Tuesday, 3rd June 2008

INFO BOX

India: 8 Million Telephone Subs Added in April
Thehindubusinessline.com, 2nd May 2008

As many as 8 million telephone connections, including both wireline and wireless, were added in April this year against 10.4 million in March, taking the total number of subscriptions to 308.51 million. According to the data released by the telecom regulator TRAI, the total number of telephone connections reached 308.51 million at April-end compared to 300.51 million in March.

India surpassed the US to have the world's second largest wireless network in the world after China with the addition of 10.16 million wireless subscribers at March-end. The total number of wireless subscribers, including GSM, CDMA & WLL (F) base, witnessed an addition of 8.21 million subscribers with the total bases standing at 269.30 million at the end of April, the TRAI said.

A total of 10.16 million wireless subscribers were added in March. The overall tele-density is 26.89 per cent at the end of April 2008 against 26.22 per cent in March. In the wireline segment, the subscriber base has slightly decreased to 39.21 million in April against 39.42 million subscribers in March. The total broadband subscribers base has reached 4.01 million by the end of April compared to 3.90 million by the end of March. - PTI


SPORT SHORTS

* StarHub will offer four matches from Euro 2008 football tournament free-to-air. The opening match, both semi-finals and final will be made available by StarHub on UHF frequency, as well as on StarHub’s preview channel on its digital cable networks. While StarHub is framing the move as a philanthropic one, the operator will clearly be hoping to pick up a few extra subscriptions off the back of its free coverage. StarHub’s pay-TV coverage of the tournament involves four channels, with the main feed on StarHub Premium, plus high definition coverage of all matches (except four simulcast matches) on StarHub HD. Two “interactive” channels will offer bird’s-eye view of the pitch for each match and highlights loop. Rapidtvnews.com, 3rd June 2008

* Buzz Technologies, Inc. has a record growth month across Asia with over 350,000 regular users viewing 2.2m pages. Search and Buzz Marketing reached some 3m people serving over 50m Ads in Asia during the month. Currently Buzz is focused on generating Thai and Chinese business, competing directly with Google, Baidu and Yahoo. The rapid growth in China has been driven by Internet Cafés. Currently 67000 PCs in internet cafés have their home page set to Buzz and this number is expected to reach 200,000 by August 2008. Buzz will officially launch a YouTube Search tool today, located at www.video.12buzz.com, where visitors can search and watch 12buzz videos on a single page. The super fast search tool will also allow millions of people who cannot directly access 12buzz at various times to enjoy the online video offerings. Yahoo! Biz, 2nd June 2008

* China unveiled two huge deals as the government overhauls the telecoms industry, with mobile operator Unicom taking over fixed operator Netcom. Unicom said it would pay a total of more than $55 billion for Netcom, more than double Netcom’s current market value. Unicom also agreed to sell a wireless network to fixed-line leader China Telecom for $15.2 billion. Some analysts say these announcements mark the first steps in a sweeping restructuring that is expected to usher China into a more advanced telecoms age while opening the door to foreign investment and billions of dollars in purchases from telecoms gear makers. ATV, telecomasia.net, 3rd June 2008

* Aksh Optifibre Ltd has informed the BSE that the company has signed an agreement with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), for providing IPTV services in twenty cities in India on the BSNL broadband network. Thehindubusinessline.com, 2nd June 2008

* With an aim to rope in more customers, Direct-to-Home operator TataSky on Monday reduced monthly subscription charges by up to Rs 50 across all packages. The charge for 'Family Pack' has been reduced to Rs 200 per month earlier from Rs 250 per month earlier, Tata Sky's Marketing Director Vikram Mehra said. Family Pack offers around 90 Hindi, regional, kids, infotainment and news channels in regional languages. The pack offers 110 channels including English channels. "The move will help us to reach to the price-sensitive consumers. I also believe that this will help us to achieve the third million-subscriber base much earlier from two million in April," Mehra said. It took Tata Sky 11 months to reach to the first one million subscribers and another nine months to rope in the next one million, he said. Indiatimes.com, televisionpoint.com, indiantelevision.com, 2nd June 2008

* Thousands of participants in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) will be the world's first lot of players to enjoy the game on an environmentally friendly tournament poker table. The winner will be gifted his or her own "Green" table, which has been manufactured by New Jersey-based company EGM Green. The new table has been made of 98% sustainable materials. EGM Green says that applying sustainable design principles to poker tables and other casino products may helpfully reduce volumes of waste, decrease use of natural resources and cut impacts on ecosystems. The company said the table is assembled with water-based adhesives, and all paints and stains used in it are formaldehyde free. The 'Green' table will be displayed in the exhibit area of the WSOP in the Rio All Suites Hotel and Casino, where its makers will talk about what their companies are doing to tread lightly on the Earth. New.webindia123.com, 2nd June 2008

