INFO BOX
TV and Web Combo Ads More Effective
Source: ATV, 8th May 2008
Research from Thinkbox and the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has shown that using TV and online together in advertising campaigns is significantly more effective for advertisers than using either in isolation. Their combined use produces major benefits for advertisers, including increased positive brand perception amongst consumers – some 50 per cent higher – as well as significantly greater likelihood of purchase.
Conducted by Q Media Research, the UK sample focused specifically on ‘digital consumers’; people who own a digital TV and use broadband Internet, and are medium to heavy users of each. Because the study focuses on the most ‘tech-savvy’ of the UK population – around 25 per cent of its total – the results provide an indication of how future media consumption and consumer behaviour may develop. In terms of their precise media usage, 64 per cent of the sample stated that they sometimes watch TV while using the Internet, whilst 48 per cent stated that they did this most days.
Key findings from the study revealed that using TV and online together results in 47 per cent more positivity about a brand than using either in isolation. The likelihood of buying or using a product increases by more than 50 per cent when TV and online are used together.
Online Spending Hits $172m
Source: Marketing-interactive.com, 7th May 2008
Marketers online advertising spend reached $172 million in the first quarter of 2008, led strongly by the computer & electronics sector. Nielsen Online's quarterly AdRelevance report reveals more than 1,000 advertisers in Hong Kong promoted their brands online in the first three months in 2008, with more than 2,800 advertising campaigns and more than 5.5 billion ad impressions.
On a category basis, computers & electrical accounted for 17% of the total online advertising pie, closely followed by finance at 15%. In third place was the education & learning sector at 12%, with entertainment coming in with a 9% share. Across all categories, Citicorp Group was the largest advertiser in the first quarter in 2008, spending HK$10.3 million on online advertising, with ad impressions of more than 330 million. Coming in at second place was eBay, spending HK$8 million online with 254 million ad impressions.
Joseph Kam, commercial director at Nielsen Online said more and more marketers are using cyber space as a supplementary channel to traditional media. "The Internet provides marketers with a boundless medium to reach an increasingly Internet-savvy and highly mobile audience, giving the online advertising market huge room for growth," he said.
Two Go head-to-head for Singapore Net
Source: Rapid TV News, 7th May 2008
Just two consortia will face off for the right to operate Singapore’s proposed fibre-to-the-home 1Gbps Next Generation National Broadband Network, with incumbent SingTel just a minority player. The winning bidder will get a grant of up to S$250 million to design, build and operate the active infrastructure of the network. Although Singapore’s Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) pre-qualified 11 companies to bid, just two consortia responded to the Request for Proposals – the OpenNet Consortium and the Infinity Consortium.
Companies who registered an interest but did not bid included Alcatel-Lucent, BT Singapore, Deutsche Telekom Asia and Nokia Siemens Networks. SingTel is part of the OpenNet consortium, led by Canada’s Axia NetMedia, an IP services and solutions provider. Axia NetMedia and SingTel both hold 30% of the venture, with media company Singapore Press Holdings and SP Telecommunications owning 25% and 15% respectively.
OpenNet’s proposal involves leveraging SingTel’s exisitng ducting network, which will be turned into an ultra-fast broadband network. And the consortia says its proposal exceeds the government’s requirements, particularly in areas such as timeline (with completion scheduled two and a half years ahead of the government schedule, by June 2010) and design. SingTel’s exiting infrastructure is “critical” but its lack of control is also a positive bonus, says the company.
“It will deliver pristine open access, which is accomplished through: (i) No individual parties having control over OpenNet (ii) Three of the four OpenNet owners are not integrated telecommunications players hence there are no conflicting interests (iii) Network is specifically designed to enable choice by OpenNet customers, large and small (iv) Interests are aligned as OpenNet’s commercial success depends on its customers’ success.”
Art Price, Chairman and CEO of Axia NetMedia, said: “Axia successfully operates Open Access next generation networks in Alberta, Canada and France which give us a unique perspective. We have been very impressed with the sophisticated approach taken by the IDA and our partners in this consortium. “ But rival bidder Infinity Consortium has seized upon the presence of SingTel and is highlighting its own “extensive experience in competing with entrenched incumbents”.
Infinity is owned by Hong Kong’s City Telecom, Singaporean mobile operator M1 and StarHub, which operates pay-TV and telecoms services, including fixed and mobile telephony and cable TV. Terry Clontz, CEO of StarHub, said: “In addition to the Infinity Consortium having the necessary competencies and a genuine commitment to the establishment of an open access regime, it also offers the industry the best, and maybe the last, opportunity for ownership diversification of critical multi-media broadband infrastructure in Singapore.”
Aussies Watch Cricket More Than Any Other Sport on TV
Source: Newkerala.com, 7th May 2008
Australians love cricket more than any other game, at least when it comes to watching sport on TV, according to new research figures out Wednesday. As many as 47 percent Australians watch cricket on TV as against 41 percent who watch Australian Football League (AFL); 33 percent watch tennis, 25 percent watch National Rugby League, 18 percent watch golf, and 10 percent watch Rugby Union.
The research figures are from a sample of about 50,000 Australians interviewed by Roy Morgan, an Australian market research company headquartered in Melbourne. Cricket Australia (CA) CEO James Sutherland said it was encouraging to see the new Roy Morgan research findings. The data coincides with CA's own research showing that the Australian cricket team is very popular. That research rated the team and all of its individual players very highly and noted that 83 percent of respondents regarded them as good role models for children.
"That (CA) research, part of our regular measurement of cricket as a brand, combined with our data on public interest in cricket and also combined with new cricket census figures showing record numbers playing formal, organised cricket, tells us that cricket is in good shape," Sutherland said. "But drilling into the data shows that cricket, and indeed all sports, need to do more work to win female support," he added. The figures showed only 36 percent of women watched cricket on TV, 34 percent watched AFL, 33 percent watched tennis and 12 percent watched golf.
Australian cricket, at national and state cricket association levels, has identified better engagement of females of women and girls in all aspects of cricket as a strategic priority. This includes making the game more accessible for female players, developing Twenty20 cricket with an eye to catching the attention of new female fans, reviewing event presentation at venues, understanding and addressing the specific consumer needs of females, and lobbying media to provide greater coverage to women's cricket.
Australia also bid aggressively to win the right to defend its title as International Cricket Council Women's World Cup holder on Australian soil next year. The ICC Women's World Cup will be staged in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, with eight teams contesting the title in a series of one-day internationals to be played in March 2009.
SPORT SHORTS
* The final domestic tickets for the events in Beijing and Hong Kong at this year's Olympic Games sold out today. The last batch of 1.38 million tickets were snapped up in just three days this week. However, the Beijing organising committee said that tickets remain for the venues in co-host cities Shanghai, Shenyang, Tianjin and Qinhuangdao, where soccer matches will be played. The latest ticket window opened on Monday and in a one-hour period the website recorded 27 million hits. There were complaints that the system was running slowly although the organisers maintained that the site coped with the heavy demand. The organising committee was left embarrassed last October when the computer system crashed, forcing tickets to be sold on a lottery basis. Sportcal.com, 7th May 2008
* Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom will set up a $30 million internet data joint venture with Vietnam's Viettel, as part of its efforts to expand overseas. The carrier hopes to grow its business with overseas investments and projects as Taiwan's home market slows with the saturation of the island's mobile market. Viettel will own a 70% stake while CT will take the remaining 30% stake. The company started investments in Vietnam and Thailand and plans to expand in Southeast Asian. Viettel, owned by the Vietnam military, has become a dominant operator in the country, taking up a third of the mobile phone market. In 2006, it became Vietnam's first telecoms firm to invest abroad when it started VOIP services in Cambodia, then mobile phone, fixed-line and internet services. Viettel competes with Vinaphone and MobiFone, both mobile phone providers owned by state-run Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications. telecomasia.net, 8th May 2008
* Singapore’s integrated telecom carrier StarHub is to launch a six-month trial of femtocell technology to deliver 3G/3.5 mobile services at home. Anil Nihalani, head of StarHub mobile services, said about 200 customers who are using both the company’s mobile and residential broadband services will take part in the trail, the first of its kind in Singapore. They will be able to use various mobile services, including voice and video call, SMS, MMS and other data services, delivered through a plug-and-play femtocell access point which will be connected to their residential broadband at home. Nihalani said only W-CDMA and HSPA terminals are supported by the femtocells and StarHub will provide the services and the access point for free. Chinese vendors Huawei Technologies and ZTE will supply the femtocell solution for the trial. telecomasia.net, 8th May 2008
* Sharing of country-specific videos online is easier now with the popular YouTube donning the Indian avatar -- YouTube.co.in -- from Wednesday. "India is one of the fastest growing market for us. In one year it has become the 15th fastest growing user of YouTube,'' YouTube International Manager Sakina Arsiwala said. YouTube India would feature a localised homepage and search functions, allowing users to create and share and discover videos relevant in India and connect with other Indian and global users, she added. The content uploaded by users in India would show up as 'top favourite' and 'recommended content' on the local YouTube site. The Web site also aims to facilitate connections among large Indian NRI community, Ms Arsiwala added. The Hindu Business Line, 7th May 2008
* The Australian market for IPTV and Internet video is less developed than many other international markets, with fewer than five IPTV providers and fifteen Internet video providers offering full-length professional content directly to consumers, according to a report by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. Industry participants interviewed for the study believed that IPTV and Internet video will become more common in Australia in the future but there was disagreement over the actual timeframe, with estimates ranging from 18 months to three years. Internet video providers believed that capped plans for broadband access and the cost of downloads were important barriers to take-up and deployment. Capital expenditure requirements were cited as a major barrier for potential IPTV deployments, although this may become less important with a national fibre to the node (FTTN) network rollout. ATV, 8th May 2008
* The World Taekwondo Federation has become the second international sports federation to adopt the 2009 edition of the World Anti-Doping Code. The code, which was approved by the World Anti-Doping Agency, last autumn will be implemented into the rules of the WTF on January 1. FINA, the international swimming federation, has already confirmed that it will adhere to the code from the start of next year. The code was approved at the general assembly of the WTF in Cesme, Turkey yesterday ahead of the WTF World Junior Taekwondo Championships. Sportcal.com, 7th May 2008
* Meanwhile, Mexico was awarded the 2010 Taekwondo World Junior Championships, which will be held in the state of Baja California. Meanwhile, WTF president Chungwon Choue announced that Turkey will host the 3rd WTF World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships this December. Taekwondo poomsae has also been included on the official programme of the 2009 World University Games in Belgrade, along with taekwondo kyorugi. Five countries were officially accepted as new members of the WTF, taking the total membership to 188. The new entrants are Gambia, Malawi, Marshall Islands, Montenegro and Uganda. Sportcal.com, 7th May 2008
* Freecaster.tv will begin broadcasting live coverage of the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup after reaching an agreement with the UCI, cycling’s world governing body. Freecaster will offer extensive action from the major World Cup events, in addition to daily reports throughout the 2008 season. However, viewers in the USA will not be able to access the live coverage due to geo-blocking restrictions. Fraser Britton, who will head up the production team, said he hoped the Freecaster streaming would ‘show potential outside sponsors that mountain biking is a viable advertising outlet.’ In September, Freecaster offered its live coverage of the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships for the first time. It had previously only offered highlights of the event. Freecaster’s World Cup coverage starts today with the first round in Maribor, Slovenia. Sportcal.com, 7th May 2008
MORE NEWS
Indonesia/Broadcast: Pay-TV Growing
Indonesia has almost shockingly-low pay-TV penetration, at just two per cent of the country’s 40 million-plus TV homes, according to new research. But while still low, the report says that subscriptions have doubled over the last year, with growth “brisk” and up to 785,000. Major pay-TV operators include front-runner Indovision, a DTH operator, and rivals Kabelvision and Telkomvision. Released to coincide with its round-table on Indonesia’s pay-TV industry, the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA) has updated its Indonesia in View report.
Casbaa said: “A newly competitive environment has seen operators differentiate consumer offerings through premium content, while some have secured new channels and launched additional local-language programming such as a new Muslim channel and music channels. The launch of low cost pre-paid services has also driven pay-TV take up,” adds the report. Nevertheless, the report continues, “unauthorized redistribution remains a significant issue, although regulator KPI is attempting to curb the problem through announcements in two provinces that unauthorized distributors must become resellers for licensed pay-TV operators or face legal sanctions.”
Competition over the next year should pick up further, with five preliminary licenses for satellite-delivered pay-TV issued in September 2007. There are a further 28 companies waiting to hear whether their applications have been successful. Rapid TV News, Indian Television, 7th May 2008
India/Broadcast: Cineplexes Keen on Screening IPL, F1 Series
In a bid to derisk their business model, multiplex owners are turning to sports to generate an alternate source of revenues. While PVR Cinemas would test-pilot the screening of the entire F1 series and Euro 2008, others like Adlabs and Inox are also keen on screening sports content like the Indian Premier League (IPL) to sustain occupancies. PVR Cinemas has acquired the theatrical rights from Star India to showcase the entire F1 series. In addition the multiplex chain would show some of the key matches of soccer series — Euro 2008. PVR Cinemedia CEO Gautam Dutta said: “We are partnering the UB Group (Kingfisher brand) for the live screening of F1 series in select cities from May 11.
It will be our first experiment with live sports series. We believe that as a multiplex player we need to transform ourselves into a complete entertainment brand.” UB Group, which owns Force India, would partner with PVR and sponsor some of these races by inviting F1 enthusiasts to watch the races. Mr Dutta added that initially the revenue stream through sports content would be low, given the fact that F1 has niche audience. However, it has the potential to become a significant alternate revenue stream.
Adlabs Cinemas, which is in the process of building megaplexes in 15 cities, has said in the past that it would look at screening sports and other genre of content. This would be necessary as it will be unviable to screen only films in these megaplexes, believe experts. The Indian Premier League has already caught the fancy of multiplex players. High costs per screen is currently making it economically unviable for cineplexes to show the entire series. However, all multiplexes are in the fray to screen at least the last key matches. Inox Leisure COO Alok Tandon said: “We are looking for the best viable options to be able to screen sports content, as and when they happen. We are even in talks to screen IPL matches and would like to show at lease the last few matches.”
