Commentary on TNT and other WB brands

[Axel Hangleck]

Could the UCI eventually come up with a GCN type streaming in the distant future, then maybe the sponsor hunt merry-go-round could be slowed down.

Do other sporting governing bodies do similar? I'm not sure its for them to do.....The European Union took a dim view of the FiA trying to run their own championships.
Another reason for the WT to have a proper Promoter, who set up something similar.

 

[awavey]

If you look at the numbers Paramount will spend for the hostile takeover then you realise this aren't economic decisions in the first place. Prices will likely surge and that does open some room for exploring new approaches.

we can see how the direct to consumer model already works in football, as the French, albeit not by choice, ended up having to market games directly to fans, theyve got around 1 million subs paying 14.99 Euros per month for their League 1. The income of that is roughly 250million euros short of what the likes of Canal+ were paying them at their peak, so they arent making as much money from it, which means neither does the league or the clubs.


for the moment this, and I like theyve already called it "PremFlix", will only be a trial in Singapore, which maybe deliberate choice, because from experience most of the bars show a steady diet of Premier league football from 7-8pm onwards in the evening, still alot of UK expats, UK travellers, and fans locally of UK clubs, but it means games that start later than 3pm, its 11pm onwards, I doubt regardless of how popular the premier league might think it is, people dont pay the kind of Sky £50 per month to watch a game at 1am in the morning even on a Saturday night. whilst £10 to watch your specific team you want to watch, they might have the numbers to make it work.

 

[Potomac]

I think the commentator's name is Brian Smith...

Yesterday in Faun Archeche, an exciting with something like 20km to go he kept talking about curling. Yes....curling!

And both yesterday and today for Drome.....he must have said "short sharp climb" 57 times times.

HE MUST GO!

 

[awavey]

Do other sporting governing bodies do similar? I'm not sure its for them to do.....The European Union took a dim view of the FiA trying to run their own championships.
Another reason for the WT to have a proper Promoter, who set up something similar.

well F1 does its own tv channel, but there are agreements in place so that it doesnt compete with Sky for example in the UK as Sky own exclusive rights (except when they share it with C4 still)

but we are missing that whilst GCN sold something the viewers liked, they were doing so at a level that wasnt financially sustainable, even before the various race organisers decided to up the costs, and costs have increased massively since then, because race costs have ballooned and selling rights is part of the way to generate some income to pay for it.

so sure the UCI could set up a GCN style thing, fall into the same EU issue of a regulatory and commercial conflict of issue that the FIA had (maybe still has) but theyd lose stacks of money on it trying to sell at GCN levels, so whats the point ?

for instance F1tv sells at 2.29 per month, vs Skys 22.99 per month, Sky pay roughly 200milion for their exclusive access rights per season, and their highest watched races generally get about 2million viewers (subs)

F1tvs production costs for the camera feeds/setup they do is also reportedly 200million.

how many subs do you have to sell at 2.29 to cover losing 200million in income from Sky, & cover your at least 200million in costs.

the highest watched show in the UK on free to air last year was 15million, there are not enough F1 fans in the UK even if they were giving it away for free, and if they did give it away for free, theyd lose even more money.

and this is exactly the same for cycling, the costs to show this stuff, to broadcast it, let alone pay for the rights to it, only major broadcast subscription based channels can fund it, because they can use their breadth of coverage and size to fund it, yes that means the cost if you only like part of their offer is much higher than you want.

but a specialist cycling service would end up bearing all the costs itself whoever tried to run it, and it would never be able to charge at a level which people think is commensurate with what theyre actually getting

 

[CyclistAbi]

Was Eurosport in UK profitable?

 

[staubsauger]

Was Eurosport in UK profitable?

In the TF1 years I do think so, yes!