Tuesday, 27th November 2007

SPORTS SHORTS

* Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom Company, the country’s leading telecoms operator, has denied a report that it has acquired the rights to broadcast next year’s Beijing Olympic Games through IPTV and mobile phones. The company said that the deal is still under discussion and has not yet been finalised. If agreed, the deal is expected to bring in significant advertising revenues and boost subscribers to the company’s multimedia-on-demand service from the present level of 350,000 to 1 million. Source: Sportcal, 26th Nov 2007

* Pay-TV in India is growing at 10% pa, but fierce competition means shrinking ARPU. A Screen Digest study shows that pay-TV in India has grown 10% pa since 2005, helped by competition between two DTH players Dish TV (launched in 2005) and Tata Sky (late 2006). Satellite reception grew 70% last year, but prices are tumbling. Zee TV’s Dish TV system has dropped price of its basic bundle from Rs210 ($4.60) to just Rs100 ($2.20) to stay competitive. Its programming and operation costs rocketed, and lead to “huge losses” for the quarter year. Three more DTH platforms are either on air or about to launch. Sun Direct TV is due on soon, and has signed with OpenTV for middleware. Two other groups (Reliance and Airtel) will launch next year. To help stay competitive Dish TV is backing the building and launching of its own satellite (ProtoStar) due in orbit in May 2008. Source: Rapid TV News, 26th Nov 2007

* Two companies have expressed interest in the four mobile TV licences up for grabs in Singapore. PGK Media says it wants to launch a ‘TV2Go’ service supplying 10-15 channels. Innoxious Technologies says it will supply eight channels, targeting 15-35 year-olds. Singapore’s Media Development Authority will issue four licences for mobile TV, to be issued in the latter half of 2008. One of the controversial proposals for all mobile TV services (including 3G services) is that they come under current broadcasting content regulations. Ms Ling Pek Ling, MDA's director of media policy, said it wants operators to follow existing TV programming codes so that objectionable content is not shown to young phone users. There is also no obligation on operators to supply public channels. Source: Rapid TV News, 26th Nov 2007

* The Women’s International Squash Players’ Association has added a squash tournament in Vietnam to its WISPA Premiere Series 2008 calendar. The WISPA Vietnam Open will take place at the Hanoi Country Club in March. Prize money has been arranged centrally by WISPA and Andrew Shelley, WISPA’s chief executive, said: ‘Squash is so embryonic in Vietnam that there is no national squash federation and so we are hoping to encourage its initiation to add to the Asian Squash Federation membership while we are building the event to focus attention onto our sport.’ The news follows last week’s announcement of another new WISPA Premiere Series tournament in Hangzhou, China, in January. Source: Sportcal, 26th Nov 2007

* Asian countries should get behind a single bid, possibly that of Australia, if they want soccer’s World Cup to be staged in the region in 2018, according to the president of the Asian Football Confederation. A highly competitive contest is expected now that Fifa, the sport’s world governing body, has decided to end its short-lived continental rotation policy for deciding host countries and opened up the field for the next available tournament and Mohammed Bin Hammam believes it would be counter productive to present multiple bids. Speaking ahead of AFC meetings and an awards ceremony in Sydney, Hammam said: ‘If we have one bid, all Asia can go and fight for that country. If there’s two bids, it would be difficult. If there’s two or three, we have to be polite and see who has the best chance and try to convince the others of that.’ Source: Sportcal, 26th Nov 2007

* Asian police have made 423 arrests after uncovering illegal betting activity across China, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The operation, codenamed SOGA (short for soccer gambling), culminated in arrests in October and November. A total of 272 illegal betting rings were shut down by the police, with Interpol estimating that these 'underground gambling dens' were responsible for $680 million of illegal betting worldwide. Along with the arrests, police seized $680,000 in cash, plus computers, mobile phones, bankcards and cars. Source: Sportcal, 26th Nov 2007

* Satyam has been signed up as the latest sponsor of the FIFA World Cup, becoming the first Indian company to engage in such a partnership. The consulting and IT services provider has been awarded global rights for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the 2014 event in Brazil and the two Confederations Cups which fall within the 2007-14 period. As the official IT services provider to the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, Satyam will be involved in developing the core IT event management system for FIFA and its service partner for IT, accommodation and hospitality - MATCH AG - along with local organising committees during the next seven years. Source: Football Insider, Sportcal, 26th Nov 2007

* The Cable & Satellite B’casting Assoc. of Asia (CASBAA) welcomed a decision to preserve C-band satellite spectrum in the region for TV services. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) took the decision earlier in the month at the World Radio Conference WRC-07, which CASBAA said “recognized the central role that broadcasting - and in particular pay-TV services - plays within the Asian communications market”. Simon Twiston Davies, CEO of CASBAA, said: “The interference-free operation of C-band satellite services is essential for mainstream satellite TV and cable TV platforms, mobile communications, Internet delivery and disaster recovery communications.” Source: Rapid TV News, 26th Nov 2007

* Sepp Blatter has urged rights holders of the world's top leagues to think about the game's developing countries. South Africa is one country where the local league is struggling to develop and maintain quality players, and there are concerns that fans are preferring to stay at home and watch more popular foreign leagues on television rather than turn up at matches in person and pump money into the local game. Live coverage of the Barclays Premier League, for example, is shown on South African television on Saturday afternoons - at the same time the country's domestic league games are taking place. Source: Football Insider, 26th Nov 2007