With real estate prices going on an overdrive and movie producers asking for higher margins, sports could emerge as an interesting alternative. Says AT Kearney principal Debashish Mukherjee: “Movies would be the primary source of revenues for multiplex players. Sports, if well timed, can also bring in good revenue for movie exhibition players.” Mr Mukherjee added that usually movie producers release their movies during summer, Diwali or in the Christmas season. “If sports content can help fill in the gaps for cineplexes, it can be an add-on source of revenue,” he said. Indian Times, 8th May 2008
Wednesday, 7th May 2008
SPORT SHORTS
* Vince McMahon, the founder of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), will receive the Promax/BDA Lifetime Achievement Award during its upcoming 53rd annual conference, taking place June 17 to 19 at the Hilton New York Hotel. In addition to receiving the award, McMahon will participate in a special Q&A session, where he will be interviewed by TelevisionWeek’s deputy editor, Chris Pursell. Additionally, WWE’s executive VP of marketing, Geof Rochester, will participate in a case study on the marketing strategy and achievements of WWE’s WrestleMania pay-per-view events. World Screen, 6th May 2008
* CAT Telecom says it is willing to buy the 42% holding of TOT in Thai Mobile for 2.4 billion baht ($75.6 million) in order to jump-start 3G services. The two state telecom enterprises have been haggling for three years over a price for their six-year-old Thai Mobile joint venture, which has 6 billion baht ($189 million) in debts and 50,000 customers in a market of 54 million. TOT had offered 2.4 billion baht for CAT's 58% stake but the latter wanted a better price. Now TOT is wavering as its financial position is deteriorating. CAT board chairman Sathit Limpongpan said CAT wanted to buy the remaining shares in the venture so that it could start providing 3G service. He said the Information and Communications Technology and Finance ministers had made clear their policy on 3G. Both believe Thailand has fallen behind Laos and Cambodia, which have alredy introduced the high-speed mobile broadband service. telecomasia.net, 7th May 2008
* According to the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT), mobile CMMB TV will soon be launched in commercial test networks in Beijing, Shenzhen, and Shanghai. During the testing, seven free channels (CCTV-1, CCTV-3, CCTV-Olympic Channel, CCTV-News, CCTV-Kids Channel, and the English-language CCTV-9) will be available, as well as one channel local to the region in which testing is taking place. The first CMMB terminals will come to the market this weekend in the form of USB dongles that can be used to enable TV-watching on notebook computers. In the future, such terminals will integrate mobile file storage and other capabilities. Under the SARFT roadmap, PMPs, mobile phones, SD card dongles, and Bluetooth receiver devices for CMMB should be on the market by the time the Olympics starts this summer. ATV, 7th May 2008
* Granada International, part of the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster ITV, has sold more than 300 hours of high definition programming to Chunghwa Telecom in Taiwan. The programming will be available through the company’s Multimedia On-Demand (MOD) IPTV-VOD service. Chunghwa Telecom has acquired the Granada content to feed its IPTV/VoD service, which is currently available to nearly 450,000 subscribers and goes under the brand Multimedia On-Demand. "Granada's programming is so diverse and has strong appeal across all age groups. We are sure that its HD programming will appeal to our subscribers throughout Taiwan," said Chao Min, director of digital content development at Chunghwa. ATV, C21 Media, World Screen, 7th May 2008
* The Super Aguri team withdrew from the Formula One World Championship with immediate effect because of a lack of funding. The survival of the team had been reported to be in doubt after mooted buyers the Dubai-based Magma Group pulled out at the last minute. The team has wound up its racing activities and will not compete at this weekend's Turkish Grand Prix. Team founder Aguri Suzuki, said: "Regretfully I must inform you that the team will be ceasing racing activities. "The loss of financial backing put the team into financial difficulties. "With the help of Honda, we somehow managed to keep the team going, but we find it difficult to establish a way to continue the activities in the future so I have concluded to withdraw. Sportbusiness.com, 6th May 2008
* Australian broadcasters, Fox Sports and the Nine Network, agreed a four year deal with ESPN STAR Sports for TV rights for International Cricket Council cricket events from 2008 until 2011. Under the agreement with ESS, the Nine Network and Fox Sports will broadcast coverage from the ICC Cricket World Cup and the ICC World Twenty20 while Fox Sports will broadcast all matches from the ICC Champions Trophy tournaments in 2008 and 2010. Fox Sports will also broadcast live and exclusive coverage of Australia’s overseas cricket tours to the West Indies and India later this year. Sportbusiness.com, 6th May 2008
* Malaysia's 112-year-old newspaper, The Malay Mail, is shifting its focus from lifestyle and entertainment back to its original focus of breaking news in Klang Valley, to salvage its declining circulation. The newspaper will be distributed in the afternoon, like it used to be, so that it does not compete with the other dailies. The move to change it to a morning paper was part of the earlier owner, NSTP's cost-cutting exercise a few years ago. According to Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) results, The Malay Mail's daily circulation dropped from 33,496 to 20,816 to June 2007. It was at one point the fastest growing English daily newspaper, most profitable unit within the earlier owner, NSTP group, and had a daily circulation of over 60,000 when it was an afternoon newspaper sold nationwide. Its masthead has been changed to a bold red and a new editor, Tony Francis, has also been hired. Marketing-interactive.com, 7th May 2008
* The number of households worldwide using IPTV services grew from 4.7 million in 2006, to more than 14 million last year, according to a report by analysts Parks Associates and demand for IPTV services grew by 250 per cent in Europe last year. Europe experienced a growth rate of 250 per cent between 2006 and 2007 for IPTV services, defined as landline-based multichannel and on-demand video services provided by a telephone operator. The highest growth in was in Europe with France Telecom, Free and Neuf Cegetal experienced the largest surge in subscriber numbers. UK service, BT Vision, accounted for 150,000 customers at end 2007. Sportbusiness.com, 6th May 2008
* Almost 6 million French users now download content to their mobile phone every month. A few days before the opening on May 8 in Cannes of the Mobile Entertainment Forum, research company GfK m2’s latest study, shows that in terms of mobile entertainment, downloading is steadily progressing in France. In 2007, the market saw almost 80 million purchases for a turnover of €200 million. The most dynamic segments came from music with 15.9 million titles downloaded, and games. The game growth amounted to 18% and totaled 13.3 million games downloaded for a total revenue of €56.7 million. \According to GfK m2, if the market for content downloading is developing significantly in France, the main reason is due to the steady growth of the mobile phone market. In 2007, it registered the second-best growth in Europe after Germany. Rapid TV News, 6th May 2008
* BBC World News has inked content deal with six mobile service providers in India. The list includes BPL, MTNL, Airtel, Vodafone, Spice Telecom and Idea Cellular. “BBC world News has tied up for content with six mobile service providers in India. It is part of BBC World News’ positioning as a tri-media news service, delivering international news and information across multiple platforms - TV, online and mobile. We are no longer a linear media,” BBC World MD Anne Barnard said while addressing the press here today. BBC World News content is already on testing mode in three service providers - MTNL, Spice Telecom and Airtel. The news content for mobile will not be updated as frequently as the TV channel. In the days to come, the pubcaster will also deliver news video clip on the mobile platform. Across the globe, BBC World News has a content tie-up with 34 mobile platforms. "Mobile is the fastest growing out-of-home platform for us," Barnard said. Indiantelevision.com, 6th May 2008
* Vince McMahon, the founder of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), will receive the Promax/BDA Lifetime Achievement Award during its upcoming 53rd annual conference, taking place June 17 to 19 at the Hilton New York Hotel. In addition to receiving the award, McMahon will participate in a special Q&A session, where he will be interviewed by TelevisionWeek’s deputy editor, Chris Pursell. Additionally, WWE’s executive VP of marketing, Geof Rochester, will participate in a case study on the marketing strategy and achievements of WWE’s WrestleMania pay-per-view events. World Screen, 6th May 2008
* CAT Telecom says it is willing to buy the 42% holding of TOT in Thai Mobile for 2.4 billion baht ($75.6 million) in order to jump-start 3G services. The two state telecom enterprises have been haggling for three years over a price for their six-year-old Thai Mobile joint venture, which has 6 billion baht ($189 million) in debts and 50,000 customers in a market of 54 million. TOT had offered 2.4 billion baht for CAT's 58% stake but the latter wanted a better price. Now TOT is wavering as its financial position is deteriorating. CAT board chairman Sathit Limpongpan said CAT wanted to buy the remaining shares in the venture so that it could start providing 3G service. He said the Information and Communications Technology and Finance ministers had made clear their policy on 3G. Both believe Thailand has fallen behind Laos and Cambodia, which have alredy introduced the high-speed mobile broadband service. telecomasia.net, 7th May 2008
* According to the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT), mobile CMMB TV will soon be launched in commercial test networks in Beijing, Shenzhen, and Shanghai. During the testing, seven free channels (CCTV-1, CCTV-3, CCTV-Olympic Channel, CCTV-News, CCTV-Kids Channel, and the English-language CCTV-9) will be available, as well as one channel local to the region in which testing is taking place. The first CMMB terminals will come to the market this weekend in the form of USB dongles that can be used to enable TV-watching on notebook computers. In the future, such terminals will integrate mobile file storage and other capabilities. Under the SARFT roadmap, PMPs, mobile phones, SD card dongles, and Bluetooth receiver devices for CMMB should be on the market by the time the Olympics starts this summer. ATV, 7th May 2008
* Granada International, part of the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster ITV, has sold more than 300 hours of high definition programming to Chunghwa Telecom in Taiwan. The programming will be available through the company’s Multimedia On-Demand (MOD) IPTV-VOD service. Chunghwa Telecom has acquired the Granada content to feed its IPTV/VoD service, which is currently available to nearly 450,000 subscribers and goes under the brand Multimedia On-Demand. "Granada's programming is so diverse and has strong appeal across all age groups. We are sure that its HD programming will appeal to our subscribers throughout Taiwan," said Chao Min, director of digital content development at Chunghwa. ATV, C21 Media, World Screen, 7th May 2008
* The Super Aguri team withdrew from the Formula One World Championship with immediate effect because of a lack of funding. The survival of the team had been reported to be in doubt after mooted buyers the Dubai-based Magma Group pulled out at the last minute. The team has wound up its racing activities and will not compete at this weekend's Turkish Grand Prix. Team founder Aguri Suzuki, said: "Regretfully I must inform you that the team will be ceasing racing activities. "The loss of financial backing put the team into financial difficulties. "With the help of Honda, we somehow managed to keep the team going, but we find it difficult to establish a way to continue the activities in the future so I have concluded to withdraw. Sportbusiness.com, 6th May 2008
* Australian broadcasters, Fox Sports and the Nine Network, agreed a four year deal with ESPN STAR Sports for TV rights for International Cricket Council cricket events from 2008 until 2011. Under the agreement with ESS, the Nine Network and Fox Sports will broadcast coverage from the ICC Cricket World Cup and the ICC World Twenty20 while Fox Sports will broadcast all matches from the ICC Champions Trophy tournaments in 2008 and 2010. Fox Sports will also broadcast live and exclusive coverage of Australia’s overseas cricket tours to the West Indies and India later this year. Sportbusiness.com, 6th May 2008
* Malaysia's 112-year-old newspaper, The Malay Mail, is shifting its focus from lifestyle and entertainment back to its original focus of breaking news in Klang Valley, to salvage its declining circulation. The newspaper will be distributed in the afternoon, like it used to be, so that it does not compete with the other dailies. The move to change it to a morning paper was part of the earlier owner, NSTP's cost-cutting exercise a few years ago. According to Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) results, The Malay Mail's daily circulation dropped from 33,496 to 20,816 to June 2007. It was at one point the fastest growing English daily newspaper, most profitable unit within the earlier owner, NSTP group, and had a daily circulation of over 60,000 when it was an afternoon newspaper sold nationwide. Its masthead has been changed to a bold red and a new editor, Tony Francis, has also been hired. Marketing-interactive.com, 7th May 2008
* The number of households worldwide using IPTV services grew from 4.7 million in 2006, to more than 14 million last year, according to a report by analysts Parks Associates and demand for IPTV services grew by 250 per cent in Europe last year. Europe experienced a growth rate of 250 per cent between 2006 and 2007 for IPTV services, defined as landline-based multichannel and on-demand video services provided by a telephone operator. The highest growth in was in Europe with France Telecom, Free and Neuf Cegetal experienced the largest surge in subscriber numbers. UK service, BT Vision, accounted for 150,000 customers at end 2007. Sportbusiness.com, 6th May 2008
* Almost 6 million French users now download content to their mobile phone every month. A few days before the opening on May 8 in Cannes of the Mobile Entertainment Forum, research company GfK m2’s latest study, shows that in terms of mobile entertainment, downloading is steadily progressing in France. In 2007, the market saw almost 80 million purchases for a turnover of €200 million. The most dynamic segments came from music with 15.9 million titles downloaded, and games. The game growth amounted to 18% and totaled 13.3 million games downloaded for a total revenue of €56.7 million. \According to GfK m2, if the market for content downloading is developing significantly in France, the main reason is due to the steady growth of the mobile phone market. In 2007, it registered the second-best growth in Europe after Germany. Rapid TV News, 6th May 2008
* BBC World News has inked content deal with six mobile service providers in India. The list includes BPL, MTNL, Airtel, Vodafone, Spice Telecom and Idea Cellular. “BBC world News has tied up for content with six mobile service providers in India. It is part of BBC World News’ positioning as a tri-media news service, delivering international news and information across multiple platforms - TV, online and mobile. We are no longer a linear media,” BBC World MD Anne Barnard said while addressing the press here today. BBC World News content is already on testing mode in three service providers - MTNL, Spice Telecom and Airtel. The news content for mobile will not be updated as frequently as the TV channel. In the days to come, the pubcaster will also deliver news video clip on the mobile platform. Across the globe, BBC World News has a content tie-up with 34 mobile platforms. "Mobile is the fastest growing out-of-home platform for us," Barnard said. Indiantelevision.com, 6th May 2008
Tuesday, 6th May 2008
INFO BOX
TV Advertising More Influential in India Than US
Source: Televisionpoint.com, 5th May 2008
ZenithOptimedia has released the results of its Touchpoints ROI Tracker study, an research undertaken to identify the power of individual consumer contact points to support leading brands. The agency has carried out more than 3,00,000 consumer interviews across 34 countries covering more than 4,000 brands. In India, it has conducted more than 10,000 interviews, covering more than 112 top brands across nine categories.
