| Indian
broadcasters will be looking nervously at the profit and loss accounts against
those huge rights fees of 2008 as a busy year of sport unfolds in 2009, says
Taj TV senior VP Peter Hutton. 2008
brought a joyful revolution for Indian sport. Olympic gold followed a 20-20 whirlwind
that swept remarkable and unexpected riches into Indian cricket. Billions
of dollars have flown into cricket in India, while tv revenues from the sub-continent
have spiralled in other sports as well. A payment of over $40 million for the
2010 soccer world cup, compared to 3 million for the 2002 event shows how fast
the expectations of the market has changed, even though the percentage of sports
viewing within Indian television (just 3.2 percent) remains unchanged.
2009 promises to
be more about consolidation in challenging economic times. Already, thanks to
the credit crunch, there are signs of ground sponsors backing away from cricket
worldwide. Recent sponsorship tenders in Sri Lanka and Pakistan have found no
bidders. Long term backers such as Vodafone have moved away in England and there
is a question mark over further Stanford hand-outs in the West Indies.
Now the Indian
broadcasters will be looking nervously at the profit and loss accounts against
those huge rights fees of 2008 as a busy year of sport unfolds. India travel to
New Zealand, followed by the IPL, ensuring that Sony, who have the rights to both,
will be first in the firing line as their sales team try to reach the massive
targets that lie behind the fees paid to the BCCI. Ten
Sports see India in Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and West Indies in the Summer, while ESPN
Star have the first real challenge of their $2 billion investments with the 20-20
world championships - the Champions League and the Champions Trophy. Finally,
Neo is due to have Indian home series against Australia and Sri Lanka at the end
of the year. The
economic pressures would argue for rights fees to fall in the coming year, but
remarkably 2009 is a year that sees none of the major cricket rights due to come
up for sale. With long term deals now in place for all 10 full member cricket
boards, the ICC and the IPL, cricket content is clearly divided up between the
broadcasters. The
next board due up for bidding should be India in 2010. The
new 20-20 leagues are the exception, with the planned English EPL and the Southern
Hemisphere leagues now formulating their international sales strategy and expecting
large numbers from the Indian market. Away
from cricket, the English Premier League soccer deal will end with ESPN/Star in
May 2010 and the bidding for these rights for the next three seasons should be
concluded in 2009. There
will certainly be progress in the technology of cricket broadcasting. High Definition
production of cricket is now established in England, and the Champions League
in India will be at similar standards, though Indian viewers will not see the
benefits until DTH or cable platforms upgrade their technology to support HD broadcast
in the country. Watch
out too for developments in match coverage. The "blimp camera" favoured
by Sky in the UK will surely make its debut in India shortly and expect more use
of Hawkeye or their rivals from Virtual Replay as the ICC encourage umpires to
use increased technology. Now the argument will be over who foots the bill, broadcaster
or cricket board, as the ICC pushes the need for broadcasters to use such systems
as part of their basic toolkit for cricket coverage. There
should also, finally, be some progress for the cricket spectator. Notably the
Dubai Sports city stadium will open in 2009 and within walking distance of the
ICC's new headquarters, the steep sided stadium will provide a new high in terms
of the spectator experience at cricket matches in this part of the world. Great
artists need great stages and enthralled crowds. For test cricket in India to
be played out to empty grounds is a wasted opportunity that will hopefully be
taken up by the BCCI in time for the Sri Lankan tour at the end of the year. Revenues
from gate receipts in the sub-continent may not attract the commercial headlines
in the way that rights and franchise fees can, but packed, emotional stadia are
an important part of the Indian cricketing experience and a vital part of its
appeal. Better, friendlier and not necessarily bigger, grounds are part of the
solution. Look out for events at both Dubai and Abu Dhabi in 2009, and see the
quality of the facilities for spectators. The
succesful local marketing campaigns of the IPL franchises to attract crowds into
their stadia were crucial to the wave of momentum that brought such remarkable
television viewing figures in India in 2008. With fewer international players
available for the full IPL campaign in 2009 (Australia, Pakistan, South Africa,
England and West Indies all have events that clash or overlap with the IPL) and
as the IPL franchises begin to focus on long term financial viability, the loyalty
of those fans and the impressively young demographic needs to be retained.
