Tuesday, 10th June 2008

HEADLINE NEWS

Suvrangsu Mukherjee to Join Total Sports Asia as MD

Suvrangsu Mukherjee is joining Total Sports Asia (TSA) as Managing Director. His last stint was with IMG where he was Vice-president, India and South Asia, for four years. He will be reporting to TSA Group CEO, Marcus Luer. Based in Gurgaon, Mukherjee will be responsible for running the India and South Asia operations of TSA, an integrated sports marketing company with offices in Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai and Tokyo. TSA opened its Indian operations earlier this month.

At IMG, Mukherjee was responsible for the Citibank deal with DLF IPL; the Manchester United global mobile gaming deal with Jump Games; brokering an exclusive licensing deal for Gitanjali to market Wimbledon branded jewellery in India, China, the US and the Middle East; the Miss World mobile content deal; Lakme Fashion Week; the Chennai Open tennis tournament; and the Johnie Walker Golf Classic tournament to name a few.

Mukherjee has previously worked with Turner Broadcasting for four and a half years as Senior Manager. Prior to that, he had spent four years in The Times of India Group’s Response department and later in the brand marketing team. At the time of filing this report, Mukherjee couldn’t be contacted. Exchange4Media, 9th Jun 2008


INFO BOX

IPL Boosts Advertising
TAM Media Research published on Business Standard, 9th June 2008

The first season for Indian Premier League (IPL) may be over, but it seems that the Indian media and advertising fraternity have got enough to cash in on it through the year. For one, marketing heads and advertisers who got on to the Indian Premier League (IPL) early are smiling all the way to the bank. The huge viewership that the matches gained during the 45 days, pushed up advertisement rates for 10-second spots to Rs 5-10 lakhs, which was marked at Rs 2 lakh per 10 seconds at the start of the tournament.

Interestingly, this is more than the Rs 8 lakh per 10 second rate for the T20 World Cup final between India and Pakistan last year, although the TRP viewership rating of the World Cup final was 9.21, much higher than the most-popular final IPL match which saw a rating of 7.7. According to TAM Media Research, for the target C&S 15+ in the all-India market, even the matches with least viewership had clocked TRP rating of 3.

So far, TAM data is available for 49 matches of which around four matches are rated around the 3 TRP mark. Around 13 matches have scored 6+ to 7+. The rest have been above 4 and 5 TRPs. Media buying agencies peg IPL as the biggest advertising revenue spinner at least for now every year. According to Sam Balsara, chairman and managing director of Madison Communications, the first IPL season has mopped up about Rs 350 crore of advertising revenues during the 44 days, across television advertising, team and ground sponsorships. The spends are around Rs 220 crore by Sony on TV advertising and Rs 130 crore on logos on team attire, branding, etc, which is significant considering television advertising industry is pegged at Rs 7,000 crore.

Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is expected to make a profit of Rs 350 crore in the first IPL year itself, higher than its profit of Rs 235 crore in the whole of 2007. Moreover, IPL is expected to fetch revenues in the range of Rs 1,000 - 1,500 crore a year into cricket. Set Max marketshare has risen to almost 29 per cent from around 6 per cent before the IPL season. Its share of prime time has gone up to 29 per cent, about 5 per cent higher than the marketshare of the top nine Hindi general entertainment channels put together.

That is not all. According to industry estimates, television advertising revenue will touch Rs 8,000 crore in 2008, and Sony alone is projected to rake in Rs 650 crore of advertising revenue from the second IPL year. Another assumption - of weekends performing better than weekdays – also turned out to be true. The IPL's overwhelming response in terms of ratings has seen a lot of cine-goers in Kolkata stay away from movie theatres and opts for the three-hour Kolkata Knight Riders cricket matches at home or in the stadium. According to industry analysts, an estimated drop of Rs 10 crore could be expected for the movie theatre owners in India. Audience Measurement and Analytics (aMap) threw a record high viewership rating for the final match of the DLF IPL T20 series. aMap said that for the C&S 4+ in the all India (1 lakh-plus towns), the match saw an average rating point of 7.7. The peak rating was at 10.2. aMap data suggests that a total of 2.4 crore people watched the DLF IPL T20 final match. The two semi-final matches, too, have delivered ratings of over 4 TRPs, according to aMap.