The study revealed in traditional media, TV advertising is still important at 18% more influential in India and Asia Pacific than in USA. In digital for internet advertising, Asia Pacific is 26% more influential than Europe and 54% more influential in mobile promotions than in North America. The touchpoints report also revealed word of mouth is more influential than traditional media at 12% more than TV in Asia Pacific.
ZenithOptimedia's findings for individual brand categories show that levels of brand experience generated per rupee are much higher for telecom advertisers than for automobile advertisers.The survey doesn't just identify the power of individual Touchpoints to support brands; it also reveals how much better some of these Touch points can work in combination with each other. This is a vital piece of knowledge when planning integrated communications. The agency's Dashboard of Global Norms offers marketers the chance to compare the power of all major communications channels across a variety of consumer groups, brand categories and regions.
Touchpoints ROI Tracker is the consumer research based approach that ZenithOptimedia uses to measure and plan marketing effects across all consumer contacts. It identifies and quantifies the value of every consumer point of contact for a category and its brands, examining the role of each contact point in building brand preference and purchase intent. All forms of consumer contact are measured, including those at point of sale, point of consumption, one-to-one, word of mouth, sponsorship and events, the Internet and mass media.
SPORT SHORTS
* Telekom Malaysia may be increasing its stake in India telecommunications firm Spice Communications to at least 51% from 39.2%. The Economic Times said this seemed to be the only way of pumping in more money into the company, whose debt stood at 12 billion rupees ($291 million) at the time of listing in July last year. "Since none of the partners have a controlling stake, the company seems to be heading nowhere. Spice requires further investments to grow its network. "TM (Telekom Malaysia) cannot put more money unless it raises it stake. It is now aggressively seeking management control," the paper quoted an unidentified company official as saying. The paper said that Telekom Malaysia would raise its stake in the Indian firm through a combination of an open offer to the public and buying shares from the Modis. telecomasia.net, 6th May 2008
* Malaysia's top mobile phone firm, Maxis Communications, plans to invest $4 billion-$5 billion by 2009-10 to expand its network in India. A Reuters report also quoted Maxis CEO Sandip Das as saying that "we plan to beef up our presence pan-India in the next two years." Maxis holds 74% in Aircel Cellular, which operates in 10 telecom circles in India, the report said. Apollo Hospitals Enterprises controls the remainder in the mobile operator. India is the world's fastest growing mobile market where telecom firms added a record 10.16 million wireless subscribers in March, taking the total to 261.1 million, behind only China that had 540.5 million users at end-February. Aircel said it had 10.8 million subscribers in India and had posted revenues of $500 million in 2007. telecomasia.net, 6th May 2008
* SingTel has partnered with Singapore Power, Singapore Press Holdings and Axia NetMedia to jointly bid for the city-state's planned ultra high-speed broadband network. The network, called the Next-Generation National Broadband Network, will allow users to surf the web at speeds of at least 1Gbps, 10 times faster than those available now, when it is fully completed by 2015, the report said. Last week, rival operators StarHub and MobileOne formed a consortium with Hong Kong's Citi Telecom to bid in the government's tender for the construction of the city-state's future cyber highway, the Reuters report said. The Next Generation National Broadband Network is part of state-owned Infocomm Development Authority's Intelligent Nation 2015 or "iN2015" blueprint to give the Asian financial services hub seamless connectivity, SingTel said. telecomasia.net, 6th May 2008
* Media reports put the number closer to 400,000 BlackBerry users in India. India has about 114,000 mobile subscribers using Research In Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry services, much lower than expected, the junior minister for telecommunications said on Monday. Media reports have said there were around 400,000 BlackBerry users in India, while an analyst had estimated the number to be more than half a million. "As per the information received from service providers, there are around 114,000 subscribers as on date who are being provided BlackBerry services by various telecom companies," Jyotiraditya Scindia told the lower house of parliament in a written reply to a question. Four firms, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Vodafone-controlled Vodafone Essar and BPL Mobile provide BlackBerry services in India. Eweek.com, 5th May 2008
* Endorsement offers continue to pour in for India spearhead Ishant Sharma and the beanpole pacer would soon feature in a mobile and an online game created around his performance. The lanky speedster, playing in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the Kolkata Knight Riders, entered a tie-up with Jump Games and Zapak Digital Entertainment Ltd gaming divisions of the Reliance Entertainment which would see him feature in a mobile and an online game. The mobile game, called Ishant Sharma Cricket Fever, features a 10 over match with the pacer bowling at other players. "Today the youngsters are no longer content with usual ways of playing a game. They want it across all means of communication media, be it television, mobile or the internet," Ishant was quoted as saying in a release here today. The Indian Times, Television Point, 5th May 2008
* A leading Japanese cycling club is eyeing Vietnamese cyclists, leading to talk among national players and coaches about the development of the sport in Viet Nam. Officials of the club Equipe Asada tested three young riders, seen as a first step in recruiting athletes from Asian countries. In a four-year plan running from 2009 to 2012, Equipe Asada expects to participate in Tour de France. They are looking for in Asia to take part in about 200 international tournaments a year and training in France and Asian countries. The club skipper Shinichi Fukushima said he knew the athletes through different sources as television, mass media, Viet Nam Cycling Federation and from an introduction by an Equipe Asada member on the national Thai team. Apart from local Japanese cyclists, the club selects young racers from other Asian countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore to supplement its team. Vietnam News, 5th May 2008
* Thailand-based Media of Medias, a local TV program producer, says it will invest to expand its satellite television business to tap growing demand for paid TV programming. The company plans to launch three new satellite TV channels with content ranging from news, lifestyle and variety, and drama and movies. telecomasia.net, 6th May 2008
* Telstra is generating $20 more per customer every month on its NextG services compared to its 2G services, telco boss Sol Trujillo has told a business leadership forum in London. No other telco in the world was even close to generating that amount on 3G revenues over 2G earnings, Mr Trujillo said. "We've added more coverage, more speed, more applications and more services but, for the user, the most important thing is the experience of high-speed, one-click simplicity," he said. "Because you can now click and get - as opposed to click and watch a little globe spin while you wait 10, 15, 20 seconds - the value is there, and we're generating more average revenue per user than most." Mr Trujillo, who was a keynote speaker along with SAS chief executive Jim Goodnight at the invitation-only forum in London last week, said the earnings premium was also being generated on Telstra's fixed-line broadband. Australian IT News, 6th May 2008
* Events from the WISPA World Tour, the top-tier women’s squash series, are to finally be streamed live on the internet this season, the Women’s International Squash Players’ Association has said. Andrew Shelley, WISPA’s chief executive, revealed that plans to introduce live streaming had been ‘held back’ in order to ensure ‘the quality, affordability and durability of the service,’ but that World Tour events would now be broadcast on a trial basis on PSALive, the specialist internet channel of the men’s top-tier Professional Squash Association Tour. Shelley described the online exposure via PSALive as ‘a very welcome chance for us to provide squash enthusiasts with a service while we develop a longer way forward.’ He also said that PSALive’s membership base had grown to 30,000. Sportcal.com, 5th May 2008
Monday, 5th May 2008
SPORT SHORTS
* The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has awarded Japan Consortium the broadcasting rights for the Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 Olympic Games. The Consortium, an association between NHK and NAB (The National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan), has an ongoing relationship with the IOC. The sum of the broadcast rights fee amounts to 32.5billion yen (US$312million). TheConsortium was selected on its capacity to reach the widest audience, across a variety of broadcast platforms, including free-to-air television, subscription television and digital media, internet and mobile phone. The agreement also includes sub-licensing options for broadcast rights to specific platforms. Television Asia Plus, 5th May 2008
* Over 1 million viewers have logged on to TVB.com's official Olympic website to see live streaming of the Torch Relay in Hong Kong, causing a temporary jam. Unlike MSN, Google, Yahoo! and other major online portals, TVB.com is the only media that offers live streaming of the Olympic for global online users. Coca-Cola signed on as the most prominent global Olympic supporting brand in leveraging TVB's marketing dollars by helping it gain more publicity overseas. Other sponsors are the HK government, Oriental Watch and Blue Girl. Approximately 70% of the sites viewers are local and the rest from North America and Southeast Asia. Growing audiences in Greater China will also be a focus. Marketing-interactive.com, 2nd May 2008
* The Philippines’ Globe Telecom has launched 3G mobile TV. The service, using technology provided by US-based NMS Communications, will cost P5 (US$0.11) per minute. Subscribers can watch either live or made-for-mobile, looped, channels. Made-for-mobile channels air pre-recorded series, re-runs and video clips strung together. Non-live channels are refreshed up to three times a week. Live channels available on the service are GMA and ABS-CBN, as well as CNN International. Made-for-mobile services are comedy and lifestyle service The Hub offers clips up to five minutes long; and a sports service. Globe Telecom is the second-ranked mobile operator after incumbent telco PLDT’s subsidiary Smart. Rapid TV News, 4th May 2008
* hanarotelecom's IPTV service hanaTV has reached a subscription base of 900,000 to lead the South Korean IPTV market in subscriptions, ahead of rival KT's Mega TV service which registered 567,230 subscribers as of March 2008. Quarterly revenue for Q1 2008 from hanaTV came up to KRW21.3billion (US$21.3million). hanarotelecom posted Q1 2008 revenues of KRW493billion (US$491.5million), a 9.3% increase year-on-year and a 0.9% increase quarter-on-quarter. Revenue growth was attributed to increase in subscriptions to voice and IPTV services, as well as 'solid' growth of corporate businesses including leased line and IDC. Further, hanarotelecom drew 1.83million subscribers to its 100Mbps broadband services as of end-March 2008, accounting for over half of the company's total subscribers. Television Asia Plus, 5th May 2008
* Subscribers has commenced collective legal action against Korean telco hanarotelecom for the alleged unauthorized sale of subscribers' personal information. 20 employees, including hanarotelecom's former CEO are facing charges of transferring 83.5 million pieces of personal data including addresses, social security numbers and telephone numbers to some 1,000 telemarketing firms between January 2006 and December 2007. The damages sought is in the region of KRW1million (US$1,000) and the cost of the lawsuit is KRW10,000 (US$10) per person. Law firms across the country are in the process of gathering victims through online communities. Hanarotelecom contends that it specified in small print that customers' personal information may be used for marketing purposes, the police argued against marketing firms to be listed on the telco's service contracts with customers. Television Asia Plus, 5th May 2008
* India’s telcos want regulators to intervene to force channels to charge less for their content, much as it did for DTH operators recently. Led by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), which offers IPTV services, telcos want the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to order channels to charge IPTV operators half of the fees they charge cable operators. That was TRAI’s ruling in the DTH sector. But TRAI is in the middle of a consultation process into how it should regulate IPTV. Any scrutinisation of channel fees is unlikely before the regulator has even decided how it should regulate the new technology. India has a limited number of IPTV services, with BSNL and MTNL the main operators. Rapid TV News, 4th May 2008
* Online recruitment portal JobStreet and A1 Team Malaysia have formed a partnership to cross-promote each company’s brand. The JobStreet.com logo on the rear of the Malaysian A1 race car will be featured on global television coverage of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport events in Shanghai, China and Brands Hatch in the UK which is estimated to attract around seven million viewers. In Malaysia, the race is shown live on Star Sports and the highlights are shown on RTM, and the team gains widespread pictorial media coverage across the country for its participation at each event. Meanwhile, the A1 Team Malaysia banner advertisement at Jobstreet's website will link through to the team's own website, a regularly updated ‘virtual home' for the Malaysian entry in the A1GP Series. Marketing Malaysia, 2nd May 2008
* Fox Sports has revealed it will broadcast live and exclusive coverage of next month's football friendly between Hyundai A-League club Melbourne Victory and Italian Serie A TIM giant Juventus. The game, which will be played at the Telstra Dome on May 30, is expected to include Juventus captain Alessandro Del Piero, leading striker David Trezeguet and former World Player of the Year Pavel Nedved. In May, Fox Sports will also broadcast coverage of the deciding weeks of the Barclays Premier League and the Coca-Cola Championship, the AFC Champions League and Australia's friendly against Ghana. Sports Media, 2nd May 2008
* MP & Silva acquired the exclusive media rights to the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) Women’s and Men’s World Olympic Qualification Tournament in Tokyo, Japan from Dentsu. Under the agreement, MP & Silva acquired the exclusive ‘LIVE’ and delayed media rights to 56 Olympic Qualification matches – consisting 28 matches for each gender category – for all television, mobile and broadband television. It acquired the rights for some part of Europe & the Americas, Oceania and Asia. Japan’s women’s team will face Thailand, South Korea, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Kazakhstan, Poland, and Serbia for four final spots, while the men’s competition will feature Japan, Australia, Thailand, Algeria, South Korea, Iran, Italy, and Argentina, battling for two final places. Sportbusiness.com, 2nd May 2008
* Promotion to England's football Premier League is worth at least £60 million and is the biggest financial boost a football club can receive, according to analysts at global accountancy firm, Deloitte. The Championship teams who win a Premier League place get £30 million from TV rights, plus £5 million from extra sponsorship and merchandising deals each season. Even those who are relegated after one season receive £24 million over the next two years, taking the total to about £60 million - more than the Champions League, which can net English clubs £30 million. League One football clubs winning spots in the Football League Championship next season will also receive a 30% increase in revenue. Already-promoted Swansea City and two others can expect to receive a financial boost worth £1.4 million according to Deloitte. Sportbusiness.com, 2nd May 2008
* Manchester United is the most valuable football club in the world, according to Forbes magazine's latest rankings. Manchester United, which came second in a list compiled by accountants Deloitte in February, topped the table ahead of Real Madrid. Forbes value United at £905 million ($1,800 million) and Real at £646 million ($1,285 million), with Arsenal at £603 million ($1,200 million) in third. Liverpool is up to fourth from 11th in the 25-team list. David Beckham replaced Ronaldinho as the world's highest-paid footballer after joining the Los Angeles Galaxy, earning £25 million per year ($48.9 million). Sportbusiness.com, 2nd May 2008
* French mobile phone operator SFR has acquired the exclusive mobile rights in France to soccer's 2008 European Championships. The financial details of the deal, which include the rights to all 31 games at the competition, were not disclosed. SFR customers will have access to highlights, including goals. The firm, an official sponsor of the French national team since 1996, had a similar deal in place for the 2006 World Cup. French media group Vivendi owns 56% of SFR and the rest belongs to mobile phone operator Vodafone. Euro 2008, which runs from June 7 to 29, is to be co-hosted by Austria and Switzerland. Sportcal.com, 2nd May 2008
* Euroleague Basketball and leading facilities and live sports and entertainment organization AEG announced a long-term partnership on a range of basketball-related programming, presentation and development initiatives. Central to the partnership is the hosting of Euroleague Final Four events in arenas owned or operated by AEG as well as providing services to Euroleague clubs regarding venue management, sales, and content optimization, in addition to the design, development, and construction of new world-class arenas. Euroleague Basketball also plans to host the 2009 Euroleague Final Four in AEG’s new O2 World arena in Berlin (opens Sep 2008). AEG and Euroleague Basketball plan to have the 2010 or 2011 Euroleague Final Four at AEG’s O2 Arena in London. AEG will also host future events in other company owned or operated facilities across Europe. Euroleague Official, 3rd May 2008
MORE NEWS
Elsewhere/New Media: Mobile Net Extends Reach of Sites
Nielsen, a US media research company, has reported that mobile internet has extended the audience reach of many net sites by an average of 13% over home PC traffic alone in the US. For some categories, such as weather and entertainment, the extended reach has been even greater at 22%. The cross-platform insights have come from TotalWeb, a new report from Nielsen. TotalWeb has integrated data from Nielsen Mobile and Nielsen Online to show the audience for more than 200 leading Internet sites across the PC and mobile internet space.