It is always difficult to make a critical comment on the IPL given its remarkable
success in developing domestic sporting interest in India, but the expensive franchises
and remarkable rights fees achieved by Lalit Modi need to be supported by profits
for broadcasters and franchises in order for the momentum to be continued. 2009's
difficult economic times may be a challenge, but the IPL has already proved that
it can re-write usual industry rules. One
area where I would hope for progress would be in the understanding of news access
to sports pictures within India. There needs to be a legal framework which defines
what news broadcasters can take from sports broadcasters to use in sports news
bulletins. Until there is a defined set of regulations, the news broadcasters
will obviously be forced by the competition between them to take more and more
sports coverage on shorter and shorter delays and without permission and payment.
The
current situation, particularly in the use of archive material, leads to the bizarre
situation where a sports broadcaster signs an agreement for a federation to use
material for a period of time and is punished by a federation for use of that
archive beyond the period. But a news broadcaster, who has never paid the federation,
keeps material recorded without permission or payment and uses those pictures
whenever it requires. This would seem to be a blatant disregard of copyright,
but is at the heart of the Indian news channel business. In
International sport, the highlights for the Indian viewer promise to be the battles
between Australia and South Africa for test cricket superiority and the traditional
rivalry of the Ashes. Lance Armstrong's return to the Tour de France will pull
at the heartstrings, while the biggest clubs in Europe have made their way through
to the final stages of the Champions League. One
of the reasons that loyalties for other sports don't translate into increasing
audiences is surely the frustration of the viewer faced with those cable operators
who, because of a lack of room in their systems, rotate sports channels up and
down their system based on who is showing live cricket. This surely frustrates
regular viewing habits for the likes of golf, tennis and international football,
which can struggle to be seen in some cable homes. The
committed sports viewer is therefore increasingly being driven towards DTH platforms
or information from the internet. One of the factors in Ten Sports moving the
WWE broadcasts to the same week as the programmes were shown in America was the
fact that the WWE website was receiving so many hits in India that viewers were
already aware of results before the programmes were seen in the sub-continent.
Broadband
and mobile broadcasts of sport will slowly begin to change the market, and in
particular the instant highlights of the BCCI's site provides a useful support
to conventional broadcast for those who have a broadband connection. The usual
two-hour television daily highlights of cricket demanded by the advertising market
don't really fulfil the needs of the viewer for smaller packages of information
that are more readily available, and there are clear opportunities for the growth
of small clip rights of broadband and mobile. I also see potential for the DTH
platforms to move towards pay per view sport on events such as boxing, which is
rarely seen on advertiser funded channels. I
have a few hopes for change in 2009, though I am far from convinced that change
will happen. As
the Indian broadcast market moves into an increased reliance from subscription
rather than advertising income, I would like to see channels showing more of the
sport rather than inserting conventional break formats that intrude into the sport.
There is little point in inserting 30 second promos into every over break in non
India cricket. I'd like to hear the commentators have room to discuss, and for
viewers at home to be closer to the live cricket watching experience. I like seeing
the teams run onto the pitch and prepare for kick off in football rather than
go for a break right up to the referees whistle. Sports
that don't suit natural break formats, such as motorsport, golf or cycling, should
be interrupted less. To leave live sport and join a commercial break always feels
wrong to me, and while I fully understand the economic necessity of doing so,
I hope the trend will now move more to supporting the needs of the subscriber.
I
would like to see more channels available to the Indian viewer so that those minorities
who have their own sporting passions are not submerged by the increasing broadcast
of year round cricket. The growth in the number of channels over the past six
years since Ten Sports launched in India has been impressive, but there is a huge
volume of international sports product that would command some audience but is
not readily available in the country.
Hopefully 2009 will see more live sport available in India, and broadcasters providing
the services that their audiences would want to watch. 2010 will be the year of
the commonwealth games, the hockey World Cup and more in India. Hopefully television
can help prepare viewers for those events, and help to build crowds at the events
that show that India is an ideal location to host major sporting events.
As ever, the
sporting year 2009 will provide a roller coaster of emotion. Sport commands such
loyalty that it can drive the viewers choice of platform and operator, and the
sports broadcast industry is key to the growth of pay television in India. Hopefully,
the regulators can help the sports broadcasters build businesses that provide
viewers the quality they deserve and that we, in the sports television business,
can be imaginative and creative in ways that help sport to benefit in the country. | 
