SPANDAN
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After cricket, if there’s any other sport that enjoys a decent fan following in India, its football. As per TAM DATA, the viewership for this sport is slowly growing. Recently, UEFA Euro 2012 ended on a high note. For football fans across the world, it was a treat to watch Spain battling it out with Italy. In India this year, football lovers followed the Euro Cup on the Neo network- the tournament that aired on Neo Prime earlier known as Neo Cricket, brought in quite a surge in viewership.
As per the TAM data provided by the channel, the viewership for the quarter finals of the Euro Cup has gone up by 45 % growth. Hence, UEFA Euro proved to be a great property for Neo Prime to cash in on after its re-launch. After losing out the BCCI India cricket deal to Star, Neo Cricket had to go undergo a major revamp, and football seems to be a part of this reworked strategy
Prasanna Krishnan, COO, Neo Sports Broadcast, says, “It is true that we have lost out the rights and post which circumstances have changed. However, if I had the rights, I would have come up with another channel.”
As Neo Sports lost out on the BCCI deal due to various reasons, Star latched on to it by shelling out a staggering Rs 3,851 crore. In fact, after News Corp’s recent buyout of ESPN’s 50 percent stake in its joint venture with Star, the later, according to experts like Ayaz Memon, is in an aggressive mode in terms of its overall sports and cricket programming in India.
Ayaz Memon, Veteran Journalist, says, “Look at the money spent, unless you are convinced about your programming nobody will shell out money. Star is seemingly aggressive about its programming currently for its own identity. In India it was always ESPN, Star was somewhere lagging behind. But now Star wants to be the content leader and that gives them the leverage to start their own channels.”
So while broadcasters are still going gung-ho over cricket, there are a few who are looking beyond the game, and are either launching 24 hour- all-sports channels, or niche ones that cater to a single sport. In April this year, Sony launched SONY SIX, a sports channel which mainly telecasts beyond the realm of cricket. Moreover, among the niche channels, Ten Golf- a 24 hours golf channel has also been launched by the Zee-owned Taj Televison Network. The channel plans to add half a million in the next one year by offering just Rs 200 as its monthly subscription charges.
An important fact about these sports channels is that they thrive mainly on subscription revenues, unlike other genres. With digitization just around the corner, Ashish Pherwani of Ernst & Young believes that these revenues are only expected to increase as the viewers are willing to pay those extra bucks to watch a sports event on their TV.
Currently, the overall revenues generated by sports channels are at an estimated Rs 3,000 crore per year. In the year 2009, the sports bunch had a genre share of 2.80 % which reached 3.40 in 2011. With several more channels being launched; the competition is surely heating up, and it is the viewers who are the ultimate winners here.
Krishnan, adds, “Consumers like to have that power in their hands. Earlier the cable operator provided the consumers with only one sports channel but now we are attempting to offer them choices and enabling the consumers with a power to choose.”
As all eyes are set on digitisation, it will be interesting to note how broadcasters get in more revenues and to gauge how they score with the viewers.
source:yourmoneysite.com
As per the TAM data provided by the channel, the viewership for the quarter finals of the Euro Cup has gone up by 45 % growth. Hence, UEFA Euro proved to be a great property for Neo Prime to cash in on after its re-launch. After losing out the BCCI India cricket deal to Star, Neo Cricket had to go undergo a major revamp, and football seems to be a part of this reworked strategy
Prasanna Krishnan, COO, Neo Sports Broadcast, says, “It is true that we have lost out the rights and post which circumstances have changed. However, if I had the rights, I would have come up with another channel.”
As Neo Sports lost out on the BCCI deal due to various reasons, Star latched on to it by shelling out a staggering Rs 3,851 crore. In fact, after News Corp’s recent buyout of ESPN’s 50 percent stake in its joint venture with Star, the later, according to experts like Ayaz Memon, is in an aggressive mode in terms of its overall sports and cricket programming in India.
Ayaz Memon, Veteran Journalist, says, “Look at the money spent, unless you are convinced about your programming nobody will shell out money. Star is seemingly aggressive about its programming currently for its own identity. In India it was always ESPN, Star was somewhere lagging behind. But now Star wants to be the content leader and that gives them the leverage to start their own channels.”
So while broadcasters are still going gung-ho over cricket, there are a few who are looking beyond the game, and are either launching 24 hour- all-sports channels, or niche ones that cater to a single sport. In April this year, Sony launched SONY SIX, a sports channel which mainly telecasts beyond the realm of cricket. Moreover, among the niche channels, Ten Golf- a 24 hours golf channel has also been launched by the Zee-owned Taj Televison Network. The channel plans to add half a million in the next one year by offering just Rs 200 as its monthly subscription charges.
An important fact about these sports channels is that they thrive mainly on subscription revenues, unlike other genres. With digitization just around the corner, Ashish Pherwani of Ernst & Young believes that these revenues are only expected to increase as the viewers are willing to pay those extra bucks to watch a sports event on their TV.
Currently, the overall revenues generated by sports channels are at an estimated Rs 3,000 crore per year. In the year 2009, the sports bunch had a genre share of 2.80 % which reached 3.40 in 2011. With several more channels being launched; the competition is surely heating up, and it is the viewers who are the ultimate winners here.
Krishnan, adds, “Consumers like to have that power in their hands. Earlier the cable operator provided the consumers with only one sports channel but now we are attempting to offer them choices and enabling the consumers with a power to choose.”
As all eyes are set on digitisation, it will be interesting to note how broadcasters get in more revenues and to gauge how they score with the viewers.
source:yourmoneysite.com
