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Sina scores with soccer rights

Premium sports content heading to the web in China shows the challenges facing Pay TV

 

By scooping live broadcasting rights for the hugely popular English Premier League (EPL) for the next three years, leading Chinese portal Sina.com has put the power of web media in China in the spotlight and left Pay TV operators scratching their heads.

When Win TV beat out ESPN/STAR for EPL rights for the next three seasons, it hoped this would be a catalyst to kick-start digital Pay TV in China. But as we earlier reported here, the operator has been struggling to gain subscribers and carriage for its soccer priced at US$24 a month, and now it has decided to sell-on its rights to Sina.

Sina web users will be able to subscribe on an annual, monthly, and per-game basis at Rmb380 (US$50), Rmb38 and Rmb3.8, respectively to watch full and live games streamed on the web. [It should be noted that Sina’s deal is distinct from the worldwide EPL internet rights awarded to Nimbus reported today on Moconews. These are downloadable clip rights (2 minutes clips per match) and are sold to broadband/IP platforms and mobile platforms and are subject to DRM.]

The move of premium content to internet TV must be vexing to telecom operators with IPTV plans and their digital cable peers.  Despite the additional investment, viewers may well shun their managed network. Already the numbers using P2P platform in China are big, with users in excess of 100 million, including five to ten million concurrent users.  

As it stands, the main benefit to telcos of customers watching Sina’s soccer streamed on the web is driving growth in broadband connections.  The flip side is it will also drive additional bandwidth usage. If P2P plays a lasting role in legitimate broadcasting, I imagine telecom operators will be pushing hard for a cut of that subscription fee.  This is not the first time this issue has been heard, but expect the protests will increase in tandem with traffic.

Notably over the weekend the UK’s Independent on Sunday reported internet groups threatened to ‘pull the plug’ on the BBC’s new iPlayer unless the corporation contributes to the cost of streaming its videos over the internet.

Posted under Michael's Blog

This post was written by Michael Stroud on August 13, 2007

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StarHub’s triple-play sports

Operators now have the ability to give you digital content simultaneously on your TV, PC and mobile phone.

But how much does the customer value or want this?  In Singapore incumbent cable operator StarHub will start the EPL soccer season this August with a groundbreaking new service that streams video to mobile phones and PCs as well as your TV.

This is all included in the package for free say StarHub.  Some viewers complain that actually this season they are stumping up an extra S$10 (US$6.57) a month, an increase from S$15 the previous year for the sports package.

The challenge when investing in often costly new services is working out what the customer is prepared to pay for. Watching sport falls into the classic lean-back lounge experience in front of a large plazma screen with a beer in hand.

In this case High Definition (HD) TV is one service that combined with sports, is taken as the must-have service upgrade for avid fans. Watching on a PC or mobile phone would surely seem a poorer substitute -surely the only option if you are on the move or at work.

For StarHub, acting aggressively to be a first mover to bring HD sports content from overseas is not straight-forward, however.  It is likely to be costly as it quite possibly would have to bear the satellite transponder cost alone to transmit the HD signal to Asia.

Last year, StarHub was heard to complain no other operators in Asia Pacific would join them in a trial to take HD World Cup soccer. Their best hope might be PCCW. Its NOW IPTV service is proceeding with trials in Hong Kong with HD and they also have EPL rights. 

In the meantime StarHub is still sitting pretty with a strong grip on the Singapore Pay TV market despite SingTel recently launching an IPTV service, complete with some HD channels. 

And StarHub’s hold on the market and its customers was solidified last week by a ruling from Singapore’s Minister for Information, Communication and the Arts (MICA), Lee Boon Yang to refrain from intervention in exclusive carriage agreements in Singapore’s pay-TV industry. Something SingTel had been after. by Craig Stephen

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Posted under Michael's Blog

This post was written by Michael Stroud on August 2, 2007

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