, Shashi Sinha and Mahesh Chauhan.

Proposing to resolve the issue confronting the growth of the Indian advertising industry to achieve Rs 500 billion, individual speakers expressed their views on the same specific to their domain of expertise. Swamy stated, "The current ad growth in India is $ 3 billion, contributing to approximately 0.3% of the GDP." Adding that a recent Goldman and Sachs report which stated that Indian was expected to see an 8% growth in GDP till 2050 which will cause ad expenditure to surge further.

Chandra took narrated the Zee story and specifically looking at television, questioned whether TV in India was an undervalued proposition. To grow to Rs 500 billion from its current standing of Rs 150 billion, the industry would have to register a 50 per cent year on year growth. However, he believes that a television driven economy has room for greater expansion and the mission of achieving a Rs 500 billion target is not a dream but a realistic proposition. Source: Indian Television, 18th April 2007