Monday, 23rd June 2008

SPORTS SHORTS

* ESPN Star Sports (ESS) will commence airing the Asia Cup cricket tourney from 24 June 2008. In order to use the event to push its cricket channel Star Cricket, the broadcaster has rebranded the event as Star Cricket Asia Cup. The event will air on Star Cricket and on ESPN. ESPN Software India MD R C Venkateish says, "Star Cricket is a dedicated channel for the Indian subcontinent and there cannot be a better association than aligning with the Asia Cup where all the major cricket forces from the sub continent including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are participating”. Indiantelevision.com, Televisionpoint.com, 20th June 2008

* CNBC, in partnership with The Nation, Thailand's English newspaper, has extended its Asia Pacific WAP services to Thailand. The content will be distributed on three of Thailand's major service providers - AIS, TRUE and DTAC. The Nation will also be translating CNBC's English content into Thai. CNBC Asia Pacific has also launched the CNBC Mobile WAP site in Thailand. The Basic WAP site will be accessible by subscribers of AIS. The Prime WAP site will be available exclusively on AIS for the first three months. "The penetration of our SMS content into Thailand via the 3 largest service providers, and WAP content via AIS, is a reflection of the demand for our real time financial news and comprehensive business analysis being available anytime anywhere," Jacqueline Lam, Head of Network Distribution, CNBC Asia Pacific, said. The suite of SMS services includes CNBC English and Thai News Headlines, regional and global business news from CNBC and local business news from The Nation, among others. Marketing Interactive, 16th Jun 2008

* The Southeast Asian nations have agreed on a common set of specifications for Digital TV Standard and High Definition set-top boxes. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) reached the agreement at the end of the ASEAN Digital Broadcasting meeting in Singapore, said a statement by Singapore's Media Development Authority. This will create economies of scale for equipment manufacturers and help to lower the prices of such set-top boxes for consumers, said the statement. The ten member countries also agreed to establish an ASEAN HD Centre to facilitate training and co-productions for HD content. A checklist has been developed for ASEAN members to determine their readiness to switch from analogue to digital broadcasting. Advanced-Television.com, 23rd June 2008

* Japan’s NHK demonstrated its 7680 x 4320 pixel Ultra HD system at CommunicAsia, Singapore – and visitors were amazed. NHK’s two 8K projectors (a pair of LCoS units) delivered a combined 8000 Lumens of light onto a screen measuring 6.6 x 3.7m, and some spectacular images. Visitors to the show – which will be repeated this September at IBC along with live, satellite-delivered footage captured in London – were certainly impressed. “Staggering,” said one viewer, “wonderfully impressive,” said another. NHK was telling visitors that the broadcaster expects this technology to replace today’s HDTV transmissions in about 10 years, with further work needing to be done on miniaturising the 33 million pixel camera used to capture the shots. Rapid TV News, 22nd Jun 2008

* MediaCorp, which is Singapore’s national free-to-air TV operator, and Singaporean pay TV operator Starhub have announced their latest collaboration. Mediacorp’s High Definition (HD) TV channel - HD5 - will be carried on StarHub’s cable television platform in July 2008, signalling yet another step forward in the growth of HD TV services in the city state. HD5, a simulcast of MediaCorp TV’s Channel 5, is the only free-to-air HD channel in Singapore. HD5 airs blockbuster movies, international drama series and local English productions. HD5 will be available at no additional cost on Channel 300 to all StarHub Digital Cable customers who have an HD-ready TV set and StarHub’s HD set-top box. Indiantelevision.com, 21st June 2008

* ING, the financial services group, has extended its sponsorship deal with the Asian Football Confederation, the continental governing body for soccer, in a deal negotiated with the help of World Sport Group, the Singapore-based sports agency that is the confederation’s commercial partner. The new agreement will take effect from September, the first month of qualifying matches in Asia for the 2010 Fifa World Cup. The sponsorship, which will run until the end of 2012, will also cover the 2011 AFC Asian Cup in Qatar, Asian qualifying matches for the 2012 Olympic Games, the AFC Under-19 and Under-16 Championships in 2010 and 2012, the AFC Women’s Asian Cup and the AFC Futsal Championship. Sportcal, 20th Jun 2008

* Pay-television rights in Germany for the Uefa Cup from 2009-10 to 2011-12 are still to be assigned, with pay-television operator Premiere, which yesterday extended its pay-television rights deal for the top-tier Uefa Champions League, considered to be in pole position. Premiere is reported to have paid a total of €200 million ($311.9 million) for free-to-air and pay-television rights for the Champions League from 2006-07 to 2008-09. Premiere subsequently sub-licensed free-to-air rights first to DSF, the privately-owned sports broadcaster, and later to Sat.1 for the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons. Sat.1 is thought to pay around €13 million a season to show 13 live matches. Sportcal, 20th Jun 2008

