The Premier League has just sold off the rights for “near-live” broadcasting of their football matches for web and mobile in a deal that values the package at less than the last three-year deal in 2003.

In 2003, a consortium of Sky, together with Vodafone and 3 bid £100m ($183 million) for the package. Today, the rights were sold to Sky and BT for £84.3 million and a further £10 million to Sky for the mobile rights.

First question; was the previous 3 year deal overvalued, or has someone at the Premier League screwed up? With web-based video booming through the sound barrier and the whole mobile industry falling over themselves to invest in mobile TV and video, how can this package possibly be worth less than 3 years ago?

Just watch the canny Rupert Murdoch repackage the mobile element¬[sgl dagger]and sell it to the operators for 10 times (at least) what¬[sgl dagger]he’s just paid.

The operators only really have themselves to blame. Their consortium bid against Sky,¬[sgl dagger]on the basis of everyone having¬[sgl dagger]an equal¬[sgl dagger]share of the rights to show games. But surely, their combined muscle of 5 operators should have figured out that these rights were worth more than 10 million over three years. If ever there was killer content, Premier league footie must surely be it, so why didn’t they put their money behind their strategy?

It would be interesting to know the rationale of why they’ll end up paying through the nose to Mr Murdoch, or face a dearth of the most expensive and compelling football coverage in the world.

Technorati Tags: premier league, murdoch, sky tv, bt

Story covered in The Guardian.

4:25:36 AM    comment   

Murdoch is reportedly planning to jump into the world of WiMAX through its DirecTV broadcast company, and could either partner with Clearwire or go after its own spectrum. The Hollywood Reporter says the most likely story is a link with McCaw’s Clearwire, and quotes sources that say News Corp and DirectTV are in “advanced” talks with Clearwire.

Robert Young, the soothsayer who sees things before others had alluded to Murdoch’s broadband plans almost a year ago. You must go and read Murdoch, WiMax and The Two Way Web and get a sense of why it is the most important priority for News Corp.

Another option could be those spectrum auctions coming up in August that everyone from Gabelli, and Paul Allen to William Berkman are eying. FCC files say a group called Wireless DBS, which is backed by DirecTV, News Corp, Fox Entertainment, EchoStar, Rupert Murdoch, and EchoStar’s Charles Ergen, among others, are looking to bid. Though, the application is incomplete and today is the last day to update it. These applications could be a low-risk placeholder, but then again, it’s an indicator of company ambition.

4:21:17 AM    comment   

Earlier this year when Microsoft announced that it would spend billions of dollars to upgrade its infrastructure in order to compete with rivals such as Google, the company stock sank on the news. The tumble was uncalled for because Microsoft was actually tuning itself for a new web-focused reality. As Microsoft tried to future proof itself, it also gave Silicon Valley a much needed shot in the arm. Microsoft’s spending, when coupled with that of eBay, Yahoo and Google, meant that lots of hardware and back-end software start-ups could see an uptick in demand for their wares. In fact for some it could mean a fast track to an IPO. I wrote about this in Business 2.0, which you can read here. One company not included in the list was Apple, which just might be one of the biggest booster of network infrastructure.

The number one online music store alone makes Apple a big player, and now there is news that the company is going to start offering full length movies for download via the iTunes store. These are download-and-watch, not download-and-save movies, which means Apple is going to be driving a lot of network usage, and downloads. (Note to broadband providers, Apple is your best friend - it can make people upgrade to premium higher bandwidth packages. Just think creatively.) With nearly 10 million video iPods sold, this service could actually be a legitimate player in the online movie business.

Lets look at the impact of these downloadable movies - in comparison with 5 meg music downloads, a typical feature length movie could be as big as one gigabyte. This means the average monthly download per user could increase sharply from 2-3 gigabytes. Lets assume it doubles, the network pipes both at the core and the edge will just fill up. (Cogent Communications sells bandwidth to Apple, so this could work out well for them.)

John Hodulik, telecom analyst with UBS Securities in a note to his clients writes that “strong consumer adoption of this service would increase demand for consumer bandwidth and have ramification for bandwidth among Internet backbone providers.” This could drive demand for new gear - including routers.

Dave Welch, chief strategy officer of Infinera, which sells optical gear that lowers the cost of running fiber networks in an interview earlier today pointed out that online video was driving the demand for hardware.

My good friend Dave “The King of DSL” Burstein points out that Cisco already is projecting 10-15% increased router demand because of video. Factoring in the pesky issues like an aggressive Alcatel and price declines, Cisco’s router sales could do well.

The iTunes for Movies could have longer term implications - the kind worth keeping an eye on! Of course, when the video bubble pops, the ramifications are going to be felt on the other end as well.

4:19:23 AM    comment   

The much-hyped free broadband packages from Murdoch-controlled UK satellite provider BSkyB have launched…this follows a race to offer such free broadband packages in UK, from the likes of Carphone Warehouse (which started this madness).
Anyway, the details: It will offer free broadband access to any existing customer covered by the BSkyB broadband network. Analysts had expected it to offer free broadband only to top-tier pay-TV customers. Sky Broadband will offer three levels of broadband access, from a free service with speeds of up to 2Mb per second to a connection of 16Mb per second, priced GBP10 per month. New customers will pay an introductory price of GBP15 per month for BSkyB’s digital television service, allowing them to sign up to broadband at the same time.
BSkysB’s broadband launch follows the company’s acquisition last year of Easynet, which will allow it to take the broadband connection directly to homes and businesses in the U.K…BSkyB also believes broadband will help it achieve its goal of 10 million pay-TV subscribers by 2010, along with a range of value-added services including HD television and its PVR technology Sky+.
More details in this Bloomberg story.
WSJ: This “interested in AOL UK” stories are getting lame, honestly. Get a lid on the leaks, and get it done. Actually, this is BSkyB CEO James Murdoch, who publicly said it while launching the broadband plans. Murdoch said his interest in the AOL unit was “opportunistic,” adding he wasn’t interested in overpaying for the asset. Some are balking at the 600 million GBP price tag…France Telecom and Carphone Warehouse are also interested.

4:16:22 AM    comment   

So says this story from the Guardian, looking at some numbers and expert opinion: A survey by media agency Starcom found that content often fell short of consumers’ high expectations of quality and reliability, and poeple wanted to watch it on TV (but then that wasn’t the point of online and mobile coverage anyway).
Starcom’s research, which involved interviews with 1,000 consumers, found that the novelty of being able to watch matches online or on mobile phones was no longer enough - it had to be fast, reliable and of high quality.
Some numbers, mainly UK focused: UK mobile operator 3 recorded more than 3.6 million viewings of its programming…3’s match highlights channel proved the most popular with 60,000 people - the equivalent of a capacity crowd at Arsenal’s new stadium - tuning in daily.
The BBC website managed 399 million impressions for the duration. The total live streamed games reached 5.72 million across the tournament. And a total of 5.3 million digital satellite users pressed the “red button” to access interactive services.
The Fifa World Cup site, run by Yahoo, clocked up more than 138 million video streams during the competition. Furthermore, 3.5 million users viewed pictures posted by fans on Yahoo!’s photo-sharing site Flickr.

4:12:58 AM    comment