Tuesday, 13th November 2007

WHAT’S THE BUZZ?

HDTV from the Moon

This coming Wednesday Japanese viewers to NHK’s “General Channel” will see live HDTV signals of the moon. The close-up images come about because of a Hi-Vision (HDTV) special camera on board the Kaguya orbiting spacecraft which reached the moon on October 5. The signals will be accompanied by commentary by Alan Bean, who walked on the moon as part of the Apollo 12 mission. The signals will also be aired on NHK’s World Premium international service. The Kaguya craft is orbiting the moon at a height of just 100km. Images have already been captured of the Earth, and shown to Japanese viewers. Other than these new images the only HD shots of the Earth have been made from the Space Shuttle or the International Space Station. Source: Rapid TV News, 12th Nov 2007


SPORTS SHORTS

* The Arab States Broadcasting Union said that it has abandoned any hope of negotiating a deal for the television rights of the Pan-Arab Games, which got under way in Egypt today. The ASBU initially refused to pay the asking price for the rights, which have traditionally been distributed free of charge. The rights-holder had attempted to by-pass the ASBU and approach its members directly to agree rights deals, but the ASBU said it was not aware of any deals having been struck. This is not the first time that organising committees have attempted to charge for the rights for the Pan Arab Games, after being assured by private companies that they are too valuable to give away. Organisers of the 1999 games in Jordan also tried such a strategy unsuccessfully. Source: Sportcal, 12th Nov 2007

* Regional pay-TV body Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (Casbaa) will focus in 2008 on “the increasing impact” of mobile TV as well as the development of pay-TV advertising. Re-elected to the Casbaa chair for another two-year term, Marcel Fenez, Global Managing Partner, Entertainment and Media Practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers, also noted “clear signals” from the Casbaa Council of Governors that the Association “should step up initiatives in India and China”. "The next 12 months promise to provide a banner year for the pay-TV industry across the region and CASBAA's role will be to support industry growth where ever it can," said Fenez. Source: Rapid TV News, 12th Nov 2007

* A broadcast row threatening the future of the German Ski Federation, appears to be over after RTL withdrew its challenge to the federation’s rights contract with Infront Sports and Media. RTL claimed that, after an examination of the DSV’s contract with Infront and ‘intensive talks’ with the federation, it had decided not to demand its ‘matching offer right’ – the right to match the best offer on the table and win the contract. Infront had been unable to implement its €15-million ($21.9-million) -a-year deal for the distribution of domestic and international broadcast rights for Germany’s FIS World Cup events with the DSV, agreed earlier this year, because of RTL’s complaint. RTL had been the DSV’s television partner for the last seven years and was also responsible for distributing the television rights before the Infront deal. Source: Sportcal, 12th Nov 2007

* Proposals to split TV rights revenues in Italian football were rejected by clubs in Serie B, the country’s second division. The league turned down the rights deal, with many of the clubs terming the deal insufficient. "We did all we could in order to meet the requirements presented by Serie B," AC Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani told AGI news. "But the Second League thinks that our effort was not sufficient and therefore we ended up with nothing." Galliani said the part of the deal agreed with Serie A clubs pact was still valid, but did not know what would happen without Serie B agreeing to the deal. The league may ask for government intervention. Source: Sports Media, Sportcal, 12th Nov 2007

* The National Basketball Association claims that the 2007-08 season will be the most widely watched ever as deals are in place with 202 television networks worldwide. The NBA says that 14 broadcasters, including TVB Jade and TVB Pearl in Hong Kong, will show games for the first time and has renewed deals with key partners such as NHK in Japan, and Beijing TV in China. NBA games and programming will be available in 215 countries in 41 languages. Some 200 million Chinese viewers were expected to tune in for the game between the Houston Rockets and the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night. It was the first time that Yao Ming, the Chinese player who stars for the Houston Rockets, had faced his compatriot Yi Jianlian, of the Bucks, in the NBA. The game was covered by no less than 19 broadcasters in China. Source: Sportcal, 12th Nov 2007

