Fans willing to pay more to watch FIFA World Cup live on TV

Desepl SG

Honestly, what Starhub and Singtel should do is to think of a way to increase other means of revenue to fund the right acquisition, instead of just depending on subscriber revenue alone... as there is a limit from this source...

Desepl SG

sorry, juz to answer zocoss's doubt on the Ad rev in Singapore. Singapore's yearly ad spent on TV, outdoor and cinema is about US 364 million (so for TV, it will be even lower). As for our neighbours, Malaysia has about US 600 million on TV alone, Indonesia has about US 1.4 Billion on TV, Philippines US 799 million on TV, HK US 1Billion on TV and Thailand US 1.1Billion on TV. Per capita, we may be higher than a lot of our neighbours, but in total size, we are considered small.

zocoss SG

First of all, I think if you had the actual figure you should have just given it to us... No need to dilute it with the outdoor and cinemas as they are of little relevance as they only constituent less than 10% of your given total... The majority of your figures went mainly to the advertising revenue for Tv alone. In Sg its more closer to USD $329m or S$462m. As for Malaysia I think it's more like USD $575m.

Again, like I said earlier, your reason still isn't convincing when we apply your theory to their bids for the epl. It is a known fact or at least a reported one by our local newspapers that Starhub paid S$250m for the epl rights from (2007-2010)... And Singtel for (2010-2013) (Said to be S$400m, Astro $327m). So how is it that if in total size we are consider small, we can bid even higher than our good neighbour who you said have 1,960 000 subscribers to Sports compare to our 250,000? Cos that is like almost 8x of ours.

So, its either we (Starhub & Singtel) wasn't truthful with their bids offered and the local newspapers led us to believed that they actually bid that high a sum or they simply didn't pay that high an amount... Or something else must be coming in from somewhere or it doesn't make sense...

Now we take a look at the 2007-2010 deal... As based on your own given figures, Starhub have 535,000 of which 250,000 are Sports subscribers... So if we were to take 250,000 x $25 (less the GST) we should get something close to $6.25m per month correct? We multiple that with 36 months then we will have around $225m true? These figures are only from a base of Sports subscribers... And do not forget for every Sports subscriber, they are also required to take a basic plan which adds up to a minimum of around $30. So you take that figure and multiple it by the same as the one above and we might see another $270m added to their coffer true? Half a billion here and we have not even take into account the advertising revenue from the television and the sponsors yet... And given that the advertising revenue for Tv alone per year is $462m (really that's little?), we just take a small slice of it every year for 3 years... That amount wouldn't be small yeah? Then we still have the main sponsor for 3 years, probably quite huge money here too along with the multiple sub sponsors...

Per capita, we are certainly higher than our neighbours... and in total size, we shouldn't be considered small either... The above advertising revenue for Tv are base on 2008 figures. A year after the financial crisis and economic downturn. Singapore's tv advertising revenue is expected to increase year by year from 2010 onwards...

In my opinion, whether they think of new ways (which i think they do almost everyday, lol...) of increasing other means of revenue to fund the acquisition of the rights, it's really not relevant... Cos it will only act as another means to add to their already bulging coffers. Passing the buck down to the subscribers is probably the last thing they think about... lol.

Desepl SG

Actually, I was trying to get the actual figure for TV Ad Spend in Singapore, but the CASBAA report that I have break it down for all countries except Singapore which I don't know why. Anyway, let's take the entire US 329 million as the TV Ad Spend, it is still much lower than the US 600 million Malaysia has.

As for the Sintel's EPL bid, I absolutely agree with you that the amount is absurd. I seriously doubt they can recover their cost. They may argue that they are trying to grow their subscriber base, but that's beside the point. Anyway, I think the deal is much complicated than the previous deal that Starhub have... as it may include New Media like Live Streaming and VOD. However, with this high bid, Singtel is basically growing the appetite of the right holder and the next round, they will ask for more money.

As for your example on Starhub making 6.25m per month, you are partially correct but you must take into consideration other cost as well. For example, Production cost, Satellite cost and also each Content provider will get a share for each subscriber. For example, if you are getting News, they need to pay CNN, CNBC a certain share. If you are getting Sports, they need to pay ESPN a certain share. For Advertisers, somehow in this part of the world, Advertisers do not value Sponsorship as much as other part of the world and majority of the TV ad spend actually go to Free to air TV like Mediacorp. If you watch the cable TV, you will notice that the Ad take up rate for cable is pretty low here... I can tell you the revenue is pretty low also cos I work for Advertising Agency. Some properties, like Olympic or FIFA World Cup, because IOC or FIFA has already sign up so many official sponsors from all sort of products, that leave very little room for the cable operators to look for their own sponsors as most likely their potential sponsor will be conflicting with the official sponsors.

I'm just trying to offer some information about the industry here and I absolutely agree with you that they cannot simply pass the buck down to the consumer without considering other means...

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