* Sport TV, the Portuguese pay-television operator, has extended its broadcast deal for the Liga Bwin, the top-tier soccer league in Portugal, for another four seasons. Sport TV’s last deal expired at the end of the 2007-08 season but has now been extended until 2012. The new deal also includes Portugal’s second-tier Liga Vitalis. Free-to-air broadcasters in Portugal must now negotiate with Sport TV for rights to broadcast live or highlights coverage of matches. TVI, the Portuguese commercial network, agreed a two-year deal for the Bwin Liga for the last two seasons, paying €20m ($31.3 million) to €22m overall for 30 second-choice live matches and 30 highlights shows. Sportcal, 20th Jun 2008

* (Excerpt) Is the NFL ready ready to hand off a controversial package of eight late-season games to ESPN? The league and network on Friday declined to comment on a Wall Street Journal report that the NFL is talking to Walt Disney Co.'s sports media juggernaut about a possible partnership -- one that might solve its increasingly bitter carriage battle with big cable operators, including Comcast and Time Warner. The increasingly nasty dispute that has put NFL fans and cable television customers in the middle has its roots in a decision two seasons ago by team owners to forfeit an estimated $400 million in TV rights fees and keep an eight-game package for the NFL Network. LA Times, 21st Jun 2008

* ESPN Interactive TV will broadcast coverage of Wimbledon in the United States for the first time. The coverage will reach the 30 million homes served by Dish Network and DirecTV, with a six-screen mosaic featured on ESPN2 for the first five days of competition. The mosaic will comprise the ESPN2 feed, four feeds from outer courts and Wimbledon Extra, with look-ins on key matches, highlights, press conferences and interviews. All six can be expanded to full screen or picture-in-picture at the touch of the remote button. In addition, DirecTV will offer “Matches On Now”, a graphic across the bottom of the screen with scores from each of the matches currently on the court channels, with the ability to tune directly to the match. Sports Media, 20th Jun 2008

* Sailing fans will be able to watch live coverage of the in-port races on mobile phones for the first time during the forthcoming Volvo Ocean Race courtesy of Swedish handset manufacturer Ericsson. Ericsson will be the official worldwide provider of the Volvo Ocean Race Mobile Channel for the 2008-09 event, enabling mobile phone users to get easy access to news and updates plus video and audio clips. During the last race in 2005-06, the mobile channel delivered more than 4 million pages to mobile phones around the world and Ericsson is offering an enhanced service, based on the concept of 'never leave the race.' Sportcal, 20th Jun 2008

* John Malone, called the Darth Vader of US cable and president of Liberty Media, has come down pessimistically on free internet-based TV, and is especially critical of NBC’s plans to put some of its expensively acquired Olympics footage onto the Web. Malone told the Financial Times that NBC was making a mistake. “I think the idea that they’re going to put television shows and movies on the internet, bypass[ing] their traditional distribution and have no way of collecting [revenues] is absurd,” he said. NBC paid $2.3bn for the US broadcast rights to the upcoming Beijing Games. However, the broadcaster cannot even begin to show all the programming that will be coming out of China. Consequently, NBC has linked with Microsoft to offer live feeds as well as “on demand” footage of the Games, hoping that the project will bring in millions of online users and thus generate ad-based income for the effort. Rapid TV News, 22nd Jun 2008


MORE NEWS

Global/Rights: UEFA Reinforces Importance Of Free-TV

UEFA has reiterated that it remains committed to ensuring that the European Championships will be located on predominantly free-to-air networks. Earlier this month, a key player in the governing body’s legal team confirmed to Sports Media that UEFA's campaign to have broadcasts of the European Championships plucked from the British list of untouchable "crown jewels" could rumble on for up to three years. Under current European legislation, the competition is deemed to be of such national importance in the UK that it is guaranteed to be shown in its entirety on terrestrial television.

However, UEFA argues that only matches involving the home nations carry significant importance to the country as a whole and, therefore, non-terrestrial broadcasters should be allowed to bid for rights to games involving the remaining teams. The UK and Belgium are currently the only countries in the European Union to put the entire competition on its list and UEFA’s stance had apparently opened the door for pay-TV operators to grab a larger share of the rights on offer. Euro 2008 has seen huge audiences recorded by free-to-air networks throughout the major European television markets and David Farrelly, head of content for UEFA Media Technologies, stated that free-TV remains a priority for UEFA.

“Free-TV has always been UEFA’s way in terms of the fact that we want to make sure that the people who can’t get to the games can see them - it’s the same for us on the web,” he told Sports Media. “If you can’t see the games we want to be the eyes and ears for you and keep you bang up to date with what’s going on. I think that has served UEFA well, it has been reflected in the fact that there have been full stadia along with the sheer number of people watching. I think that’s in the interest of UEFA, the football fans, broadcasters and the sponsors.” Sports Media, 20th Jun 2008

Asia/Broadcast: China Will Dominate Asia Digital TV

Informa’s latest Asia Pacific TV survey says Chinese homes will generate half of all digital TV connections in the region within the next 5 years. China has already overtaken Japan in terms of digital TV connections, with growth from 12.9m in 2006 to 27.3m last year. (Japan’s digital homes counted as 19.9m last year). But jump forward to 2013 and the Chinese digital numbers are forecast to rise to an impressive 123m, according to Informa, compared to Japan’s 35.7m.

