Coda
by Staff -- Multichannel News, 4/6/2009 2:00:00 AM
Fox Soccer Kicks It Up
A quartet of Fox properties will cast a wider net of coverage over the UEFA Champions League, beginning in August.
Covering the 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12 tourneys, Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Sports Net-owned and affiliated regional sports networks, Fox Sports en Español and FX (slated to air the title game on a Saturday for the first time on May 22, 2010), will combine to present the entire 146-game tournament, plus the UEFA Super Cup Final, in the U.S. for the first time.
Through a joint blind bid, Fox Sports International and Setanta Sports USA unseated ESPN, which had televised the tournament in the U.S. since 1994. Setanta will show 94 live and delayed matches and holds the live broadband-streaming rights to the contests.
The deal, terms of which were not disclosed, also represented a blow to ESPN Deportes and broadband service ESPN 360, both of which air the competition’s matches.
“We think this acquisition helps Fox Soccer Channel compete at a new level and will lead to more conversations with affiliates and more distribution,” said David Sternberg, executive vice president and general manager of Fox Sports International.
As the primary carrier, Fox Soccer Channel will broadcast 31 live — kickoff will be at 2:45 p.m. (ET) on Tuesdays and Wednesdays — and 79 delayed matches, including primetime encores of the 16 live FSN games on Tuesdays and the 31 debuting on Fox Sports en Español. The Spanish-language service, which counts some 14 million subscribers, including 5.3 million Hispanic households, will also air 63 encores. The tournament will expand with an added round, starting next August.
Fox Soccer will also present live pre- and post-game shows from its Los Angeles studios, and plans to air a 30-minute highlight show at the conclusion of each match day.
“UEFA is very concerned with the proper presentation of its marquee, crown-jewel event,” Sternberg said. “We plan to give it as much attention and exposure as possible.”
— Mike Reynolds
YouTube’s $470M Problem
Mountain View, Calif. — Google’s YouTube — the Internet’s most popular video site — could be on track to lose approximately $470 million in 2009, according to a report by Credit Suisse.
While YouTube remains the leader in online video with 41% share of total domestic video streams, “monetization remains challenging,” Credit Suisse analysts Spencer Wang and Kenneth Sena wrote.
According to the firm’s analysis of YouTube traffic and ad strategies, the site is on track to generate about $240 million in revenue in 2009, up about 20% year over year.
But the cost of bandwidth, content licensing, ad-revenue shares, hardware storage, sales and marketing and other expenses will total about $711 million, putting YouTube squarely in the red, the Credit Suisse report estimated. Bandwidth accounts for about 51% of expenses — with a run rate of $1 million per day — with content licensing accounting for 36%.
“In our view, the issue for YouTube going forward is to increase the percentage of its videos that can be monetized (likely through more deals with content companies) and to drive more advertiser demand through standardization of ad formats and improved ad effectiveness,” the analysts wrote.
YouTube, which still derives most of its traffic from user-generated content, has been attempting to increase its lineup of professionally produced content. Last week, it announced a deal with Disney-ABC Television Group and ESPN, which will provide content clips for dedicated channels on the video site.
Credit Suisse projected YouTube will serve 75 billion video streams in 2009, up 38% compared with last year.
To arrive at the estimated $360 million bandwidth tab for YouTube, the analysts assumed the site will receive 375 million unique visitors in 2009 and that a maximum of 20% of those users are on the site at any given time. Credit Suisse’s analysis then assumed each user downloads a video at 400 Kilobits per second, to yield a peak bit run-rate for YouTube of 30 Terabits per second.
— Todd Spangler
Snowe, Rockefeller Eye Cybersecurity Czar
Washington — Sens. Olympia Snowe (R.-Maine) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) have introduced a cybersecurity bill that they maintain will “[remake] the relationship between government and the private sector on cybersecurity.”
In announcing the bill, Snowe’s office said the goal was to extend the same kind of protection the government accords its own networks to private companies involved in critical infrastructure, including telecommunications.
Among other things, the bill would create a cybersecurity czar — a national cybersecurity adviser in the Executive Office of the President.
National Cable & Telecommunications Association president Kyle McSlarrow told Multichannel News that he had not yet vetted the bill, but said he thought the legislators were right to be concerned about cybersecurity.
— John Eggerton
Univision In Pacts With TWC, Dish
Miami —U.S. Spanish-language media leader Univision has reached retransmission-consent agreements with Time Warner Cable and satellite-TV provider Dish Network.
The deal with Time Warner Cable was expected because Univision had reached an agreement in principle with the nation’s No. 2 cable operator. However, Univision was in a dispute with Dish Network and had begun running crawls on some of its stations that its service could be disrupted after April 1.
In both cases, Univision’s contracts with the distributors expired on March 31.
Financial terms were not disclosed for either deal, but Univision has been seeking cash in exchange for consent for its signal transmission.
With the Time Warner Cable and Dish deals, Univision adds to the contracts it reached earlier this year with Comcast, DirecTV, AT&T’s U-verse TV and Insight Communications. It has also scored agreements with 50 other smaller distributors.
— Mike Reynolds
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