* Brazilian football club Flamengo unveiled the 750 horsepower single seater racing car that will represent the club in Superleague Formula, the motor racing championship featuring football club brands. The new series will feature the world's leading football clubs doing battle on track - 20 high-tech racing cars fighting it out from August, 2008. Flamengo joins leading European clubs AC Milan, FC Porto, PSV Eindhoven, Olympiacos, RSC Anderlecht, Borussia Dortmund, FC Basel and Galatasaray SK as the first teams onto the grid. Following on from the Brazilian launch, the championship will unveil entries from RSC Anderlecht in Belgium and FC Basel in Switzerland in successive weeks. Source: Sport Business, 26th Nov 2007


MORE NEWS

Global/Broadcaster: Volleyball World Cup Coverage Reaching More Than 200 Countries

The ongoing Volleyball World Cup in Japan is generating record TV coverage for the event, the sport's world governing body (FIVB) has announced. The tournament started on November 18 and will run until December 2, and three teams in both the men's and women's events will book their places at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Fuji Television is producing the event and providing high-definition coverage of the World Cup for the first time, and many of the games aired in Japan are attracting audience shares of greater than 20%. Footage from the competition is being distributed to 205 countries and territories across five continents through live and news distribution.

According to the FIVB, the event will reach a potential audience of nearly 450 million people around the world. Among the European broadcasters to be covering the tournament are RTR/Planeta Sport (Russia), Canal + (Spain), RTS (Serbia), Telesport (Romania), Polsat (Poland), Sport TV (Portugal), BNT (Bulgaria), Ma Chaine Sport (France, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg) and Sport5 (Israel). In the Asia-Pacific region, Fuji (Japan) is joined by Shanghai Media Group Great Sports Channel (China, Taiwan, Macau), PCCW (Hong Kong), Channel 7 (Thailand), VTV (Vietnam) and KBS N (Korea). There are also broadcast partners for the tournament in the Middle East (Al-Jazeera), Africa (ERTT Tunisia) and the Americas (NBC in the United States). Source: Sports Media, Sportcal, 26th Nov 2007

Elsewhere/General: FIFA Offers Free Tickets For Locals

FIFA will hand out 120,000 free tickets to South Africans for the 2010 World Cup. Furthermore, the cheapest tickets for the World Cup will cost US$20 - but will also only be available to South Africa residents. The free tickets will be provided by FIFA's commercial partners. To ensure that South Africans on low incomes will be able to afford to attend World Cup matches, FIFA have confirmed category four tickets will cost as little as $20 for group matches and $150 dollars for the final - the lowest prices since 1990. Between 15% and 20% of the seats will be designated category four tickets.

The most expensive category one tickets will cost $900 for the final, FIFA announced at a news conference in Durban. The cheapest tickets for overseas fans will start at $80. Meanwhile kick-off times for the tournament will be either 13:00, 16:00 and 20:00 local time. World Cup organisers said measures would be taken to ensure the free and cheap tickets would not be sold on to overseas fans - it has been suggested that ticket holders may have to also produce South African ID cards to gain access to the stadia.

FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke said: “We are working on measures to make sure there is no black market.” Danny Jordaan (pictured right), chief executive of the local organising committee, added: “We cannot announce the measures three years beforehand as people will try to develop counter-measures. Our target is the poor football fans in this country and if there is someone in an England shirt in that seat we will know something has gone wrong.”

FIFA president Sepp Blatter expressed his confidence that all the stadia would be ready in time and said that in order to minimise labour disruptions construction workers will be given an annual bonus if they do not strike. Blatter said: “We are not only confident but we are sure all the constructions will be ready for the 2010 World Cup. They are transparent and honest that not everything may be ready for the 2009 Confederations Cup but there are enough stadiums for that, and for 2010 everything will be ready. We are more than confident and trust the organisation here.” Source: Football Insider, 26th Nov 2007

Elsewhere/General: Premier League Invited to Brazil to Explain TV Revenue System

A group of five leading Brazilian soccer clubs has invited officials of English soccer’s top-tier Premier League to address the top Brazilian league as they try to persuade their fellow clubs to adopt a new, ‘fairer’ system for the distribution of television rights revenues. The clubs – Flamengo and Botafogo from Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo (from Sao Paulo), and Cruzeiro and Atletico Mineiro from Minas Gerais – believe that they represent a cross-section of the league’s larger and smaller clubs and are arguing for an end to the present, three-tier distribution system which, they say, has been influenced by political considerations.

They want the Premier League officials to explain the benefits of the league’s well-established and widely-mimicked system in which 50% of television revenues are distributed equally to all clubs, 25% according to league performance and 25% according to the number of television appearances each club makes. The Premier League system will, they believe, provide a ‘reference point’ for negotiations over a new television rights contract.

The present deal, in which the rights are held by TV Globo, the powerful Brazilian media group, is due to end in December next year. The clubs believe that the emergence of rival commercial broadcaster TV Record, which is said to have offered to pay R$500 million ($277 million) a year for the rights, offers them an opportunity to create genuine competition for the rights for the first time. TV Record’s offer compares with the R$300 million a year that Globo pays under the present deal.

Under the present, ‘politically-motivated’ distribution system, clubs are divided into three tiers, with the clubs in tier one receiving the most money and those in tier three receiving the least. The present deal consists of six separate contracts, all held by TV Globo. They are: free-to-air television; pay-television; international rights; stadium advertising; new media; and pay-per-view. The tiers are as follows:

# Tier one: Flamengo, Corinthians, Sao Paulo, Palmeiras, Vasco da Gama;
# Tier two: Santos;
# Tier three: All of the remaining clubs.
Source: Sportcal, 26th Nov 2007