* Tickets for Euro 2008 have sold out. All 1.05 million tickets for the 31-match tournament in Austria and Switzerland that starts on Saturday have been bought, meaning that anyone now buying a ticket is doing so illegally. According to Euro 2008 organisers, 38 per cent of the tickets went to national football federations, 33 per cent to the general public, 14 per cent to sponsors and television partners, with the remaining 15 per cent being broken up between hospitality, UEFA members and host city and stadium owner factions. Switzerland, Austria and Germany represent a combined 75 per cent of all 8.7 million individual ticket requests, while Spain, France, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands were at the other end of the scale from between 1 and 4 percent each. A ticket for the June 29 final at Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna will cost between €160 and €550, with all other matches selling from €45 to €110. Sportbusiness.com, 2nd June 2008

* Uefa has unveiled plans for live, delayed and highlights coverage on its internet portal of matches from the 2008 European Championships. Internet users around the world will be able to buy a tournament pass for €19.99 ($31), giving them access to full match re-runs and highlights of all 31 games from Austria and Switzerland on www.euro2008.com. Uefa’s catalogue of matches also includes over 8,000 games since 1992 from the Euro, Champions League, Uefa Cup and Uefa Under-21 Euro Championships. Live coverage will be available on Uefa’s online video service, but only with the co-operation of broadcast rights holders and will be geo-blocked in various countries. Many Euro 2008 broadcasters have bought rights across all platforms and will showcase online rights via their own websites. Sportcal.com, 2nd June 2008


MORE NEWS

India/Broadcast: India Media Giant to Buy U.K. Radio Firm

An Indian media conglomerate that owns The Times of India, the world's largest-circulation English newspaper, has agreed to buy Virgin Radio Holdings for £53.2 million in its first foreign acquisition. While the $105 million price tag for the deal, by the firm Bennett Coleman, is not huge in merger terms, it might be a sign of things to come from India and other emerging markets.

Traditional media companies in the United States, Western Europe and Japan have been struggling with falling advertising rates, a gloomy economic environment and competition from the Internet. But newspaper, television and radio companies in emerging markets, flush with cash as their audiences grow, are eager to expand. "The opportunity to acquire a valuable radio asset couldn't have come at a better time," said A.P. Parigi, chief executive of a Bennett Coleman unit, Times Infotainment Media, which made the deal, signed Friday. Times Infotainment, which handles experimental marketing, film and radio rights, is developing a "powerful and exciting new brand," Parigi said in a statement.

The future of radio is about increasing listeners through "Internet and mobile, and building a strong online community around music tastes," said Vineet Jain, managing director of Bennett Coleman, in an e-mailed response to questions. International Herald Tribune, televisionpoint.com, 2nd June 2008

Asia/Programming: Asian Gaming Ventures Announces New China Poker Documentary

Asian Gaming Ventures (AGV), a leading Asia focused gaming company and owners of the World Mahjong Tour announced today a new documentary film entitled "Holdem China", which investigates the Texas Holdem Poker phenomenon spreading across China. A trailer has been completed and can be seen online at www.holdemchina.com with the full version documentary anticipated for full release by the end of the year. This documentary explores what happens when Texas Holdem Poker is introduced to the world's most populous and heavy wagering nation, China. "Holdem China" will explore this question beginning in Shanghai, the epicenter of mainland China's fast growing poker scene and will show the triumphs and "bad beats" throughout the entire country.

"AGV feels that poker in China is ready to explode and foresees its true potential for major growth and opportunities in the near future," said Pierre Wuu and David Wang, Asian Gaming Ventures Founders. "Through this project we will identify future trends of poker within China, present real stories of key figures in the region and plant the seeds for the game's massive growth potential in the region, which AGV will legally participate in the marketplace, beginning with this film documentary."

The project will be produced in association with Daedalum Films, a collaborative international team of independent filmmakers Luis A. Tapia, Arnaud Kamphuis, and Peter Kirby. “The idea began as a short film about the growing interest in the game I was seeing here in Shanghai," said Luis A. Tapia, the film's director. "I quickly realized there was more to the story of Texas Holdem in China, and wanted to expand on the short with a feature-length documentary that captured the spirit of the game's development in this rapidly-changing country." Yahoo! News, 2nd June 2008


ARTICLES, COMMENTS, INTERVIEWS & OPINIONS

Online Video Viewers to Quadruple to 1 Billion in 2013

MUMBAI: Sparked by increasing broadband penetration and rising connection speeds available to a growing percentage of the world’s population, over-the-top video has seen phenomenal growth in recent years. A new study from ABI Research forecasts the number of viewers who access video via the Web to nearly quadruple in the next few years, reaching at least one billion in 2013. A ABI Research senior analyst Cesar Bachelet says, “The rapid expansion of broadband video creates opportunities across a number of market sectors.