Nielsen's data also show that for many internet publishers, mobile internet has increased the overall size of their audience. For games and music sites, the rise has been 15%. Interestingly as per reports, social networking sites do not show much benefit as their rise has been three% only. Also, sports sites have risen by 10%.
Nielsen Mobile VP mobile media Jeff Herrmann said, "The data demonstrate that the mobile internet can not only increase the frequency of visits to a website, but also grow the overall size of the pie. Publishers can now monetise their total cross-platform audience, and advertisers will better understand the efficiency and incremental value of mobile Web traffic." According to Nielsen, 87 million US mobile users subscribe to mobile internet services, and more than one in ten mobile subscribers (13.7%) actively uses mobile internet each month. Indiantelevision.com, 3rd May 2008
ARTICLES, COMMENTS, INTERVIEWS & OPINIONS
India TV broadcasting — Subscription Revenues Yet to Take Off
Shanthi Venkataraman comments on The Hindu Business, 4th May 2008
As broadcasters get ready to roll out new genres of programming content, they may find themselves running up a slippery slope. Securing the viewer’s attention is becoming increasingly difficult with new channel launches threatening to shake up the hard-earned market shares of incumbents.
New concepts such as the Indian Premier League appear to have stolen ‘eyeballs’ from family soaps with great fanfare. Viewership is fragmenting and big advertisers, who now have access to multiple platforms to reach out to their target group, are playing hardball. To top it all, international giants such as Time Warner, NBC Universal and Walt Disney now want a larger piece of the television pie too. The intensifying competition is only to be expected in a booming industry. However, the problem is compounded by the fact that channels, including ‘pay’ ones, remain significantly dependent on advertising income to cover their costs.
Subscription revenue, which would help cushion any adverse turn in advertising spends, has been growing at a slower than expected pace. The subscription growth of listed companies has been in single digits, or at best low double digits, heavily overshadowed by advertising revenue growth. Pay revenues of leading broadcasters were projected to grow at annual rates of 20% and above between 2007 and 2011, on hopes that the adoption of CAS (conditional access system) and entry of DTH (Direct to Home) operators would address the problem of under-declaration of subscribers by cable operators. However, the process of digitisation has been slower than expected.
Slow progress of CAS
It’s been more than a year since CAS was mandated in select areas of the three metros of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata (CAS areas account for less than 20% of the overall cable households in each of these cities). But its implementation has been slow. This is despite TRAI’s (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) efforts to ensure a smooth transition to the new digital regime.
Subscribers opting for CAS, in all likelihood, pay a lower monthly cable bill, thanks to the cap on channel price at Rs 5 per month per subscriber. Moreover, a digital format allows viewers to pay for channels they actually want to watch. Yet, the adoption rate of CAS as of December 31, 2007, was under 30% in the three metros overall (40% in Mumbai). High upfront costs, inertia to shift to a new format and preference for free-to-air channels are some reasons cited for the slow adoption rate. Sections of the industry claim that some households have not opted for CAS because they continue to receive pirated pay channels.
DTH, a silver lining
One likely explanation is that a large number of households have opted for DTH (Direct to Home) over CAS. Dish TV and Tata Sky now cater to over 4 million households, while the number of CAS set top boxes installed in the three metros was a little more than 4 lakh as on December 31, 2007.
The greater success achieved by DTH in acquiring customers has been the prime driver of subscription revenues over the past year. DTH operators, with their deeper pockets, appear better placed to subsidise set top boxes and are able to ramp up a subscriber base faster than local cable operators, who need to invest significant sums in upgrading their networks to digital transmission. However, 5 million digital households is just a fraction of the 70 million cable and satellite market.
Subscription picture
Broadcasters remain positive on subscription revenue growth. The entry of Reliance Infocomm and Bharti Airtel into the DTH market may fast-track the pace of customer additions. The recent extension of CAS to cover the entire area of the three metros and the promise of extending it to 55 more cities over the next couple of years has also raised hopes that subscription revenues will improve. For now, however, the proportion of subscription in overall revenues remains at 10-20%, for most listed companies.
Zee Entertainment derives about 40% of its revenues from subscription, thanks to its large international subscriber base. International subscription is a revenue stream that is yet to be tapped by broadcasters. But with the exception of general entertainment category, this stream is unlikely to make up for the slack on the domestic subscription for broadcasters.
In the near term, the price cap on channels is also likely to limit the revenues on the domestic subscription front; broadcasters’ share of the monthly subscription fee per subscriber is Rs 2.25 per channel in CAS areas. TRAI has also recently urged broadcasters to offer their channels to DTH operators at half the prices at which they are offered in non-CAS areas. They are also required to offer channels on a la carte basis.
Clearly, these issues will be ironed out over the long term. Cable home penetration is still growing, more DTH players will broaden the market, and consumers are increasingly willing to spend more on entertainment. But in the medium term, broadcasters will have to continue to tune their programming to advertisers.
Ad dependent
Broadcasters continue to plan new channel launches, betting on a growing advertising pie. Advertising spends as a percentage of GDP is less than 1 one% in India, half the global average. Advertising spends, particularly on television, have increased at an impressive rate over the last two years. Many see Indian advertising at an inflection point. As Indian per capita income crosses the $750-mark, advertising spends are expected to gallop. The concern right now as far as television is concerned: Is advertising spends growing fast enough to accommodate the expanding number of channels? Even if it were, there are still other challenges.
Television broadcasters pitch their medium as the most cost-effective, considering that it reaches out to more than 100 million households (70 million are cable and satellite homes). Advertisers have also accommodated advertising tariff hikes over the past couple of years, for the same reason. However, competing mediums such as outdoor media, radio, the Internet, sports advertising, and in-theatre advertising are also vying for their attention.
Rating worries
The lack of adequate rating systems that capture audience preferences for programming also make it harder for advertisers to justify their investments. Advertisers rely on TRPs (Television rating points) to determine a programme’s program’s popularity with the audiences. Yet, the industry is increasingly dissatisfied with the current rating systems of the two rating agencies.
The sample size used by these firms to measure a programme’s popularity is considered inadequate, as it does not capture a large part of rural audience preferences. Moreover, as the number of channels increase, viewership is fragmenting. A study by rating agency TAM reveals that while the number of channels watched in a digital set-up is as many as 28 (as against 15 in an analogue set-up), the overall time spent on viewing has not gone up.
The numbers game
The lack of accurate information on audience preferences forces both broadcasters and advertisers to play the numbers game. Broadcasters tailor-make their content to reach out to as many viewers as possible. The result is a lot of repetitive, formulaic programming and spiralling costs of content; the rising cost of movie acquisition rights being a prime example. The absence of a strong “pay” television market also leaves little room for niche channels.
There is space for new genres of programming, such as lifestyle and youth channels, that allow advertisers to focus on a target group. But so far, focused genres such as infotainment channels and children’s channels have managed to garner only 3-4% of the advertisement pie. so far. Whether the latest genres will have greater success in attracting advertiser interest remains to be seen.
* The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has awarded Japan Consortium the broadcasting rights for the Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 Olympic Games. The Consortium, an association between NHK and NAB (The National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan), has an ongoing relationship with the IOC. The sum of the broadcast rights fee amounts to 32.5billion yen (US$312million). TheConsortium was selected on its capacity to reach the widest audience, across a variety of broadcast platforms, including free-to-air television, subscription television and digital media, internet and mobile phone. The agreement also includes sub-licensing options for broadcast rights to specific platforms. Television Asia Plus, 5th May 2008
* Over 1 million viewers have logged on to TVB.com's official Olympic website to see live streaming of the Torch Relay in Hong Kong, causing a temporary jam. Unlike MSN, Google, Yahoo! and other major online portals, TVB.com is the only media that offers live streaming of the Olympic for global online users. Coca-Cola signed on as the most prominent global Olympic supporting brand in leveraging TVB's marketing dollars by helping it gain more publicity overseas. Other sponsors are the HK government, Oriental Watch and Blue Girl. Approximately 70% of the sites viewers are local and the rest from North America and Southeast Asia. Growing audiences in Greater China will also be a focus. Marketing-interactive.com, 2nd May 2008
* The Philippines’ Globe Telecom has launched 3G mobile TV. The service, using technology provided by US-based NMS Communications, will cost P5 (US$0.11) per minute. Subscribers can watch either live or made-for-mobile, looped, channels. Made-for-mobile channels air pre-recorded series, re-runs and video clips strung together. Non-live channels are refreshed up to three times a week. Live channels available on the service are GMA and ABS-CBN, as well as CNN International. Made-for-mobile services are comedy and lifestyle service The Hub offers clips up to five minutes long; and a sports service. Globe Telecom is the second-ranked mobile operator after incumbent telco PLDT’s subsidiary Smart. Rapid TV News, 4th May 2008
* hanarotelecom's IPTV service hanaTV has reached a subscription base of 900,000 to lead the South Korean IPTV market in subscriptions, ahead of rival KT's Mega TV service which registered 567,230 subscribers as of March 2008. Quarterly revenue for Q1 2008 from hanaTV came up to KRW21.3billion (US$21.3million). hanarotelecom posted Q1 2008 revenues of KRW493billion (US$491.5million), a 9.3% increase year-on-year and a 0.9% increase quarter-on-quarter. Revenue growth was attributed to increase in subscriptions to voice and IPTV services, as well as 'solid' growth of corporate businesses including leased line and IDC. Further, hanarotelecom drew 1.83million subscribers to its 100Mbps broadband services as of end-March 2008, accounting for over half of the company's total subscribers. Television Asia Plus, 5th May 2008
* Subscribers has commenced collective legal action against Korean telco hanarotelecom for the alleged unauthorized sale of subscribers' personal information. 20 employees, including hanarotelecom's former CEO are facing charges of transferring 83.5 million pieces of personal data including addresses, social security numbers and telephone numbers to some 1,000 telemarketing firms between January 2006 and December 2007. The damages sought is in the region of KRW1million (US$1,000) and the cost of the lawsuit is KRW10,000 (US$10) per person. Law firms across the country are in the process of gathering victims through online communities. Hanarotelecom contends that it specified in small print that customers' personal information may be used for marketing purposes, the police argued against marketing firms to be listed on the telco's service contracts with customers. Television Asia Plus, 5th May 2008
* India’s telcos want regulators to intervene to force channels to charge less for their content, much as it did for DTH operators recently. Led by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), which offers IPTV services, telcos want the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to order channels to charge IPTV operators half of the fees they charge cable operators. That was TRAI’s ruling in the DTH sector. But TRAI is in the middle of a consultation process into how it should regulate IPTV. Any scrutinisation of channel fees is unlikely before the regulator has even decided how it should regulate the new technology. India has a limited number of IPTV services, with BSNL and MTNL the main operators. Rapid TV News, 4th May 2008
* Online recruitment portal JobStreet and A1 Team Malaysia have formed a partnership to cross-promote each company’s brand. The JobStreet.com logo on the rear of the Malaysian A1 race car will be featured on global television coverage of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport events in Shanghai, China and Brands Hatch in the UK which is estimated to attract around seven million viewers. In Malaysia, the race is shown live on Star Sports and the highlights are shown on RTM, and the team gains widespread pictorial media coverage across the country for its participation at each event. Meanwhile, the A1 Team Malaysia banner advertisement at Jobstreet's website will link through to the team's own website, a regularly updated ‘virtual home' for the Malaysian entry in the A1GP Series. Marketing Malaysia, 2nd May 2008
* Fox Sports has revealed it will broadcast live and exclusive coverage of next month's football friendly between Hyundai A-League club Melbourne Victory and Italian Serie A TIM giant Juventus. The game, which will be played at the Telstra Dome on May 30, is expected to include Juventus captain Alessandro Del Piero, leading striker David Trezeguet and former World Player of the Year Pavel Nedved. In May, Fox Sports will also broadcast coverage of the deciding weeks of the Barclays Premier League and the Coca-Cola Championship, the AFC Champions League and Australia's friendly against Ghana. Sports Media, 2nd May 2008