But factor India’s anticipated growth in 2013 and Japan will slip to third position. India is forecast to grow from 11.7m (at end of 2007) to 40.8m in 2013. “China’s sheer size makes it the region’s most eye-catching market, but there has been progress pretty much everywhere. At the end of last year, the region had 75m homes receiving digital signals,” report author Adam
Thomas noted. “This is more than 10 times the 2001 figure and paves the way for even greater expansion over the next five years.”

The Asia-Pac region overall will approach 250m digital homes buy 2013 says the study. However, examine the overall value of pay-TV homes and the result presents a very different picture. Under this portion of the forecast Japan holds onto its Number 1 position, and worth $14.9bn in 21013, and up from $10.6bn last year. India and China will be more or less equal (at $8.92bn and $8.82bn respectively) in 2013. South Korea’s pay-TV numbers are expected to grow from last year’s $2.87bn to $4.02bn by 2013. Inside Satellite TV, 16th Jun 2008

Asia/Broadcast: New Platforms Driving, Lack of Content Slowing, HD in Asia Pac

75 percent of platforms surveyed have, or plan to launch an HD offering by end 2008, according to research firm Euroconsult. But lack of substantial HDTV content was viewed as the most significant roadblock for HDTV in the region. With only six months of the year to go, the 'by end-2008' timeline seems rather ambitious, but the message from operators surveyed was overwhelmingly optimistic regarding HD. Of the 25 platforms interviewed by Euroconsult, 9 already provide HDTV channels or VOD content and another 10 are committed to HDTV plans.

The study said that HDTV is spearheaded by newer pay-TV platforms seeking to differentiate themselves. More established platforms were taking a slower approach to implementing HDTV. "This can be attributed to the fact that new platforms will largely be HD-ready and using MPEG 4 compression technology from the outset, rather than facing upgrading costs like some more established players," said MEASAT's vice president sales & marketing, Terry Bleakley.

The study was commissioned by MEASAT Satellite Systems Sdn. Bhd. (MEASAT) which is striving to make its newest launch MEASAT 3, synonymous with HD. Said Paul Brown-Kenyon, chief operating officer of MEASAT. "The insights will help us determine how best we can support our customers and partners in the development of this important segment."

"The study provides clear evidence of faster development of HD offerings in Asia than previously expected. Opportunity for growth and increasing competitive pressure are the primary factors driving pay-TV broadcasters to develop a HD offer," said Euroconsult's managing director Pacome Revillon. Television Asia Plus’ Executive News, Worldscreen, 23rd June 2008

Hong Kong/Broadcaster: .FOX Networks Reaches Hong Kong

.FOX Networks, the online advertising network operated by Fox International Channels, is extending its presence in Asia including Hong Kong to revolutionize the local and regional online advertising industries. .FOX has launched BrandformanceTM, a brand-building performance-based solution, which it said would "revolutionize the online advertising industry in Asia" to give out opportunities to local advertisers to optimise their online media strategies.

Fred Guillet, regional director of .FOX Networks for Southeast Asia, said the group sees Hong Kong as a key market in the region and it makes sense for them to build relationships with publishers and advertisers here. Through .FOX Networks, advertisers will have access to FIC's global web inventory that include National Geographic Channel, National Geographic Channel HD, Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo Adventure, Nat Geo Music, FOX, FOX Life, FOXCRIME, FX, BabyTV, CULT, The History Channel (India), as well as many other premium third-party publishers.

Guillet added .FOX Networks has already established an array of solid TV brands and connections with audiences in the TV space and forged strong relations with regional, local and global advertiser. The expansion puts it in a unique position of advantage in a converging world. "Through .FOX Network's innovative 360 degree integrated cross-platform marketing solution, we are enabling our global, regional, and local advertising partners to reach viewers of our TV brands and online audiences in a targeted, cost-effective manner." MarketingInteractice.com, 20th June 2008

Global/Broadcaster: EBU to Cut Coverage of Sports Flouting Doping Rules

European broadcasters will cut down their coverage of sports events if federations do not offer maximum guarantees in the fight against doping, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) said today. The EBU said it would present contracts to the sports ruling bodies asking them to comply with the rules of the World Doping Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) or face sanctions in terms of TV rights and broadcasting time.

EBU General Director, Jean Reveillon, said: "The number of doping cases over the past year has strengthened our determination to ask our partners to do their utmost to fight against doping. It is our duty to take measures to make sure our viewers are offered a sports show as clean as possible. If some of our partners did not offer the guarantees stipulated in the contract, there could be sanctions in terms of TV rights and broadcasting time".

Doping cases have tarnished several high-profile sporting events over the past few years, most notably cycling's Tour de France. German state television channels ARD and ZDF suspended their coverage of the event last year in response to German rider Patrik Sinkewitz testing positive for elevated levels of testosterone. Sport Business, Sportcal, Int. Herald Tribune, Reuters, 20th Jun 2008