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Chris
McDonald has seen it all in sports television in Asia and
India. He was one of the key senior professionals in launching
sports TV services such as ESPN and Star Sports as basic pay
TV services in India and was also involved in the rationalisation
of both which resulted in ESPN-Star Sports. Today he is facing
a fresh challenge as CEO of the Abdulrahman Bukhatir-promoted
Ten Sports. His charge has not managed to develop partnerships
with the MSOs in the major metros, despte a marketing push
and a distribution ally. That should be worrisome with a big
property like the World Cup football hardly a fortnight or
so away. But McDonald is not letting these problems bog him
down. In a free wheeling conversation with indiantelevision.com,
he says things are on course and that Ten Sports is here to
stay. Excerpts:
On
Ten Sports' distribution in India.
I won't say I'm satisfied.
We are in about 10 million homes currently, which is quite
good coverage for a month old television channel. Yes, there
are holdouts in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore but we are in discussions
with the MSOs in these areas.
I
am expecting greater progress every day with the big push that
we are givng Ten Sports. With the World Cup coming soon, I expect
to finalise the discussions and reach our target of 20-30 million
homes by then.
I
won't call what we are facing as problems, rather it is a
natural process of growth for a new service. Our partner HMA
Udyog - yes, Modi Entertainment is one of the promoters -
has placed a signficant number of Irdeto Atlanta DTH boxes
in India. Yes, there are minimum guarantees in the contract
and achievements, but I don't want to dwell on that now.
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"We are a big player and cricket is a sport
we will have on our plate"
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On Ten Sports, the channel.
We have a very good product in Ten Sports, we have very high
production values and I want to improve the product further.
Yes, we don't have cricket this year, which is the biggest
thing in India. But from next year, we have loads of it. Additionally,
we have the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) fights which
are the next most popular sport in India after cricket. There
is a positive buzz in the market after we aired the first
of the fights last week.
On specifics about the sports properties
lined up.
We have lots of cricket lined up for 2003. Two tournaments
in Morocco, two in Sharjah, and the tours of cricket playing
nations in Sri Lanka. The CSI cricket covering Australia,
New Zealand, South Africa and Zimbabwe and Pakistan rights
are up for grabs. We are pursuing all these rights aggressively.
We are a big player and cricket is a sport we will have on
our plate. We expect the bid results to be out in the next
one or two months.
But it is not as if Ten Sports will be just about cricket,
like the other channels. It's an expensive game, mark my words.
We want to make an emotional connection with Indian viewers,
we want a marketing connect with the viewer. We want to promote
Indian sport like go-karting, golf, racing.
The response to Ten Sports from advertisers has been good.
So we are on track in India.
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