Thursday, 1st November 2007

SPORTS SHORTS

* Indian broadcaster New Delhi Television (NDTV) will launch its two 24-hour flagship English-language channels—NDTV 24x7 and NDTV Profit—in Singapore on SingTel’s new pay-TV platform, mioTV. The new channels will be available on mioTV starting tomorrow. NDTV 24x7 is an English-language news channel that aims to provide up-to-date news for the Indian expatriate community in Singapore, as well as others interested in the developments in India. The channel produces original content such as documentaries and special reports and showcases award-winning programs like We the People and The Big Fight. Source: Worldscreen, 31st Oct 2007

* The FIFA Executive Committee has decided that Brazil will host the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and Germany will stage the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup. Brazil was the only South American country bidding to host the men’s tournament, which was due to be staged on the continent under FIFA's rotation system, while Germany defeated a rival bid from Canada for the women’s event. FIFA president Sepp Blatter said he had been impressed by Brazil's plans for 2014 despite the fact they were the only bidders following Colombia's withdrawal. Source: Sport Business, 31st Oct 2007

* England’s Football Association has today confirmed that the country will bid for the 2018 soccer World Cup following a meeting of the FA board. The decision comes in the wake of a decision by Fifa, soccer’s world governing body, to scrap continental rotation of World Cup hosts. England hosted the tournament in 1966 but unsuccessfully bid for the 2006 edition, which instead went to Germany. England’s bid is reported to have attracted the powerful support of Germany, following a ‘verbal agreement’ involving German chancellor Angela Merkel, UK prime minister Gordon Brown and Germany’s Fifa executive committee representative Franz Beckenbauer. Other potential bidders to host the tournament include Japan and Qatar and a suggestion that China and Australia would team to launch a joint bid. Source: Sportcal, 31st Oct 2007

* Meanwhile, The FA has concluded a range of new global broadcast deals for FA Cup and England matches, worth more than $300 million for the four-year period from 2008 to 2012. The identity of the successful bidders will be announced once all contracts are finalized. The new round of deals represent a 275% increase over the current four-year deal, which is worth $80 million. The overseas deals run in parallel with The FA's new U.K. TV deal with ITV and Setanta, worth £425 million over the same 2008 to 2012 period, a 42-percent increase over the current contract. Source: Worldscreen, Sportcal, 31st Oct 2007

* Tennis Australia, the sport’s national governing body, will appoint a security consultant to investigate potential illegal gambling on matches and player conduct at next year's Australian Open. Tennis Australia chief executive Steve Wood said in a statement today: ‘These measures are designed to ensure that we address the issue of player/tennis integrity generally and illegal gambling specifically. Officials will also work with local police to review security ahead of next year’s first Grand Slam tournament, which begins in Melbourne on January 14. Source: Sportcal, 31st Oct 2007


MORE NEWS

Hong Kong/Broadcaster: On Track for Switch-over

Hong Kong is on track for analogue switch-off by 2012, according to the country’s government finance secretary. John Tsang Chun-wah said that the timetable laid out in the implementation framework for DTT would be met. Earlier this week, the Broadcasting Authority approved changes to the Code of Practice on TV Technical Standards, which sets out all technical requirements for broadcasting. That approval allowed DTT broadcasts, including provision of electronic programme guides, to go ahead.

ATV and TVB, Hong Kong’s two terrestrial broadcasters, are required to start simulcasting DTT signals alongside their analogue broadcasts this year, although the standard – GB20600 2006 of mainland China – was only adopted a few months ago. Signals will cover around half of the territory at launch, rising to 75% by the end of 2008. A new testing group – The Hong Kong Digital Terrestrial TV Local Testing Group – has also been established to support the implementation of the technology. It is comprised of the broadcasters, plus HK Science and Technology Parks Corp, Rohde and Schwarz HK and Applied Science and Technology Research. Source: Rapid TV News, 31st Oct 2007

Asia/Rights: IMG Media to Market Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Rights

IMG Media has been appointed to distribute the television rights for women’s tennis’ Sony Ericsson WTA Tour in several territories. The four-year deal covers the Asia Pacific region, Africa, the Middle East (excluding countries in the European Broadcasting Union zone) and Latin America. The agreement covers all television media rights – including satellite, cable and terrestrial – as well as closed circuit, in-flight and ship-at-sea. IMG Media will distribute the rights for all tier-one and tier-two tournaments and the season-ending Sony Ericsson Championships next year, and the tour’s 20 premier events plus the Sony Ericsson Championships in 2009 and 2010.

From 2009, the new WTA schedule will include a longer off-season and fewer top-level events, in a bid to increase player participation and reduce injuries. There will be four top-level events in which participation is mandatory, together with prize money that is increased to $84 million. IMG Media was last month appointed by Tennis Australia to sell its Australian Open broadcast rights across Asia, adding to its portfolio which includes rights to Wimbledon, the French Open and the ATP Masters Series and Final. Source: Sportcal, Worldscreen, 31st Oct 2007

Asia/Broadcaster: Piracy Losses Soar

Piracy in Asia is estimated to have cost the region’s pay-TV industry US$1.54 billion over the last year – a rise of a staggering 36% in just one year. Part of the increase is due to the addition of Pakistan for the first time in figures from the Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (Casbaa). Losses from Pakistan stand at US$110 million alone. Estimates for the country show 4.6 million pirated cable-TV subscriptions, with just 345,000 legal subscriptions to pay-TV services. Even excluding Pakistan, losses have risen by 26% or US$300 million to US$1.43 billion. A 20% dollar re-alignment against the Indian rupee also affected the figures, although India’s losses were described by Simon Twiston-Davies, Casbaa CEO, as “structurally-based revenue leakage”.