SPORTS SHORTS

* Jiang Heping, director of CCTV Sports, has again insisted the recent suspension of coverage of the National Basketball Association (NBA) finals was due to the earthquake in Sichuan. Basketball fans in China were left frustrated after state-owned CCTV suspended coverage of the NBA play-offs on May 23 following the devastating earthquake. However, a 10-day cancellation of NBA programming came to an end on Friday when 20 Chinese mainland TV stations, including CCTV, resumed coverage of the NBA, beginning with the best-of-seven finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics. Sports Media, 9th Jun 2008

* Preliminary discussions have been held between some television channels and Prasar Bharati for sharing the feed for the 2008 Olympics, for which Prasar Bharati has exclusive rights in India. Prasar Bharati has so far only been approached by ESPN and Zee Sports, but no formal plea had yet been made. News channels, however, are yet to approach DD for footage. Although it has not yet set the amount it will charge for such footage, Doordarshan had initially quoted high figures to news channels for the 2004 Olympic footage and later revised it to $5000 for up to five hours of footage during the entire games; $4000 for five hours to 25 hours; and $3000 for more than 25 hours. Indiantelevision.com, 9th June 2008

* Those willing to sign up for IPTV in Korea are mostly of relatively high income, according to the Netizen Profile Research conducted by Nasmedia. Among 5,000 respondents, 64.6% were fully aware of what IPTV is and 39.8% said they were willing to use IPTV. The higher the income levels of the respondents are, the better they understand the concept of IPTV and the more they intend to use it in the future. Among those who earn 1 million won (about $1,000) or less a month, only 28.8% said they would watch IPTV, while over half of the participants earning 5 million won or more said they would. Nasmedia said, "As an on-demand service, IPTV expects big demands from those who are relatively affluent, but have little time to watch one-way TVs. This also indicates IPTV has great potential as an advertising media based on strong purchasing power of its users." ATV, 9th June 2008

* The Global technology provider, SIDSA, is providing Al Jazeera Sport with KeyFly Conditional Access System to protect its HD content. It is also managing the viewers‚ access to the different platform‚s channels, with the main sport events (among them, the Spanish Football League, the Italian League, Euro Cup and Formula 1). The platform currently includes three standard channels and one HD channel. ATV, 10th June 2008

* Philippines Telecommunications companies opposed a government proposal to make SMS free, but agreed to sit down with lawmakers on how to lower the charge. Mobile phone firms said making SMS free would affect earnings and result in poor service. Rodolfo Salalima, senior vice-president for corporate and regulatory affairs of Globe Telecom, was quoted by BusinessWorld as saying that their revenues could be halved if text message charges are terminated. But Globe said they were willing to discuss with legislators ways to lower interconnection rates. A lawmaker earlier suggested a cut on SMS, while another has filed a bill forcing mobile phone companies to provide SMS as a free service. Philippines is the text capital of the world. Filipinos send about a billion messages daily. This figure is more than the total daily text messages sent in the US and Europe combined. One mobile network, Sun Cellular, is no longer charging SMS sent between subscribers. telecomasia.net, 10th June 2008

* Red Bee Media has been hired by CCTV (China Central Television – the state TV network) as the official creative and production partner for the Beijing Olympics – this means creating all the title sequences, graphics and idents the world’s largest broadcaster. ATV, C21 Media, 10th June 2008

* Cricket’s first Twenty20 Champions League, featuring short-format teams from four countries, will take place in India or the Middle East later this year. The format was discussed on Friday by officials from the England, Australia, India and South Africa and agreed that the inaugural event comprise of two teams from each countries, 15 matches over a 10-day period in late-Sept and early-Oct. The venue for the event will be confirmed later and there is likely to be pressure for it to be held in India following the success of the Indian Premier League, a domestic Twenty20 competition featuring eight city-based franchises and some of the world’s top players. However, Dubai is seen as the most suitable neutral venue. The winners of the 2008 Champions League will receive $5 million with ‘significant sums’ for the teams finishing second, third and fourth. Sportcal.com, 9th June 2008