* MP & Silva acquired the exclusive media rights to the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) Women’s and Men’s World Olympic Qualification Tournament in Tokyo, Japan from Dentsu. Under the agreement, MP & Silva acquired the exclusive ‘LIVE’ and delayed media rights to 56 Olympic Qualification matches – consisting 28 matches for each gender category – for all television, mobile and broadband television. It acquired the rights for some part of Europe & the Americas, Oceania and Asia. Japan’s women’s team will face Thailand, South Korea, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Kazakhstan, Poland, and Serbia for four final spots, while the men’s competition will feature Japan, Australia, Thailand, Algeria, South Korea, Iran, Italy, and Argentina, battling for two final places. Sportbusiness.com, 2nd May 2008
* Promotion to England's football Premier League is worth at least £60 million and is the biggest financial boost a football club can receive, according to analysts at global accountancy firm, Deloitte. The Championship teams who win a Premier League place get £30 million from TV rights, plus £5 million from extra sponsorship and merchandising deals each season. Even those who are relegated after one season receive £24 million over the next two years, taking the total to about £60 million - more than the Champions League, which can net English clubs £30 million. League One football clubs winning spots in the Football League Championship next season will also receive a 30% increase in revenue. Already-promoted Swansea City and two others can expect to receive a financial boost worth £1.4 million according to Deloitte. Sportbusiness.com, 2nd May 2008
* Manchester United is the most valuable football club in the world, according to Forbes magazine's latest rankings. Manchester United, which came second in a list compiled by accountants Deloitte in February, topped the table ahead of Real Madrid. Forbes value United at £905 million ($1,800 million) and Real at £646 million ($1,285 million), with Arsenal at £603 million ($1,200 million) in third. Liverpool is up to fourth from 11th in the 25-team list. David Beckham replaced Ronaldinho as the world's highest-paid footballer after joining the Los Angeles Galaxy, earning £25 million per year ($48.9 million). Sportbusiness.com, 2nd May 2008
* French mobile phone operator SFR has acquired the exclusive mobile rights in France to soccer's 2008 European Championships. The financial details of the deal, which include the rights to all 31 games at the competition, were not disclosed. SFR customers will have access to highlights, including goals. The firm, an official sponsor of the French national team since 1996, had a similar deal in place for the 2006 World Cup. French media group Vivendi owns 56% of SFR and the rest belongs to mobile phone operator Vodafone. Euro 2008, which runs from June 7 to 29, is to be co-hosted by Austria and Switzerland. Sportcal.com, 2nd May 2008
* Euroleague Basketball and leading facilities and live sports and entertainment organization AEG announced a long-term partnership on a range of basketball-related programming, presentation and development initiatives. Central to the partnership is the hosting of Euroleague Final Four events in arenas owned or operated by AEG as well as providing services to Euroleague clubs regarding venue management, sales, and content optimization, in addition to the design, development, and construction of new world-class arenas. Euroleague Basketball also plans to host the 2009 Euroleague Final Four in AEG’s new O2 World arena in Berlin (opens Sep 2008). AEG and Euroleague Basketball plan to have the 2010 or 2011 Euroleague Final Four at AEG’s O2 Arena in London. AEG will also host future events in other company owned or operated facilities across Europe. Euroleague Official, 3rd May 2008
MORE NEWS
Elsewhere/New Media: Mobile Net Extends Reach of Sites
Nielsen, a US media research company, has reported that mobile internet has extended the audience reach of many net sites by an average of 13% over home PC traffic alone in the US. For some categories, such as weather and entertainment, the extended reach has been even greater at 22%. The cross-platform insights have come from TotalWeb, a new report from Nielsen. TotalWeb has integrated data from Nielsen Mobile and Nielsen Online to show the audience for more than 200 leading Internet sites across the PC and mobile internet space.
Nielsen's data also show that for many internet publishers, mobile internet has increased the overall size of their audience. For games and music sites, the rise has been 15%. Interestingly as per reports, social networking sites do not show much benefit as their rise has been three% only. Also, sports sites have risen by 10%.
Nielsen Mobile VP mobile media Jeff Herrmann said, "The data demonstrate that the mobile internet can not only increase the frequency of visits to a website, but also grow the overall size of the pie. Publishers can now monetise their total cross-platform audience, and advertisers will better understand the efficiency and incremental value of mobile Web traffic." According to Nielsen, 87 million US mobile users subscribe to mobile internet services, and more than one in ten mobile subscribers (13.7%) actively uses mobile internet each month. Indiantelevision.com, 3rd May 2008
ARTICLES, COMMENTS, INTERVIEWS & OPINIONS
India TV broadcasting — Subscription Revenues Yet to Take Off
Shanthi Venkataraman comments on The Hindu Business, 4th May 2008
As broadcasters get ready to roll out new genres of programming content, they may find themselves running up a slippery slope. Securing the viewer’s attention is becoming increasingly difficult with new channel launches threatening to shake up the hard-earned market shares of incumbents.
New concepts such as the Indian Premier League appear to have stolen ‘eyeballs’ from family soaps with great fanfare. Viewership is fragmenting and big advertisers, who now have access to multiple platforms to reach out to their target group, are playing hardball. To top it all, international giants such as Time Warner, NBC Universal and Walt Disney now want a larger piece of the television pie too. The intensifying competition is only to be expected in a booming industry. However, the problem is compounded by the fact that channels, including ‘pay’ ones, remain significantly dependent on advertising income to cover their costs.
Subscription revenue, which would help cushion any adverse turn in advertising spends, has been growing at a slower than expected pace. The subscription growth of listed companies has been in single digits, or at best low double digits, heavily overshadowed by advertising revenue growth. Pay revenues of leading broadcasters were projected to grow at annual rates of 20% and above between 2007 and 2011, on hopes that the adoption of CAS (conditional access system) and entry of DTH (Direct to Home) operators would address the problem of under-declaration of subscribers by cable operators. However, the process of digitisation has been slower than expected.
Slow progress of CAS
It’s been more than a year since CAS was mandated in select areas of the three metros of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata (CAS areas account for less than 20% of the overall cable households in each of these cities). But its implementation has been slow. This is despite TRAI’s (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) efforts to ensure a smooth transition to the new digital regime.
Subscribers opting for CAS, in all likelihood, pay a lower monthly cable bill, thanks to the cap on channel price at Rs 5 per month per subscriber. Moreover, a digital format allows viewers to pay for channels they actually want to watch. Yet, the adoption rate of CAS as of December 31, 2007, was under 30% in the three metros overall (40% in Mumbai). High upfront costs, inertia to shift to a new format and preference for free-to-air channels are some reasons cited for the slow adoption rate. Sections of the industry claim that some households have not opted for CAS because they continue to receive pirated pay channels.
DTH, a silver lining
One likely explanation is that a large number of households have opted for DTH (Direct to Home) over CAS. Dish TV and Tata Sky now cater to over 4 million households, while the number of CAS set top boxes installed in the three metros was a little more than 4 lakh as on December 31, 2007.
The greater success achieved by DTH in acquiring customers has been the prime driver of subscription revenues over the past year. DTH operators, with their deeper pockets, appear better placed to subsidise set top boxes and are able to ramp up a subscriber base faster than local cable operators, who need to invest significant sums in upgrading their networks to digital transmission. However, 5 million digital households is just a fraction of the 70 million cable and satellite market.
Subscription picture
Broadcasters remain positive on subscription revenue growth. The entry of Reliance Infocomm and Bharti Airtel into the DTH market may fast-track the pace of customer additions. The recent extension of CAS to cover the entire area of the three metros and the promise of extending it to 55 more cities over the next couple of years has also raised hopes that subscription revenues will improve. For now, however, the proportion of subscription in overall revenues remains at 10-20%, for most listed companies.
Zee Entertainment derives about 40% of its revenues from subscription, thanks to its large international subscriber base. International subscription is a revenue stream that is yet to be tapped by broadcasters. But with the exception of general entertainment category, this stream is unlikely to make up for the slack on the domestic subscription for broadcasters.
In the near term, the price cap on channels is also likely to limit the revenues on the domestic subscription front; broadcasters’ share of the monthly subscription fee per subscriber is Rs 2.25 per channel in CAS areas. TRAI has also recently urged broadcasters to offer their channels to DTH operators at half the prices at which they are offered in non-CAS areas. They are also required to offer channels on a la carte basis.
Clearly, these issues will be ironed out over the long term. Cable home penetration is still growing, more DTH players will broaden the market, and consumers are increasingly willing to spend more on entertainment. But in the medium term, broadcasters will have to continue to tune their programming to advertisers.
Ad dependent
Broadcasters continue to plan new channel launches, betting on a growing advertising pie. Advertising spends as a percentage of GDP is less than 1 one% in India, half the global average. Advertising spends, particularly on television, have increased at an impressive rate over the last two years. Many see Indian advertising at an inflection point. As Indian per capita income crosses the $750-mark, advertising spends are expected to gallop. The concern right now as far as television is concerned: Is advertising spends growing fast enough to accommodate the expanding number of channels? Even if it were, there are still other challenges.
Television broadcasters pitch their medium as the most cost-effective, considering that it reaches out to more than 100 million households (70 million are cable and satellite homes). Advertisers have also accommodated advertising tariff hikes over the past couple of years, for the same reason. However, competing mediums such as outdoor media, radio, the Internet, sports advertising, and in-theatre advertising are also vying for their attention.
Rating worries
The lack of adequate rating systems that capture audience preferences for programming also make it harder for advertisers to justify their investments. Advertisers rely on TRPs (Television rating points) to determine a programme’s program’s popularity with the audiences. Yet, the industry is increasingly dissatisfied with the current rating systems of the two rating agencies.
The sample size used by these firms to measure a programme’s popularity is considered inadequate, as it does not capture a large part of rural audience preferences. Moreover, as the number of channels increase, viewership is fragmenting. A study by rating agency TAM reveals that while the number of channels watched in a digital set-up is as many as 28 (as against 15 in an analogue set-up), the overall time spent on viewing has not gone up.
The numbers game
The lack of accurate information on audience preferences forces both broadcasters and advertisers to play the numbers game. Broadcasters tailor-make their content to reach out to as many viewers as possible. The result is a lot of repetitive, formulaic programming and spiralling costs of content; the rising cost of movie acquisition rights being a prime example. The absence of a strong “pay” television market also leaves little room for niche channels.
There is space for new genres of programming, such as lifestyle and youth channels, that allow advertisers to focus on a target group. But so far, focused genres such as infotainment channels and children’s channels have managed to garner only 3-4% of the advertisement pie. so far. Whether the latest genres will have greater success in attracting advertiser interest remains to be seen.
Friday, 2nd May 2008
DID YOU KNOW?
UK Leads Europe for Watching Sport on TV
Source: Sportcal.com, 1st May 2008
People in the UK watch more sport on television than in any other European country, according to a survey by LG Electronics, the Korean electronics giant. Nearly one quarter of the population spend between nine and 30 hours a week watching sport on television. The study also found that half of Europeans will watch the Olympic Games, while just over one third will watch the 2008 European soccer Championships, reports HDTV news. Just over one in five will watch cycling’s Tour de France, with just under one in five planning to watch various tennis tournaments. Nine in 10 Europeans said they’d rather stay at home and watch sport than watch the event live or in a bar. Anthony Yang, general product manager for LG Electronics, said: ‘This research indicates that watching sport on TV is a key part of the average European's lifestyle, firmly embedded in their weekly routine. ‘With so many planning to follow the Olympics and Euro 2008 as well as other key sporting events from the comfort of their homes, TV will play a central role in enjoying this year's sporting activities.’