Twiston-Davies said that despite having 73 million pay-TV connections, India suffers from heavy-handed government regulation which has created a lack of infrastructure investment. Pay-TV revenue leakage there reached US$985 million in net losses in 2007, an increase of 44% over 2006. “The systemic shortfall in analogue revenues from local cable operators is a major part of the problem,” he said. Under-reporting of subscribers is rife.

Thailand, which suffered the second-largest dollar loss in the region, of US$180 million, saw the growth of a new phenomenon – illegal internet-based card-sharing via remote servers for DTH services. There are 1.32 million unauthorised connections in total in the country. “This is a relatively new and sophisticated technical hack that boosts the vulnerability of DTH services to piracy. This needs to be watched carefully and highlights the need for industry vigilance and continued investment in technical protection supported by stringent legal sanctions,¨ said Twiston Davies.

But good news comes from Hong Kong, where the law of the market proves that competition is a good thing. The cost of pay-TV piracy there fell 15% to US$27.4 million, although the number of hacked connections remained unchanged, as the cost of pay-TV subscriptions fell. Good news too from Vietnam – where Casbaa has concentrated some efforts this year. The removal of pirated international channels from the line-up operated by Vietnamese cabler VTC accounted for much of the fall in industry losses in Vietnam, from US$38 million in 2006 to US$10 million this year. That, however, is a drop in the ocean of Asia’s major piracy problem. Source: Rapid TV News, Worldscreen, 31st Oct 2007

Elsewhere/Rights: Serie A Clubs Move Closer to Collective Selling with Fee Deal

Clubs in Italian soccer’s top-tier Serie A yesterday took a step closer to a return to the collective selling of rights in 2010 by agreeing, through a majority vote, a formula for the distribution of television rights fees that, it is believed, will favour the league’s smaller clubs. Under the formula, 40% of revenues will be distributed equally, with 30% being determined by the performance of the teams (according to various past and future indicators) and the remaining 30% allocated according to the size of each club’s fan-base (as indicated by specially-commissioned independent research).

The formula compares with the one operating in England’s Premier League, and used as a model by several other leagues, in which 50% of revenues is distributed equally, 25% according to league position and 25% according to the number of television appearances each club makes. Italian clubs have negotiated their television rights individually since 1999 but this system has benefited top clubs such as Juventus and AC Milan which have been able to command up to seven times as much from deals as smaller clubs.

Under the new system, a collective rights deal worth an anticipated €900 million ($1.3 billion) a season could mean a top club like Juventus receiving €87 million, about four times as much as a smaller club like Siena. Despite the adjustment in their favour, Siena, Atalanta, Cagliari and Palermo all voted against the plan, with Maurizio Zamparini, Palermo’s president, saying: ‘It’s a shame. It’s the successful attempt by three or four clubs to hold onto their dominance. It will allow the usual clubs to win for the next 50 years.’

Riccardo Silva, whose MP & Silva agency distributes the international rights of the majority of the clubs, today told Sportcal.com that he was unconcerned by the prospect of a return to collective selling. He said: ‘I consider myself in a very good position in both cases (collective or individual selling - I don’t have any preference).’ The collective selling plan must still gain parliamentary approval through a bill that is presently making its way through parliament.

However, Giovanna Malandri, the country’s sports minister, claimed that, with yesterday’s agreement, ‘A new era begins for Italian football. Everybody wins. The small clubs win, with a chance to compete at a higher level. The big clubs win because the agreement acknowledges their historical and current value. ‘The government wins, for wanting this reform, and the parliament. Now also [a small club like] Reggina may have some chance to win the league.’

In January, the Italian antitrust authority had recommended a return to the collective selling of broadcasting rights in a 170-page report in which the authority claimed that it was necessary to change the way the rights are sold to ensure a more competitive league. The authority said that an independent body should be responsible for the domestic and international sale of the rights. This could be the FIGC, the Italian soccer federation, but not the Italian football league. Source: Sportcal, Rapid TV News, 31st Oct 2007

Elsewhere/General: What IS Happening to HDTV?

The latest US Nielsen figures are out on HD viewing in the US – and they make bizarre reading. Audience measurement specialists Nielsen now includes HD viewing in its “people meter” ratings across the US. They discovered that HD viewing is lower than many people had anticipated, with only 13.7% of homes (about 15.5m out of 113m total US homes) even equipped with HD sets (that is with a tuner or converter box fitted).

This number is barely half what the powerful Consumer Electronic Association (CES) had estimated. The CES has pegged HD household penetration at 32% (or 36m homes) rising to 36% by the end of this year, helped by holiday sales. The total number of HD ready sets in the market at Dec 2006 was estimated to be almost 40m with sales by Dec 2007 topping 60m. Of course, the CES has always recognised that not all these sets would necessarily be used for HD viewing, mostly because their owners were assuming they automatically received HD signals. The CES says only 44% of HD set-owners actually received HD programming.

But then the Nielsen stats get confusing. Their “people meter” measurements suggest 11.3% of homes equipped with suitable equipment receive at least one HD network, and this number is included within the 13.7%, which suggests – if the numbers are accurate – that 82% of homes equipped with HD sets, etc are actually using them to watch HD signals. When you drill down into the data it seems La La Land (Los Angeles) has the highest HD numbers at about 1.2m homes. More data available at Nielsen. Source: Rapid TV News, 31st Oct 2007