* Qatar is set to announce its candidature for 2018 World Cup according to UK media reports, following its controversial failure to proceed to candidate city status for the 2016 Olympic Games. The state is determined to bring one of the world’s top sporting events to Qatar and will now challenge England and possibly the USA for the right to host the 2018 tournament. Last week the IOC decided to not short-list Doha as candidate city for the 2016 Olympic Games, despite its evaluation committee having placed the Doha bid equal third on technical merit with Chicago. The IOC said it had discounted the Doha bid due to the proposed dates of the competition being outside their recommendations. Sportsbusiness.com, 9th June 2008

* The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) yesterday denied reports that the organisation is ready to sell the repackaged Twenty20 Cup as part of all the other broadcasting rights. The Sunday Telegraph claimed the Twenty20 Cup, which would have been an attractive proposition to the BBC if sold separately, was expected to be included in an overall broadcasting rights package for cricket. The previous live broadcast rights were bought by Sky for £200 million and the next rights, which will probably again run over a four-year cycle from 2010 to 2013, are likely to exceed that total - pricing terrestrial channels out of the market. Sports Media, 9th Jun 2008

* The Indy Racing League (IRL) has started talks with ABC/ESPN over a new TV rights deal. The current agreement, reportedly worth around US$10 million per year, will run until the conclusion of the 2009 campaign. However, any new contract would likely involve a revenue-sharing arrangement, and possibly a higher number of on-air and web advertising slots for the IRL. “We hope to continue the relationship well beyond next year,” said George McNeilly, ESPN senior communications director. ABC has aired the showpiece Indy 500 race for the past 44 years. The average household rating for an IRL race was 0.94 last year, while the Indy 500 attracted a 4.5 rating this year. A 1.0 rating is the equivalent of about one million households nationwide, and some analysts have suggested that the IRL may struggle to pull in as much as $10 million per season from the new deal. Sports Media, 9th Jun 2008

* Spanish football’s top two divisions, the Primera Liga and the Segunda Liga, will be renamed under a new three-year sponsorship agreement with Spanish bank BBVA. Under the deal, the Primera Liga will be called Liga BBVA, and the Segunda Liga will become Liga Adelante. The new deal is reported to be worth around €32 million per year, some of which will be paid directly to the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional (LFP) clubs. Liga BBVA clubs will receive €750,000 each per year, and Liga Adelante clubs will receive €250,000 per year. Prior to the latest deal, BBVA has been an official partner of the LFP since August 2006. Sportsbusiness.com, 9th June 2008

* MP & Silva has concluded an exclusive agreement with the Peace Queen Cup Suwon Organising Committee to distribute the media rights to the 2008 Peace Queen Cup Suwon worldwide. Under the agreement, which excludes South Korea, MP & Silva acquires media rights to all 13 matches in the tournament, including terrestrial free-to-air television, satellite and cable television, Internet protocol television (IPTV), mobile television, broadband television and mobile. The agreement comes after the agency's recent involvement in the high profile Juventus Asia-Pacific Tour, where the Singapore-based company delivered three events in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Melbourne. Sports Media, 9th Jun 2008

* Euro 2008 is set to generate record income of about €1.3 billion ($2 billion). The sum, which is generated mainly from media rights and sponsorship, is 50% higher than the income generated at the last tournament. Sponsors have paid €26 million each to be associated with the event, according to research firm Sport + Markt. Explaining the use that is made of the revenues, Taylor said: 'First is prize money for the teams. They all get a starting bonus of €7.5 million. They get an additional million euros for a win and €500,000 for a draw. 'Teams then get additional prize money if they progress, with the winners taking home a maximum of €23 million.' Taylor said that the operating costs of staging the event were about €600 million, and that another €450 million would go to all 53 Uefa member associations for the development of the game. Sportcal.com, 9th June 2008