SPORT SHORTS
* The Japan Consortium, an association of NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) and NAB (The National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan), has acquired the Japanese broadcasting rights for the Vancouver 2010 and the London 2012 Olympic Games from the International Olympic Committee. The Japan Consortium was selected on its capacity to reach the broadest possible audience on a variety of broadcast platforms, including free-to-air television, subscription television and digital media, internet and mobile phone, and for its commitment to promoting the Olympic Games and the values of the Olympic Movement. The agreement also includes sublicensing of broadcast rights to specific platforms. Sportbusiness.com, Worldscreen, Sportcal, Sportcal, 4th Apr 2008
* Third-generation (3G) mobile phone service is ready for use in the upcoming Beijing Olympics. China Mobile and South Korean cell phone producer Samsung presented 15,000 3G handsets, plus data cards to the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 29th Olympic Games last week. Work staff and volunteers of the Games can enjoy high-speed data transmissions, which allow them to watch televised games, play videos, and surf the internet on cell phones. The service is based on the Chinese 3G standard, TD-SCDMA. China Mobile has finished construction of the TD-SCDMA network in eight cities, five of which are to host events for the Olympics in August. The International Telecommunication Union has recognized TD-SCDMA as one of the world's three official 3G standards in 2000. The other two are Europe's W-CDMA and North America's cdma2000. telecomasia.net, 2nd May 2008
* CDMA operator Tata Teleservices Ltd on Thursday said it has crossed three million subscribers in Delhi and NCR. Delhi and NCR markets contribute over three million subscribers to the total user base of 10 million in the northern hub, the company said in a statement. In April to March period, it added 11.58 lakh subscribers in the region. "We will strengthen our presence across the north hub and our focus will always remain on providing superior communication experience to our customers," said the Circle Operating Of ficer (Delhi and NCR) of Tata Teleservices Mr Vineet Bhatia. The Hindu Business Line, 1st May 2008
* Mobile operator Tata Indicom has launched a range of value added services (VAS) around the Indian Premier League (IPL), offering match updates, and giving its subscribers a chance to win prizes by taking part in various contests.The mobile telephony market is showing a lot of promise, where VAS are increasingly a growth area. It is attracting wireless operators, handset manufacturers, content developers, music and film companies, cartoon artists, game makers and musicians for ring tones, music, gaming, sports, mobile imagery, WAP, wall papers, logos, SMS based contests and streaming audio and video. Television Point, 30th Apr 2008
* UAE telco Etisalat says it has earmarked up to US$4bn for either an acquisition, or license to operate, in India. Mohammed Omran, chairman of Etisalat, says the time is right for a purchase and indicated that Etisalat could spend between $1bn to $4bn depending on the opportunities and the percentage of a business that was available. Etisalat is already on record as saying it has held talks with several Indian businesses, including Spice Communications. Etisalat has had an operating monopoly in the UAE for many years, and also part-owns the nation’s second telco, Du. India is an extremely buoyant cellular market with around 8m new mobile subs being added each month. The nation has an estimated 250m mobile users. Rapid TV News.com, 1st May 2008
* The National Basketball Association (NBA) has tied up with the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) and is all set to organize the game's first ever global development and community outreach programme in India named 'Basketball without Borders' here from July 3. The camp will use basketball to influence positive social change in the country and involve current and former NBA players and team personnel to work as coaches. Top basketball players in the age group of 19 and under from across Asia will converge in the Capital to take part in the camp. The organizers also announced that Asia's leading broadcaster ESPN Star Sports will provide coverage of the camp and will have unique and exclusive behind the scenes access of the event. Since, the launch of its inaugural camp in 2001, 'Basketball without Borders' has been staged in nine countries and territories of five continents. Yahoo! News, 1st May 2008
* Fox Sports president Ed Goren said he is not worried about discussed changes to the format of college football's Bowl Championship Series (BCS). His network is entering the third year of a four-year, US$320-million deal with the BCS, which is considering a change to the way it structures its competition. However, Goren does not mind what the competition does so long as Fox covers it. Fox broadcasts the Sugar, Orange and Fiesta bowls, plus the national title games attached to those games in the double-host format. The Rose Bowl has a separate contract with ABC that runs through to the 2014 game. Sports Media, 1st May 2008
* Reliance Entertainment's online and offline movie rental service BigFlicks.com, and Willow TV, a portal for live Internet streaming of cricket in the US, have announced a partnership for offering Indian Premier League (IPL) match viewing in the US. The parties have announced a "Ticket to Cricket" offer. The joint offer started from 18 April, 2008 and will run until the finals of the IPL on 1 June, 2008 and will be available to all customers in the Americas. Indiantelevision.com, 30th Apr 2008
* Diego Maradona's daughter Dalma will star in a documentary about the passion of Boca Juniors fans . Producer Dario Naftulewicz came up with the idea of documenting the fans' passion for the Buenos Aires giant and Dalma has been chosen to front the project about the club, where her father used to play. The film will be called 'Boca, A Love Story' and the 21-year-old Dalma told the Clarin newspaper: "I always say that, even if my father hadn't made me a Boca fan, I would have been anyway. The idea is to record what people feel about Boca, how this love was born. It will consist of six episodes." The documentary will be watched around the world as rights have already been sold to a number of different countries. Football Insider, 30th Apr 2008
* Total prize money for this year’s Wimbledon will increase by 4.7% to £11,812,000, according to the All England Club. The men’s and women’s champions will receive £750,000 each, an increase of 7.1%, whilst prize money for each of the men's and women's doubles events will top £1 million pounds for the first time, with the winning pairs receiving £230,000. The AELTC also said building work to fit a retractable roof for the 2009 Championship was on schedule. The Championships have regularly run into the middle Sunday due to bad weather at the tour's grass court Grand Slam tournament, but organisers confirmed yesterday that they will stick with a 13-day schedule, despite strong arguments in favour of making `People’s Sunday` a permanent fixture. This year’s tournament runs from June 23 to July 6. Sport Business, Sportcal, 30th Apr 2008
* The World Squash Federation (WSF) has received a boost in its bid to get squash recognised as an Olympic sport. The sport, along with baseball, golf, karate, roller sports, rugby and softball, has been included on the shortlist of sports under consideration for the 2016 Games. Played by around 15 million people on all five continents, squash has vigorously campaigned to join the Olympic Games programme, but a series of near misses has kept it off the roster. In 2005, squash was voted into the London 2012 Games ahead of karate, roller sports, rugby and golf, but then failed to achieve the two-thirds majority required to become ratified as an Olympic sport. Now, following an extensive global campaign by the WSF, International Olympic Committee (IOC) Sports Director Christophe Dubi has notified WSF President Jahangir Khan that the sport will be considered for the 2016 Games. Sport Insider, 30th Apr 2008
* The International Cricket Council today issued a request for proposals from media companies to produce, market and distribute DVDs, videos and other so-called 'fixed media' featuring footage from ICC events, the first time that the ICC has sought to agree a long-term deal in this area. The ICC said that it plans to license the rights to use this intellectual property for the period up to 2012, 'in order to ensure that both ICC and its media company have a real incentive to invest in effective product and brand development.' The films will incorporate footage from ICC events including the Cricket World Cup, Champions Trophy and World Twenty20. The ICC said that the request for proposals 'is aimed at attracting media companies experienced in the production, marketing and distribution of sport films internationally. Sportcal.com, 1st May 2008
MORE NEWS
China/Rights: Beijing Internet Rights in China Sold for Below Market Value
CCTV, the Chinese state broadcaster, acquired the internet rights in China for this summer’s Beijing Olympics for well below the market value after the intervention of the Chinese government, it has been claimed. A senior source close to the International Olympic Committee told Sportcal.com that the IOC had been intent on an open bidding process, but that the domestic internet portal rivals Sohu.com, an official sponsor of the games, and Sina.com withdrew their bids under threat from the government.
The deal eventually signed by the IOC with CCTV last December, following months of negotiations, was said to be worth between $7 million and $8 million – half what was offered by one of the rival bidders. Besides the loss of income, there was said to be concern within the IOC that online broadcasting was not CCTV’s core competency, in the way that it is for Sina and Sohu,.
However, Timo Lumme, the IOC's director of television and marketing, played down the concerns, telling Sportcal.com: 'It was critical that the IOC worked with all bidders to make sure they understood the value of the rights and demonstrated that they would fully exploit these rights in mainland China, whilst also providing satisfactory guarantees of anti-piracy and security measures.
'The IOC wants to ensure that Olympic fans have access to the best possible Olympic coverage in 2008 and our partnership with CCTV.com will mean the digital broadcast rights holder will be able to do just that by developing exciting joint executions across all media platforms with CCTV.'
Lumme told Sportcal.com last December that the CCTV agreement represented a 'significant rights fee, in any terms,' in recognition of the value of the rights in the host territory and the competition for the rights. CCTV already holds the television rights for the games in a deal agreed in 1998 through its membership of the Asian Broadcasting Union. The broadcaster obtained the television rights relatively inexpensively, at a time when the hosting of the games had not yet been awarded to China.
Meanwhile, Sohu has announced a fivefold jump in profits, thanks in part to a boost in traffic created by Beijing Olympic news, pictures, and videos, which has in turn spurred companies such as Samsung and Adidas to buy more advertising space. Online coverage of the games in China has been a source of contention between Sohu.com and Sina.com, with the former claiming to have exclusivity to carry Olympic imagery on its site.
Sina.com, however, continues to carry Beijing games imagery and is planning comprehensive coverage of the event, using a 450-strong team to cover them in Chinese, English, French, German, Spanish and Arabic. Sohu also claims that its deal with organisers means that Olympic sponsors can only use Olympic marks on Sohu.com, but the IOC has rejected the claim, maintaining that all media can accept Olympic advertising. Sportcal, 1st May 2008
Malaysia/Broadcaster: Media Prima to Share Sports Broadcast Rights with RTM
Media Prima Bhd plans to collaborate with national broadcaster Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) to bid for and share broadcast rights of sports programmes. The idea for such a collaboration was mooted by RTM, and had received the support of the Ministry of Information, said Media Prima chairman Datuk Abdul Mutalib Mohamed Razak. “Instead of competing with each other, we are complementing each other. For example, if there are three or four matches a day, they can’t show all games. So, we can share the broadcast rights for the viewers’ benefit,” he told reporters after Media Prima’s AGM here yesterday.
Its group managing director and chief executive officer Abdul Rahman Ahmad stressed that the collaboration would be limited to the sharing of broadcast rights, and not in any form of joint ventures. On Media Prima’s proposed media fund of up to US$150 million (RM477 million), Abdul Rahman said it was in talks with five to seven private equity fund investors and international media companies that had expressed interest in participating in the fund. “The progress has been good. The feedback has been positive,” he said, adding that it would be able to close the fund latest by early third quarter.
On the current year’s earnings prospects, Abdul Rahman said that while the earnings growth would continue to be supported by its television network, the company would expand its radio networks, outdoor media and new media divisions more aggressively. He noted that global economic uncertainty would remain a challenge for the growth of advertising expenditure. “Generally, TV advertising growth tends to correlate closely to economy growth. We aspire to grow faster than the market and get more market share, but we are relying on the economic growth,” he said. The Edge Daily, 30th Apr 2008
Japan/General: Suspension of Japan Basketball Association to Be Lifted
FIBA, the international basketball federation, has said today that the suspension of the Japan Basketball Association will be lifted shortly and the national women's team can enter a qualification event for this year's Beijing Olympic Games. The JBA was suspended by the Japanese Olympic Committee on March 18 for failing to resolve internal conflicts and hold elections for the board for almost a year. This threw into doubt the women’s team’s participation in FIBA events, including the Olympic qualifying tournament in Madrid from June 9 to 15. However, following meetings with Japanese basketball officials in Tokyo and positive developments at the JBA’s extraordinary congress this week, FIBA secretary general Patrick Baumann has said that the suspension will be lifted and the team can continue its preparations for forthcoming competitions. The JBA’s members have now selected nominees for board membership and approved the activity plans and financial reports for 2008.
The suspension will not be lifted until the next meeting of the JOC executive board, but, in the meantime, the Japanese women have been cleared to play in the Olympic qualifying event and the 2nd FIBA Diamond Bowl for Women in Haining, China from August 2 to 5. The Olympic Games run from August 14 to 28. Baumann, a member of the International Olympic Committee, said: ‘The institutional developments over the past couple of days have been long overdue and are very encouraging. ‘We expect now JBA to stop the infighting and appoint without delay a new president so that the relationships with both FIBA and the JOC can be normalised rapidly. FIBA will therefore closely monitor the compliance of JBA with their latest resolutions.’
At its meeting in Beijing last week, the FIBA central board received reports on the conflicts in Japan, Mexico and the Philippines. On the recommendation of FIBA Americas, the global body has decided to de-recognise the leadership of the Mexican Basketball Federation. However, it has reaffirmed its support for the national association in the Philippines, whose authority and performance has been questioned at home. Sportcal.com, 1st May 2008
Elsewhere/Rights: Football 'Worth More Than League'
The battle of Australia's football codes is not consigned to western Sydney, with football's TV rights tipped to rival that of the AFL when a new deal is nutted out in 2013. Leading media buyer and analyst Harold Mitchell claims that football's deal may surpass the NRL's $500 million deal and rub shoulders with the AFL. Mitchell, the man who advised the AFL when it signed the unprecedented $780 million TV deal, predicted that Football Federation Australia's bargaining power would top the $100 million-a-year mark by the time the rights are up for renewal.
"The soccer rights should be a $100 million-a-year sport by 2013," Mitchell said. "It could be equal to the AFL by then if it is properly presented. "No doubt it could surpass the NRL. The reason is it can grow into all the states, southern and western. Where the NRL is very strong in New South Wales and Queensland, soccer can grow into new areas more easily and readily. Also what's developing is that mums want their kids to play soccer. "They don't like thuggery so it's perfectly positioned as a family sport. It's minimal contact. It's of high appeal and it is a fast-moving game for TV. Plus it's short."
His argument is supported by the Professional Footballers Association, whose research indicates that football's TV rights - the A-League and Australia matches packaged together - will eventually surpass those of the NRL. PFA chief executive Brendan Schwab, a former vice-president of AFL club Richmond, believes the TV rights will be lucrative if A-League teams are introduced in western Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast before the next deal.
"The question is when, not if," Schwab said in reference to surpassing the NRL's TV rights. "We may not be No1, but the key is being the No.2 sport in every Australian market. "The Socceroos can be the No.1 national team in Australia, with a regular audience of one million and up to 3.5 million for big games. "Packaged together, these media rights can provide a commercial platform that will sit only behind the AFL in the medium to long term."
Football's current seven-year, $130 million deal with Fox Sports was lucrative at the time it was signed - after just one A-League season. But it was also signed on the eve of the 2006 World Cup, and Mitchell said the rights even now would be worth considerably more. In football's favour is the fact that FFA chief executive Ben Buckley was the man who brokered the AFL's $780 million deal. Foxsport, 16th Apr 2008
Elsewhere/General: Lagardere Eyes Top Spot in Sports
French media to aerospace group Lagardere (LAGA.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday it wanted to become the world leader in the fast-growing sports sector within three to five years but had no plans to own a French soccer club. Chief Executive Arnaud Lagardere also told the annual shareholders meeting that the group had not yet decided what it would do with its 20% stake in French pay-TV group Canal Plus. Lagardere confirmed at the meeting the group's guidance for 2008 underlying profit growth of between 3 percent and 7 percent for the media business.
"Sports is a very strong growth business that will consolidate in coming years. We are thinking of becoming the world leader in sports within three to five years, " he said. Asked if the company, which bought sports rights marketing firm SportFive last year, was considering buying troubled French soccer club Paris St Germain (PSG), Lagardere said, "Owning a French club, this is not in my thoughts, neither the PSG, nor Marseille, nor any other club."