“A wide variety of actors aim to gain a share of this fast-growing market: not only content owners such as the BBC and NBC Universal, and Internet portals such as AOL and Yahoo!, but also a range of new entrants including user-generated content sites such as YouTube and Dailymotion, broadband video sites such as CinemaNow and Lovefilm, and Internet TV providers such as Apple and Zattoo.”

Increasingly, the methods used to deliver this content are changing, in order to reduce the strain on broadband networks. These include content distribution networks that cache content closer to the user, peer-to-peer networks which leverage users’ PCs, and hybrid networks which combine these two approaches. According to Bachelet, Pay-TV providers should refrain from knee-jerk responses, or adopting defensive measures aimed at discouraging consumers from using those services. That would only produce resentment from subscribers and likely defections from their services.

Bachelet recommends something of an “if you can’t beat them, join them” approach, aimed at turning the threat into an opportunity. Particularly for those who own broadband infrastructure, PC-based services can be an ideal complement to their core business. “They can offer access to content via this increasingly popular alternative platform. They can offer content beyond that available through traditional channels, and they can reach a new set of subscribers,” he explains. Indiantelevision.com, 2nd June 2008

IPL Bowls Out Malls, Box Office in Viewership

Nobody expected over 200-million Indian television viewers, 10-million international viewers and 4-million live spectators day after day at the great Indian cricket tamasha called the Indian Premier League (IPL). There is no doubt that cricket’s new-found avatar has delivered on almost all facets proving its numerous sceptics wrong. Be it viewership, advertising revenue, ticket sales or just plain simple nail-biting cricket, IPL has exceeded all expectations.

However, given its unprecedented success, will IPL attain the status of international football leagues? That remains to be seen. Cricket has always been the staple sport in India. But IPL has conquered new frontiers. The T20 city-centric cricket league has gone on to become the mainstream entertainment option in the summer of 2008. So much so that the impact of IPL was felt at the box office, TV channels, malls and by tour operators. To BCCI’s credit, they got the formula right: tightly packed match that runs for the same duration as a film that was carved into the prime-time slot merged with celebrities and business tycoons, giving cricket a unique flavour.

The BCCI created history when it sold TV rights of the untested format to Sony-World Sports consortium for $918 million. According to projections made by IIFL-India Infoline, BCCI will earn over Rs 43 billion (Rs 4,300 crore) over 10 years, becoming one of the biggest beneficiary of the IPL, with a fixed yearly inflow from broadcasting rights, franchise fees and central sponsorships.

Going forward, the BCCI will not have to deal with escalating cost pressures, whether it be players’ salaries or stadium leasing expenses. The first-year operating profit for BCCI, just via IPL, is estimated at Rs 350 crore. Revenues through broadcasting fees, franchise fees and central sponsorships are estimated at Rs 375 crore. The outflow for BCCI has been about Rs 25 crore, which includes umpire and official costs and prize money. The IPL has almost doubled BCCI’s revenue, which is only slated to go up in the years to come with increasing media rights cost, sponsorship money and expansion plan.

IPL has achieved a record TV viewership and ground attendance. One of the key areas of concern for IPL was whether the first season would manage to sustain TV ratings, post its novelty wearing of IPL, which began its innings with a rating of 8.2 saw it average at 5 throughout the series, sustaining itself at the top show on Indian TVs across 44 days. IPL has gone on to become one of the most expensive properties to advertise on reaching new heights of Rs 1 million for 10 seconds. Indiatimes.com, 3rd June 2008

Former Head of IMG India Sees Big Opportunities at IPL Franchise

Tim Wright has stepped down as the managing director of IMG India, the Indian unit of the international sports agency, in order to take up a senior position at one of the franchise teams in cricket’s Indian Premier League. The Briton had been filling the post on an interim basis since Balu Nayar left earlier in the year and helped to oversee the launch of the IPL, the world’s most lucrative Twenty20 competition. The first edition of the short-format tournament ended yesterday with the Rajasthan Royals, captained by Australian star Shane Warne, defeating the Chennai Super Kings by three wickets off the final ball in Mumbai. Wright is the new chief executive of Deccan Chargers Sporting Ventures, the holding company of the Hyderabad-based franchise which finished bottom of the IPL table this year.

He has high hopes for the Indian league, telling the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper: ‘With the dynamism of this economy, which could pretty much double over the next seven to eight years and the fact we have 450 million Indians under the age of 25, who have a huge demand for sport, the opportunities for the Deccan Chargers, and other franchises, are big as one’s imagination.’ Wright anticipates crossovers with soccer, which is growing in popularity in the Indian sub-continent, with Hyderabad possibly welcoming a top English club for an exhibition match. He said: ‘There is great interest in the Premier League and we have already been offered a top-four Premier League side. We have to look at something like that. In Calcutta last week Bayern Munich [of Germany] played against a local side and there were 120,000 people at the game.’ Sportcal.com, 2nd June 2008