China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Digital competitors look to wider playing field
The opening up of the sports broadcasting market is expected to help digital media platforms lure more audiences with diversified game-viewing experiences.
The traditional dominance of TV in sports broadcasting in China has been fiercely challenged by online broadcasters, who are willing to pay huge amounts of copyright fees and come up with better offerings through technology.
A recent central government call, made at the State Council’s executive meeting earlier this month, to open the broadcasting of sporting events to more media companies will tilt the scales in favor of the digital broadcasters, said insiders.
“It’s a clear sign that State control on sports broadcasting rights will be loosened up gradually as several big new media groups will emerge as competent buyers,” Ma Guoli, president of Infront China and former director of China Central Television’s sports department, told China Daily recently.
To guarantee wider coverage and program quality, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued an administrative directive in 2000, entitling CCTV as the sole platform to purchase and hold broadcasting rights of major sporting events like the FIFA World Cup and Olympic Games exclusively.
Other broadcasters including regional TV stations and online streaming websites have struggled to share the cake with CCTV since.
“The order limited the development of regional TV groups’ sports departments. (Without being allowed to compete against CCTV), many of the regional TV stations shut down their sports channels,” said Li Hui, director of Great-Sports, Shanghai Media Group.
Citing CCTV’s perennial edge in advertising sales due to its national coverage, Li said the new policy will not make a big difference in helping regional TV groups out-compete the State-run TV station in an open market.
“Given the skyrocketing price of elite sporting events’ broadcasting rights, we don’t have much room for profit as we don’t enjoy the huge ads sales that CCTV does,” said Li.
But the opening-up is still expected to bring ideal opportunities for emerging online broadcasters to grow with more access to high-viewing sporting events’ broadcasting rights.
PPTV, a major P2P streaming video platform in China, acquired the rights to broadcast 10 live English Premier League games, including six pay-perview matches, every week for the 2014-15 season by paying $11 million to Super Sports, the exclusive Premier League broadcast rights holder for the Chinese mainland and Macao.
CCTV has never purchased the rights to deliver the Premier League due to the high price.
Boasting decent ads sales and huge financial support from its major shareholder Suning, China’s largest electronics retailer, PPTV has acquired broadcasting rights of almost every prominent international soccer league and tournament.
PPTV also operates various sports lotteries designed for its broadcasting and online soccer merchandize sales with Suning to cover its expenses incurred from purchasing the broadcasting rights.
Dong Li, commercial director of PPTV Sports, envisioned a promising future for online broadcasters once the policy is implemented well.
“It (loosening control on the broadcasting rights market) is definitely good news for us as we can compete against dominants like CCTV fairly in the market without being excluded from major events like the World Cup and Olympics by administrative orders,” Dong said.
“The new policy encourages everyone to bid for event broadcasting rights in an open market, which will benefit us in the long run.”
Still, Jiang Heping, the director of CCTV’s sports department, shrugged off the potential blow from the emerging online challengers.
“It’s already been an open market with only few events protected for us to broadcast. The policy wasn’t made with CCTV as the target and we will still have an edge in the market,” Jiang said.