On Lagardere's plans for its 20% stake in Canal Plus, he said: "We have not taken a decision yet. We can either go to 30 percent or sell it." The world's biggest publisher of consumer magazines such as Elle and Paris Match, Lagardere made a string of acquisitions in 2007 and early 2008 to expand its reach in the fast-growing sports and Internet sectors. Lagardere Active CEO Didier Quillot repeated that the group, which recently speeded up its Internet expansion with the purchase of Web content publisher Doctissimo, was now one year ahead of its goal to generate between 5 percent and 10 percent of its sales from the digital business in 2009. Reuters, 29th Apr 2008
ARTICLES, COMMENTS, INTERVIEWS & OPINIONS
Top 10 to Watch for at Olympics
By Greg Couch, Chicago Sun-Times Columnist, 30th Apr 2008
In China today, they're planning to celebrate. The countdown sign near Tiananmen Square goes to 100. Today is 100 days until the start of the Beijing Olympics. One hundred singers will perform a song marking the final countdown, and 10,000 runners are expected to compete in a marathon. The start of Olympic buzz? Well, yes. There. But in the United States, we usually start paying attention roughly 15 minutes before the Opening Ceremony. That means Aug. 8. Here's a list of 10 people or things you might be looking at then:
1. Kobe Bryant: His image is just about remade now, even though he'll always be the pretend Jordan to me. But Bryant finally can get the universal love he wants when he brings the basketball gold medal back to the United States. The team should win, and it had better. The whole idea of these last four years was to justify losing to Puerto Rico in Athens and settling for the bronze. The accepted argument? U.S. players are still better than everyone else, just not as interested or patriotic.
2. The Dalai Lama: He has stolen the Olympic spotlight. The protests in Tibet have led to protests around the world following the running of the Olympic Torch. The cry is over Tibet, Darfur and human-rights atrocities. Some countries likely will boycott the Opening Ceremony. Meanwhile, Chinese officials are blaming the Western world and media for trying to take cheap shots at them. How will protesters be dealt with? Will they be run off violently on international TV?
3. Americans on the (silver) medal stand: China is going to kick the world's butts in medal count. It has flooded its sports programs with money the last several years to look good this August. Some have suggested that China hasn't sent its A-team to international events, so it can spring surprise winners at the Olympics. ''I don't see China doing the clandestine, shadow team I've read about,'' Steve Roush, USOC chief of sport performance, said a few weeks ago in Chicago. ''Russia, China and the U.S. all [have] legitimate shots [at winning the medal count].'' But then he let the truth slip out about China. ''It's a country of 1.3 billion people,'' he said. ''It's all a numbers game. They have infused large amounts of resources.'' Then Roush, USOC CEO Jim Scherr and chairman Peter Ueberroth started to tell a sad tale of the United States needing help from its corporate sponsors. Yes, poor U.S. sports teams.
4. Michael Phelps: He's the U.S. star of the Games, not counting basketball. Phelps was supposed to be the next Mark Spitz in Athens in 2004. But when he didn't win a bunch of golds right off, it was a letdown. If you don't remember, he ended up winning eight medals, including six golds. Now, at 22, he's not a kid anymore. Now he really is the next Spitz.
5. Anyone you can make out: The pollution is so awful in Beijing that at times you can't see much of anything. Some U.S. teams plan to train in Japan in the final days before the Games. Haile Gebrselassie, the world's best distance runner, told Reuters he won't run the marathon in Beijing out of fear the pollution might damage his body. China is so concerned about bad PR from the pollution that it's instituting an exceedingly harsh plan to shut down industries, curtail driving and suspend construction projects. IOC chairman Jacques Rogge thought it necessary this month to announce that the air will not be harmful to athletes. U.S. team health officials are suggesting that the athletes wear special masks in the days before the Games. I asked U.S. swimmer Tara Kirk if you can train in a way that allows you to get used to the pollution. She joked that she could swim in a dirty pool.
6. The Lopez family: You won't have to look past a cereal box to see brothers Steven and Mark Lopez and sister Diana, from Sugar Land, Texas. They all have made the U.S. tae kwon do team, and they'll be coached in Beijing by older brother Jean. They're all good-looking, chatty and likable, too. In other words, a marketer's dream. ''Marky does his flips [when he wins],'' Diana said. ''Steve is the golden boy. Everyone's looking at him all the time.'' And you? ''I'm the tough one.''
7. The swimsuit: This thing already is getting out of hand. World records are falling, and the swim world is crediting/ blaming the new Speedo LZR, a modern suit that supposedly increases buoyancy. The claim is that it's cheating to wear one. The Italian swimming federation is having scientists study the suit. A swimsuit on steroids? Maybe. Or maybe there's another reason for performance enhancement.
8. Chicago 2016 people: In June, the IOC will produce its short list of potential host cities for the 2016 Summer Games. If Chicago makes it, the city will send a contingent to Beijing to monitor the Games/trumpet the city. Here's a guess: Chicago will be on the short list. The final site will be announced in October 2009. Another guess: Someone else will be named that day.
9. Chicago athletes: You have to look hard, but wrestlers Joe Williams of Chicago and Lindsey Durlacher of Buffalo Grove have a shot at a medal. Williams finished fifth in Athens, saying he lost focus at a crucial moment. That has been eating away at him. Diver Kelli Bryant is from Chatham, near Springfield. And softball pitcher Jennie Finch, a member of the Chicago Bandits, is almost sure to win gold.
10. The U.S. track team: It has become the face of the Olympic steroid problem, surpassing the old East German women's swim team. First Marion Jones was busted, and now the New York Times reports that several others are potentially about to fall, too. Olympic officials have plans for a seriously stepped-up testing program.
UK Leads Europe for Watching Sport on TV
Source: Sportcal.com, 1st May 2008
People in the UK watch more sport on television than in any other European country, according to a survey by LG Electronics, the Korean electronics giant. Nearly one quarter of the population spend between nine and 30 hours a week watching sport on television. The study also found that half of Europeans will watch the Olympic Games, while just over one third will watch the 2008 European soccer Championships, reports HDTV news. Just over one in five will watch cycling’s Tour de France, with just under one in five planning to watch various tennis tournaments. Nine in 10 Europeans said they’d rather stay at home and watch sport than watch the event live or in a bar. Anthony Yang, general product manager for LG Electronics, said: ‘This research indicates that watching sport on TV is a key part of the average European's lifestyle, firmly embedded in their weekly routine. ‘With so many planning to follow the Olympics and Euro 2008 as well as other key sporting events from the comfort of their homes, TV will play a central role in enjoying this year's sporting activities.’
SPORT SHORTS
* The Japan Consortium, an association of NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) and NAB (The National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan), has acquired the Japanese broadcasting rights for the Vancouver 2010 and the London 2012 Olympic Games from the International Olympic Committee. The Japan Consortium was selected on its capacity to reach the broadest possible audience on a variety of broadcast platforms, including free-to-air television, subscription television and digital media, internet and mobile phone, and for its commitment to promoting the Olympic Games and the values of the Olympic Movement. The agreement also includes sublicensing of broadcast rights to specific platforms. Sportbusiness.com, Worldscreen, Sportcal, Sportcal, 4th Apr 2008
* Third-generation (3G) mobile phone service is ready for use in the upcoming Beijing Olympics. China Mobile and South Korean cell phone producer Samsung presented 15,000 3G handsets, plus data cards to the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 29th Olympic Games last week. Work staff and volunteers of the Games can enjoy high-speed data transmissions, which allow them to watch televised games, play videos, and surf the internet on cell phones. The service is based on the Chinese 3G standard, TD-SCDMA. China Mobile has finished construction of the TD-SCDMA network in eight cities, five of which are to host events for the Olympics in August. The International Telecommunication Union has recognized TD-SCDMA as one of the world's three official 3G standards in 2000. The other two are Europe's W-CDMA and North America's cdma2000. telecomasia.net, 2nd May 2008
* CDMA operator Tata Teleservices Ltd on Thursday said it has crossed three million subscribers in Delhi and NCR. Delhi and NCR markets contribute over three million subscribers to the total user base of 10 million in the northern hub, the company said in a statement. In April to March period, it added 11.58 lakh subscribers in the region. "We will strengthen our presence across the north hub and our focus will always remain on providing superior communication experience to our customers," said the Circle Operating Of ficer (Delhi and NCR) of Tata Teleservices Mr Vineet Bhatia. The Hindu Business Line, 1st May 2008
* Mobile operator Tata Indicom has launched a range of value added services (VAS) around the Indian Premier League (IPL), offering match updates, and giving its subscribers a chance to win prizes by taking part in various contests.The mobile telephony market is showing a lot of promise, where VAS are increasingly a growth area. It is attracting wireless operators, handset manufacturers, content developers, music and film companies, cartoon artists, game makers and musicians for ring tones, music, gaming, sports, mobile imagery, WAP, wall papers, logos, SMS based contests and streaming audio and video. Television Point, 30th Apr 2008
* UAE telco Etisalat says it has earmarked up to US$4bn for either an acquisition, or license to operate, in India. Mohammed Omran, chairman of Etisalat, says the time is right for a purchase and indicated that Etisalat could spend between $1bn to $4bn depending on the opportunities and the percentage of a business that was available. Etisalat is already on record as saying it has held talks with several Indian businesses, including Spice Communications. Etisalat has had an operating monopoly in the UAE for many years, and also part-owns the nation’s second telco, Du. India is an extremely buoyant cellular market with around 8m new mobile subs being added each month. The nation has an estimated 250m mobile users. Rapid TV News.com, 1st May 2008
* The National Basketball Association (NBA) has tied up with the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) and is all set to organize the game's first ever global development and community outreach programme in India named 'Basketball without Borders' here from July 3. The camp will use basketball to influence positive social change in the country and involve current and former NBA players and team personnel to work as coaches. Top basketball players in the age group of 19 and under from across Asia will converge in the Capital to take part in the camp. The organizers also announced that Asia's leading broadcaster ESPN Star Sports will provide coverage of the camp and will have unique and exclusive behind the scenes access of the event. Since, the launch of its inaugural camp in 2001, 'Basketball without Borders' has been staged in nine countries and territories of five continents. Yahoo! News, 1st May 2008
* Fox Sports president Ed Goren said he is not worried about discussed changes to the format of college football's Bowl Championship Series (BCS). His network is entering the third year of a four-year, US$320-million deal with the BCS, which is considering a change to the way it structures its competition. However, Goren does not mind what the competition does so long as Fox covers it. Fox broadcasts the Sugar, Orange and Fiesta bowls, plus the national title games attached to those games in the double-host format. The Rose Bowl has a separate contract with ABC that runs through to the 2014 game. Sports Media, 1st May 2008
* Reliance Entertainment's online and offline movie rental service BigFlicks.com, and Willow TV, a portal for live Internet streaming of cricket in the US, have announced a partnership for offering Indian Premier League (IPL) match viewing in the US. The parties have announced a "Ticket to Cricket" offer. The joint offer started from 18 April, 2008 and will run until the finals of the IPL on 1 June, 2008 and will be available to all customers in the Americas. Indiantelevision.com, 30th Apr 2008
* Diego Maradona's daughter Dalma will star in a documentary about the passion of Boca Juniors fans . Producer Dario Naftulewicz came up with the idea of documenting the fans' passion for the Buenos Aires giant and Dalma has been chosen to front the project about the club, where her father used to play. The film will be called 'Boca, A Love Story' and the 21-year-old Dalma told the Clarin newspaper: "I always say that, even if my father hadn't made me a Boca fan, I would have been anyway. The idea is to record what people feel about Boca, how this love was born. It will consist of six episodes." The documentary will be watched around the world as rights have already been sold to a number of different countries. Football Insider, 30th Apr 2008
* Total prize money for this year’s Wimbledon will increase by 4.7% to £11,812,000, according to the All England Club. The men’s and women’s champions will receive £750,000 each, an increase of 7.1%, whilst prize money for each of the men's and women's doubles events will top £1 million pounds for the first time, with the winning pairs receiving £230,000. The AELTC also said building work to fit a retractable roof for the 2009 Championship was on schedule. The Championships have regularly run into the middle Sunday due to bad weather at the tour's grass court Grand Slam tournament, but organisers confirmed yesterday that they will stick with a 13-day schedule, despite strong arguments in favour of making `People’s Sunday` a permanent fixture. This year’s tournament runs from June 23 to July 6. Sport Business, Sportcal, 30th Apr 2008
* The World Squash Federation (WSF) has received a boost in its bid to get squash recognised as an Olympic sport. The sport, along with baseball, golf, karate, roller sports, rugby and softball, has been included on the shortlist of sports under consideration for the 2016 Games. Played by around 15 million people on all five continents, squash has vigorously campaigned to join the Olympic Games programme, but a series of near misses has kept it off the roster. In 2005, squash was voted into the London 2012 Games ahead of karate, roller sports, rugby and golf, but then failed to achieve the two-thirds majority required to become ratified as an Olympic sport. Now, following an extensive global campaign by the WSF, International Olympic Committee (IOC) Sports Director Christophe Dubi has notified WSF President Jahangir Khan that the sport will be considered for the 2016 Games. Sport Insider, 30th Apr 2008
* The International Cricket Council today issued a request for proposals from media companies to produce, market and distribute DVDs, videos and other so-called 'fixed media' featuring footage from ICC events, the first time that the ICC has sought to agree a long-term deal in this area. The ICC said that it plans to license the rights to use this intellectual property for the period up to 2012, 'in order to ensure that both ICC and its media company have a real incentive to invest in effective product and brand development.' The films will incorporate footage from ICC events including the Cricket World Cup, Champions Trophy and World Twenty20. The ICC said that the request for proposals 'is aimed at attracting media companies experienced in the production, marketing and distribution of sport films internationally. Sportcal.com, 1st May 2008
MORE NEWS
China/Rights: Beijing Internet Rights in China Sold for Below Market Value
CCTV, the Chinese state broadcaster, acquired the internet rights in China for this summer’s Beijing Olympics for well below the market value after the intervention of the Chinese government, it has been claimed. A senior source close to the International Olympic Committee told Sportcal.com that the IOC had been intent on an open bidding process, but that the domestic internet portal rivals Sohu.com, an official sponsor of the games, and Sina.com withdrew their bids under threat from the government.