* The 2008 Rugby League World Cup (RLWC) is set to attract the largest TV audience in the tournament’s 54-year history. Organisers have announced that coverage of the code’s biggest event will spread into the UK, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East. Next year’s RLWC, which will run from October 25 to November 22 in Australia, will also be the first in the event’s history to be broadcast live on internet platforms after a new media partnership was agreed with Telstra. Britain’s Sky Sports, New Zealand’s Sky Sport, Showtime in the Middle East and Samoa in the Pacific have each elected to show recent qualifying matches ahead of the event. Source: Sports Media, 12th Nov 2007

* The sportdigital.tv channel, which has been commissioned by the German Volleyball League (DVL) to exclusively market its media rights around the world, has penned a broadcast deal with Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR). The MDR platform will air live and delayed coverage of matches from the first men's and women's national volleyball leagues in Germany. The covered games will involve teams from MDR’s transmission area and will include footage produced by sportdigital.tv. The footage generated will also be offered to free-TV broadcasters. Source: Sports Media, 12th Nov 2007


MORE NEWS

Asia/General: Manchester City Lured By Far Eastern Promise

A high-level Manchester City delegation will travel to the Far East this week, with the Barclays Premier League club set to tie up a number of sponsorship deals. Manager Sven-Goran Eriksson will visit Bangkok and Shanghai, along with City’s China international Sun Jihai, as the club complete the signings of four new sponsorship and commercial deals. The club can expect to make between £5 million and £10 million from the agreements, with the bulk of the interest coming from China and not new owner Thaksin Shinawatra’s homeland of Thailand.

“We will be making four announcements, simultaneously in Bangkok, Shanghai and Manchester, regarding new partnership deals,” said a club spokesman. “There is immense interest in English football in the Far East, as well as City, and we would be aiming to crack the Far East, for want of a better word. These deals have come about because of where we are in the Premier League table, they are not things that would have happened in our position last season.”

City will be setting up academies in the Far East and Eriksson will discuss bringing Thai and Chinese players to Eastlands for trials. The Asian market is one that several Premier League clubs are looking to delve into, with pre-season tours to the Far East now commonplace for a number of teams. A growing number of clubs are also beginning to tap into the market by offering their websites in a range of different languages, with City offering a Chinese-language version of its official site. Source: Football Insider, 13th Nov 2007

Asia/General: New Channel Chiefs Elected to CASBAA Board

The Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA) has announced the results of its 2007 Annual General Meeting elections in Hong Kong, and the re-election of Marcel Fenez to a two-year term as chairman of the association. Newly elected to the CASBAA Board of Directors were Tom Keaveny, the executive VP and managing director of Discovery Networks Asia; Todd Miller, the executive VP and managing director for Asia at Sony Pictures Television International (SPTI); and Anthony Tse, the president of China Entertainment Television Broadcast.

Those retaining their seats on the CASBAA board include Jonathan Spink, the CEO of HBO Asia; Peter Jackson, the CEO of AsiaSat; Sompan Charumilinda, the executive vice chairman of TrueVisions; and William Pfeiffer, the CEO of Celestial Movies. Ian Carroll, senior VP and general manager at Turner International Asia Pacific, was also re-elected for a second two-year term as a CASBAA board director.

The following were elected to the CASBAA Council of Governors, the association’s most senior advisory body: Stephen Ng, the chairman, president and CEO of HK Cable TV; Christine Leo-McKerrow, the senior VP of BBC Global Channels Asia; Manu Sawhney, the managing director of ESPN STAR Sports; Mike Reynolds, the president of StarHub; Sue Taylor, the VP and general manager of NDS; Surh Dong Koo, the president and CEO of KDB SkyLife; Alexander Muller, the managing director of TV5MONDE Asia; Andrew Jordan, the VP and general manager at SAT-GE; Mark Patterson, the CEO of GroupM; Craig Harvey, the director of media research at Synovate; Michelle Guthrie, the managing director of Providence Equity Asia; Nick Pilbeam, the managing director and founder of ITSun Limited; Paul Brown-Kenyon, the COO of MEASAT; and Gregg Creevey.

Stepping down from the CASBAA Board of Directors are Nic van Zwanenberg, the regional director of distribution and business development at BBC Global Channels; James Ross, the regional director at Granada International; and Tom Choi, co-founder and CEO of Asia Broadcast Satellite. Source: Worldscreen, 12th Nov 2007