* The number of people receiving Mobile TV will reach 485 million by 2013 according to predictions made by Cantab Wireless, in the report: "Mobile TV – Technologies, Country Cases, and Forecasts for 2008-2013". This report suggests that subscriber growth is anticipated to be strongest in Asia at first, especially in Korea and Japan. From 2010 onwards, Europe and the USA are expected to catch up. ATV, 10th June 2008


MORE NEWS

WWE: Million Dollar Promotional Initiative in USA

World Wrestling Entertainment's (WWE) new marketing stunt revolves around its chairman Vince McMahon giving away a million dollars every week. A tongue 'n' cheek McMahon says, “This is my own version of an economic stimulus plan for our viewers, which will no doubt increase television ratings as well.” To participate, viewers must register on wwe.com each week and then watch Monday Night Raw on USA Network to acquire the code necessary to win. Winners will be contacted live throughout each broadcast. More than 650,000 fans have registered for the promotion earning over a million sweepstakes entries in the four days. Its partner is ePrize which works in the area of interactive promotions.

The company's CEO Josh Linkner says, “WWE fans are known for their unwavering devotion and enthusiasm. The tremendous passion of WWE fans is demonstrated in their overwhelming response to the sweepstakes as soon as Vince McMahon announced the chance to win $1 million of his own personal fortune. The power of the prize is again proven to move viewers to action.” Within two hours of the initial announcement of the promotion, ePrize doubled its allocated server capacity. This new technology will allow for over a million registrants per hour. WWE VP marketing Monty Ross says, “When considering a promotion of this magnitude we needed to ensure the right partner was in place. Since the WWE is the leader in live entertainment, the choice was obvious – ePrize, the leader in promotions.” Until McMahon decides to close his wallet, dedicated supporters and new WWE converts may log onto WWE.com for their chance to win. Indiantelevision.com, 10th June 2008

Global/New Media: Mobile Ad Market to Touch $12 Billion by 2013

Informa forecasts that the global mobile advertising market will be worth $12.09 billion by 2013. In 2008 mobile advertising will be worth $1.72 billion, with 80 per cent generated by the mobile content providers. The mobile ad industry has become consumed by short term hurdles and must focus on long-term strategic issues if it is to become a truly multi-billion dollar industry. Informa Telecoms and Media has published a report Mobile Advertising: Cutting through the Hype.

The report's author Nick Lane says, "The mobile content market is creating the mobile advertising opportunity, while the big brands remain sceptical about the return on investment that will justify the premium rate card already associated with this emerging medium. "The situation will change, but the plethora of companies looking to get a slice of the revenues must remain patient. Releasing the big brands' spend is key to unlocking the potential of mobile advertising."

The report claims the majority of early-adopter big brands are yet to transfer more than 0.5 per cent of their advertising budget onto mobile. While this is in part down to the much-maligned issues of non-existent measurement and premium pricing associated with early formats of mobile advertising, the report argues that these are short-term hurdles. The mobile ad industry would be better served concentrating on educating the consumer and providing a visible and measurable return on investment to the brands.

Lane adds, "There is an absence of innovation in mobile advertising that has enabled the industry to accept Internet-based models devoid of the functionality and capability that mobile technology delivers. "True mobile advertising does not exist today; what we are referring to is 'advertising on mobile'. When mobile advertising combines user profiling, location and communication with unique mobile inventory, the industry can justify charging a premium rate over existing immeasurable advertising channels."

The report makes a number of recommendations designed to spur the adoption of mobile advertising. Recommendations include utilising unused mobile inventory such as banner ads to advertise mobile advertising: a call-to-action to encourage consumers to visit a WAP site explaining the benefits, such as subsidised or free mobile services, in exchange of receiving advertising on their mobile device. Further recommendations include an "advertising mode" button to allow the consumer to control the extent of adverts being delivered to his mobile device, based on activity and location requirements. Indiantelevision.com, 10th June 2008