The deal eventually signed by the IOC with CCTV last December, following months of negotiations, was said to be worth between $7 million and $8 million – half what was offered by one of the rival bidders. Besides the loss of income, there was said to be concern within the IOC that online broadcasting was not CCTV’s core competency, in the way that it is for Sina and Sohu,.
However, Timo Lumme, the IOC's director of television and marketing, played down the concerns, telling Sportcal.com: 'It was critical that the IOC worked with all bidders to make sure they understood the value of the rights and demonstrated that they would fully exploit these rights in mainland China, whilst also providing satisfactory guarantees of anti-piracy and security measures.
'The IOC wants to ensure that Olympic fans have access to the best possible Olympic coverage in 2008 and our partnership with CCTV.com will mean the digital broadcast rights holder will be able to do just that by developing exciting joint executions across all media platforms with CCTV.'
Lumme told Sportcal.com last December that the CCTV agreement represented a 'significant rights fee, in any terms,' in recognition of the value of the rights in the host territory and the competition for the rights. CCTV already holds the television rights for the games in a deal agreed in 1998 through its membership of the Asian Broadcasting Union. The broadcaster obtained the television rights relatively inexpensively, at a time when the hosting of the games had not yet been awarded to China.
Meanwhile, Sohu has announced a fivefold jump in profits, thanks in part to a boost in traffic created by Beijing Olympic news, pictures, and videos, which has in turn spurred companies such as Samsung and Adidas to buy more advertising space. Online coverage of the games in China has been a source of contention between Sohu.com and Sina.com, with the former claiming to have exclusivity to carry Olympic imagery on its site.
Sina.com, however, continues to carry Beijing games imagery and is planning comprehensive coverage of the event, using a 450-strong team to cover them in Chinese, English, French, German, Spanish and Arabic. Sohu also claims that its deal with organisers means that Olympic sponsors can only use Olympic marks on Sohu.com, but the IOC has rejected the claim, maintaining that all media can accept Olympic advertising. Sportcal, 1st May 2008
Malaysia/Broadcaster: Media Prima to Share Sports Broadcast Rights with RTM
Media Prima Bhd plans to collaborate with national broadcaster Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) to bid for and share broadcast rights of sports programmes. The idea for such a collaboration was mooted by RTM, and had received the support of the Ministry of Information, said Media Prima chairman Datuk Abdul Mutalib Mohamed Razak. “Instead of competing with each other, we are complementing each other. For example, if there are three or four matches a day, they can’t show all games. So, we can share the broadcast rights for the viewers’ benefit,” he told reporters after Media Prima’s AGM here yesterday.
Its group managing director and chief executive officer Abdul Rahman Ahmad stressed that the collaboration would be limited to the sharing of broadcast rights, and not in any form of joint ventures. On Media Prima’s proposed media fund of up to US$150 million (RM477 million), Abdul Rahman said it was in talks with five to seven private equity fund investors and international media companies that had expressed interest in participating in the fund. “The progress has been good. The feedback has been positive,” he said, adding that it would be able to close the fund latest by early third quarter.
On the current year’s earnings prospects, Abdul Rahman said that while the earnings growth would continue to be supported by its television network, the company would expand its radio networks, outdoor media and new media divisions more aggressively. He noted that global economic uncertainty would remain a challenge for the growth of advertising expenditure. “Generally, TV advertising growth tends to correlate closely to economy growth. We aspire to grow faster than the market and get more market share, but we are relying on the economic growth,” he said. The Edge Daily, 30th Apr 2008
Japan/General: Suspension of Japan Basketball Association to Be Lifted
FIBA, the international basketball federation, has said today that the suspension of the Japan Basketball Association will be lifted shortly and the national women's team can enter a qualification event for this year's Beijing Olympic Games. The JBA was suspended by the Japanese Olympic Committee on March 18 for failing to resolve internal conflicts and hold elections for the board for almost a year. This threw into doubt the women’s team’s participation in FIBA events, including the Olympic qualifying tournament in Madrid from June 9 to 15. However, following meetings with Japanese basketball officials in Tokyo and positive developments at the JBA’s extraordinary congress this week, FIBA secretary general Patrick Baumann has said that the suspension will be lifted and the team can continue its preparations for forthcoming competitions. The JBA’s members have now selected nominees for board membership and approved the activity plans and financial reports for 2008.
The suspension will not be lifted until the next meeting of the JOC executive board, but, in the meantime, the Japanese women have been cleared to play in the Olympic qualifying event and the 2nd FIBA Diamond Bowl for Women in Haining, China from August 2 to 5. The Olympic Games run from August 14 to 28. Baumann, a member of the International Olympic Committee, said: ‘The institutional developments over the past couple of days have been long overdue and are very encouraging. ‘We expect now JBA to stop the infighting and appoint without delay a new president so that the relationships with both FIBA and the JOC can be normalised rapidly. FIBA will therefore closely monitor the compliance of JBA with their latest resolutions.’
At its meeting in Beijing last week, the FIBA central board received reports on the conflicts in Japan, Mexico and the Philippines. On the recommendation of FIBA Americas, the global body has decided to de-recognise the leadership of the Mexican Basketball Federation. However, it has reaffirmed its support for the national association in the Philippines, whose authority and performance has been questioned at home. Sportcal.com, 1st May 2008
Elsewhere/Rights: Football 'Worth More Than League'
The battle of Australia's football codes is not consigned to western Sydney, with football's TV rights tipped to rival that of the AFL when a new deal is nutted out in 2013. Leading media buyer and analyst Harold Mitchell claims that football's deal may surpass the NRL's $500 million deal and rub shoulders with the AFL. Mitchell, the man who advised the AFL when it signed the unprecedented $780 million TV deal, predicted that Football Federation Australia's bargaining power would top the $100 million-a-year mark by the time the rights are up for renewal.
"The soccer rights should be a $100 million-a-year sport by 2013," Mitchell said. "It could be equal to the AFL by then if it is properly presented. "No doubt it could surpass the NRL. The reason is it can grow into all the states, southern and western. Where the NRL is very strong in New South Wales and Queensland, soccer can grow into new areas more easily and readily. Also what's developing is that mums want their kids to play soccer. "They don't like thuggery so it's perfectly positioned as a family sport. It's minimal contact. It's of high appeal and it is a fast-moving game for TV. Plus it's short."
His argument is supported by the Professional Footballers Association, whose research indicates that football's TV rights - the A-League and Australia matches packaged together - will eventually surpass those of the NRL. PFA chief executive Brendan Schwab, a former vice-president of AFL club Richmond, believes the TV rights will be lucrative if A-League teams are introduced in western Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast before the next deal.
"The question is when, not if," Schwab said in reference to surpassing the NRL's TV rights. "We may not be No1, but the key is being the No.2 sport in every Australian market. "The Socceroos can be the No.1 national team in Australia, with a regular audience of one million and up to 3.5 million for big games. "Packaged together, these media rights can provide a commercial platform that will sit only behind the AFL in the medium to long term."
Football's current seven-year, $130 million deal with Fox Sports was lucrative at the time it was signed - after just one A-League season. But it was also signed on the eve of the 2006 World Cup, and Mitchell said the rights even now would be worth considerably more. In football's favour is the fact that FFA chief executive Ben Buckley was the man who brokered the AFL's $780 million deal. Foxsport, 16th Apr 2008
Elsewhere/General: Lagardere Eyes Top Spot in Sports
French media to aerospace group Lagardere (LAGA.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday it wanted to become the world leader in the fast-growing sports sector within three to five years but had no plans to own a French soccer club. Chief Executive Arnaud Lagardere also told the annual shareholders meeting that the group had not yet decided what it would do with its 20% stake in French pay-TV group Canal Plus. Lagardere confirmed at the meeting the group's guidance for 2008 underlying profit growth of between 3 percent and 7 percent for the media business.
"Sports is a very strong growth business that will consolidate in coming years. We are thinking of becoming the world leader in sports within three to five years, " he said. Asked if the company, which bought sports rights marketing firm SportFive last year, was considering buying troubled French soccer club Paris St Germain (PSG), Lagardere said, "Owning a French club, this is not in my thoughts, neither the PSG, nor Marseille, nor any other club."
On Lagardere's plans for its 20% stake in Canal Plus, he said: "We have not taken a decision yet. We can either go to 30 percent or sell it." The world's biggest publisher of consumer magazines such as Elle and Paris Match, Lagardere made a string of acquisitions in 2007 and early 2008 to expand its reach in the fast-growing sports and Internet sectors. Lagardere Active CEO Didier Quillot repeated that the group, which recently speeded up its Internet expansion with the purchase of Web content publisher Doctissimo, was now one year ahead of its goal to generate between 5 percent and 10 percent of its sales from the digital business in 2009. Reuters, 29th Apr 2008
ARTICLES, COMMENTS, INTERVIEWS & OPINIONS
Top 10 to Watch for at Olympics
By Greg Couch, Chicago Sun-Times Columnist, 30th Apr 2008
In China today, they're planning to celebrate. The countdown sign near Tiananmen Square goes to 100. Today is 100 days until the start of the Beijing Olympics. One hundred singers will perform a song marking the final countdown, and 10,000 runners are expected to compete in a marathon. The start of Olympic buzz? Well, yes. There. But in the United States, we usually start paying attention roughly 15 minutes before the Opening Ceremony. That means Aug. 8. Here's a list of 10 people or things you might be looking at then:
1. Kobe Bryant: His image is just about remade now, even though he'll always be the pretend Jordan to me. But Bryant finally can get the universal love he wants when he brings the basketball gold medal back to the United States. The team should win, and it had better. The whole idea of these last four years was to justify losing to Puerto Rico in Athens and settling for the bronze. The accepted argument? U.S. players are still better than everyone else, just not as interested or patriotic.
2. The Dalai Lama: He has stolen the Olympic spotlight. The protests in Tibet have led to protests around the world following the running of the Olympic Torch. The cry is over Tibet, Darfur and human-rights atrocities. Some countries likely will boycott the Opening Ceremony. Meanwhile, Chinese officials are blaming the Western world and media for trying to take cheap shots at them. How will protesters be dealt with? Will they be run off violently on international TV?
3. Americans on the (silver) medal stand: China is going to kick the world's butts in medal count. It has flooded its sports programs with money the last several years to look good this August. Some have suggested that China hasn't sent its A-team to international events, so it can spring surprise winners at the Olympics. ''I don't see China doing the clandestine, shadow team I've read about,'' Steve Roush, USOC chief of sport performance, said a few weeks ago in Chicago. ''Russia, China and the U.S. all [have] legitimate shots [at winning the medal count].'' But then he let the truth slip out about China. ''It's a country of 1.3 billion people,'' he said. ''It's all a numbers game. They have infused large amounts of resources.'' Then Roush, USOC CEO Jim Scherr and chairman Peter Ueberroth started to tell a sad tale of the United States needing help from its corporate sponsors. Yes, poor U.S. sports teams.
4. Michael Phelps: He's the U.S. star of the Games, not counting basketball. Phelps was supposed to be the next Mark Spitz in Athens in 2004. But when he didn't win a bunch of golds right off, it was a letdown. If you don't remember, he ended up winning eight medals, including six golds. Now, at 22, he's not a kid anymore. Now he really is the next Spitz.
5. Anyone you can make out: The pollution is so awful in Beijing that at times you can't see much of anything. Some U.S. teams plan to train in Japan in the final days before the Games. Haile Gebrselassie, the world's best distance runner, told Reuters he won't run the marathon in Beijing out of fear the pollution might damage his body. China is so concerned about bad PR from the pollution that it's instituting an exceedingly harsh plan to shut down industries, curtail driving and suspend construction projects. IOC chairman Jacques Rogge thought it necessary this month to announce that the air will not be harmful to athletes. U.S. team health officials are suggesting that the athletes wear special masks in the days before the Games. I asked U.S. swimmer Tara Kirk if you can train in a way that allows you to get used to the pollution. She joked that she could swim in a dirty pool.
6. The Lopez family: You won't have to look past a cereal box to see brothers Steven and Mark Lopez and sister Diana, from Sugar Land, Texas. They all have made the U.S. tae kwon do team, and they'll be coached in Beijing by older brother Jean. They're all good-looking, chatty and likable, too. In other words, a marketer's dream. ''Marky does his flips [when he wins],'' Diana said. ''Steve is the golden boy. Everyone's looking at him all the time.'' And you? ''I'm the tough one.''
7. The swimsuit: This thing already is getting out of hand. World records are falling, and the swim world is crediting/ blaming the new Speedo LZR, a modern suit that supposedly increases buoyancy. The claim is that it's cheating to wear one. The Italian swimming federation is having scientists study the suit. A swimsuit on steroids? Maybe. Or maybe there's another reason for performance enhancement.
8. Chicago 2016 people: In June, the IOC will produce its short list of potential host cities for the 2016 Summer Games. If Chicago makes it, the city will send a contingent to Beijing to monitor the Games/trumpet the city. Here's a guess: Chicago will be on the short list. The final site will be announced in October 2009. Another guess: Someone else will be named that day.
9. Chicago athletes: You have to look hard, but wrestlers Joe Williams of Chicago and Lindsey Durlacher of Buffalo Grove have a shot at a medal. Williams finished fifth in Athens, saying he lost focus at a crucial moment. That has been eating away at him. Diver Kelli Bryant is from Chatham, near Springfield. And softball pitcher Jennie Finch, a member of the Chicago Bandits, is almost sure to win gold.
10. The U.S. track team: It has become the face of the Olympic steroid problem, surpassing the old East German women's swim team. First Marion Jones was busted, and now the New York Times reports that several others are potentially about to fall, too. Olympic officials have plans for a seriously stepped-up testing program.