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Broadcasters battle for possession
For
a while there, it looked like a squabble over television broadcast
rights would force millions of Egyptian football fans to catch the
results of 2002 World Cup soccer games in the morning papers. The
crisis was averted, however, when the Egyptian Radio & Television
Union (ERTU) reached an agreement with Arab Digital Distribution
(ADD), a Dubai-based satellite television distribution company, to
broadcast some of the matches on local television.
In
March, one of the networks that ADD distributes, Arab Radio &
Television (ART), announced that it would carry exclusive coverage of
the World Cup in the Middle East and North Africa through its pay-TV
channel ART Sports 2. The ERTU, however, refused to cough up the large
sum of money ART was demanding in broadcasting fees.
Angry
commentaries were seen in the daily press calling for a compromise
between the ERTU and the private network. With the pressure on, the
ERTU went to the negotiating table with ART, which first offered to
sell match broadcast rights for $40 million for the series. After
negotiations, this was lowered to $20 million, before the two sides
agreed on an even lower figure, which is not being publicly disclosed.
This
World Cup, which will take place from May 31 to June 30, is the first
to be held in Asia, with South Korea and Japan jointly hosting the
tournament. From the Arab and African regions six teams have qualified
– Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Senegal, Nigeria, Cameroon and South
Africa. “Our group has bought the right of broadcasting the World
Cup to the Middle East and North Africa, and we are packaging it,”
said John Tydeman, CEO of ADD.
Region-wide,
large shipments of satellite receivers are being ordered in order to
view the games, Tydeman said, adding that game coverage would be
“interactive,” with simultaneous feeds of several different
sub-channels. One feed will be devoted to standard match coverage,
while another focuses on each of the two teams playing. Yet another
feed will provide extended coverage, with interviews and commentary.
Services
like these don’t come cheap. “Since these added services cost huge
amounts of money, they will only be available to subscribers of ART
platforms,” Tydeman said. “We are a pay-TV platform, so our
objective is to build subscribers.”
ADD
has made agreements in each country in the region with regard to World
Cup coverage. In the United Arab Emirates, only pay-television viewers
will get to view the games, while in Saudi Arabia, only Saudi games
will be carried on local channels. In Egypt, the agreement with the
ERTU states that some games will be broadcast on local television
(without the content of the extra channels) in exchange for the airing
of commercials during the matches.
This
is not the first such disagreement between ART and the ERTU. When the
last African under-20 football championship was held in Ethiopia,
Egyptians could not watch their team play, as ART controlled the
broadcast ball. The private network had bought the rights to broadcast
the championship and then demanded a huge sum from ERTU that amounted
to $30,000 per game, just for the right to tape the matches and air
them later.
Nor
could Egyptians watch their national team’s Continental Championship
in Mexico, which Egypt was playing in for the first time. In both
these cases, an angry press and public criticized Egyptian television
for its inability to afford the rights for the games. The ERTU, in its
own defense, said that buying the rights was not feasible because
commercials aired during the matches would not cover broadcast costs.
But
the argument rang hollow for those low-income Egyptians – the
majority of the population – who do not possess cable or satellite
dishes.
The
ERTU, despite its deal with ADD for World Cup coverage, sees their
point. “We should be aware of the general audience, which still
constitutes 90 percent, while only 10 percent of the population has
satellite services,” said Hussein Amin, a member of the ERTU board
of trustees. “It doesn’t make sense that only one network with
very narrow percentage of viewership has control over all the
audience.”
After
missing out on several major tournaments, more and more Egyptians are
biting the bullet and subscribing to pay-television services. “We
are witnessing a transition right now from governmental television
into pay TV, which is a new model,” Amin said. “In this
transition, you will see some side effects, and a major one is that
some of the general target audience cannot afford to pay for the
service.”
But
to reach the whole target audience, he added, both sides –
government and private sector – need to work together to serve the
interests of the public at large.
EMAN
WAHBY
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