Tata Sky DTH: For All Football Lovers!

[jjvj]

i am watchign football matches on zee sports since few days and they carry goal tv logos. anyhow it does not matter though. hope now Tata Sky adds zee sports atleast.

 

[eidur22]

Ok, I'm going to cease the quoting stuff, because I think we need a basic recap of what I'm talking about.Let's start with the US bit. The article I was talking about was examining why a big "MLS" will continue to be unviable. It had stats on viewership levels accross the Bundesliga (actually "should be" fairly popular given a relatively high percentage of German immigrants), La Liga (same logic) and the EPL (biggest worldwide as you mention). The viewership figures were dismal. Not just in comparison with other American sports, but in comparison with football in other non-European countries as well. These were of course percentage figures.One of the basic reasons for this, and the reason I brought up living in the states is: a) the immigrants you refer to often work several weekend shifts for a bit extra money, b) time: EPL games are usually at 5.30/6.30am and all these leagues are played at times which don't really fit into the american way of life very well - i.e. late afternoon/early evening sport. c) they just don't get it!As for the extent to which world coverage pervades american households? Urr.. again, this is an amazingly low figure. If you have Comcast - which is basically the biggest of the lot, your only possible option is "Fox Soccer Channel" which shows a bunch of EPL stuff, and some South American Leagues. Getting Setanta requires Direct TV which is a fairly expensive option, and it's $10 a month or something, so viewership figures in themselves are quite low. Setanta has a lot of quality coverage, though - Scottish League, EPL, the Championship (brilliant league to watch, incidentally), French League 1, Dutch League, etc. They also do Champions League games. Then there's Gol TV which does German, Spanish and Italian football and their coverage would make Zee proud. Abysmal channel in terms of quality. Now, what we have in India isn't very different. Just, minus us as viewers getting the choice to watch what we want to watch. Zee and Ten buying GOAL TV rights gives the channels an instant base. But, essentially, cutting down the distribution chain and getting channels like Setanta to distribute here is quite viable. I have no problem with the current arrangement, other than the fact that it is lower on quality than what we would get if Setanta did it themselves. What I'm talking about is a process that is already underway. Eurosport for example is expanding into Asian markets - I'm not sure what the foreign sports channels set to be launched in India later in the year are - but Eurosport is setting up elsewhere in Asia. There is no reason why channels like Setanta should not be viable in India, just given the marketbase they can reach in terms of the upwardly mobile itself. It's an argument of numbers, purely because you can watch Setanta in tiny countries - not least of all where they are based out of (Ireland). With the right sort of distribution setup, I see no reason why channels such as those can't aim at a penetration of about 1 million over the next 3-5 years. The investment would be limited to delinking rights into India. Production continues in Ireland and elsewhere, as it currently does. So this argument is simply one of expanding on marginal revenue - it is in my interest as a consumer seeking quality, and in their interest as a company looking to expand its market base. We've seen it with the likes of Walmart and Nike and it won't be too long before we see it in television as well. The only thing that saves sub standard channels is protectionist policy and the fact that the phnomenon of Asian markets providing viable projects is a reasonably new phenomenon.Ultimately, I don't see how it can be argued that these markets aren't viable. Because doing so, is essentially arguing that the PPV concept will never reach India, and that consumption income won't rise - things that development of other Asian Markets - Malaysia, even Indonesia, and of course Singapore, Honk Kong etc show plenty of evidence as being a universal capitalist phenomenon. We are now well in the capitalist game, and to my mind it is only a matter of time. FYI, Setanta came to the States 12-14 months ago. Also, if you look at football viewership options in America three years ago - it was a struggle to catch big EPL games. I speak out of first hand experience on this one.What is also clear is that IPTV serves as a means for the future when talking about the globalization of TV. Setanta has grown significantly since they tied up with an ITVN to allow people to purchase only their channel with a mini-STB, no dish or any of that hassle. Just a high speed broadband connection.All of this is now increasingly becoming viable in India as well. Hell, if you look at the number of houses in Delhi and Bombay that go for over a million dollars, extending to 10 million+, the viability is clear. What is also clear is that the glamour and glitz of leagues such as the EPL can take over any audience. The transition from talking about Sachin to talking about Rooney is under way and given a bit more exposure that process will be extended in years to come.I still haven't heard you really reason out why football is so utterly unviable as a sport of reasonable levels of viewership in India. The banter is fun, but let's hear some solid logic of your own now.

 

[maahkaal]

Firstly that was a good post and you summed up your views quite well. But most of my earlier arguments still persist. I'm short of time now so i'll reply to your post later. Secondly , i'm so glad that this debate did not degenerate into stupid arguments like i have seen many a times among posters on the various forums i frequent.

 

[rishisingh]

Tsky has a monopolistic attitude towards Zee group & others. They don't want give choices to subscribers. It high time subscribers raise their voice otherwise Tsky will take their existing subscribers for granted.

 

[vgpal]

Changing service provider is not that much costly as DishTV is offering 6 month's free subscription.

 

[rishisingh]

DishTV is not a better alternative as they have poor customer support & service. Also there picture quality is inferior in comparison. So there is no choice for existing Tsky subscribers. Grin & bear it. :wall:

 

---

[Crazysah]

Well let Neo Sports + and Zee Sports come on Tata Sky and then let them talk.

 

[maahkaal]

1> Firstly i was never talking about MLS specifically. When i said soccer in u.s i meant the popularity and viewership of european soccer. MLS is a long way off from competing with other european leagues and i doubt beckham is going to change that anytime soon. 2> The viewership figures you mention are well and good but they don't tell you the whole story because you are only taking into consideration live television coverage. With the availability of high speed broadband in U.S ( second country behind china with the most number of broadband users ) , what about people who prefer to watch it via live streams ? You will be surprised to see how huge that number is. That includes people who pay to watch games on internet by subscribing to some Live stream site. 3> You mention about the time difference but what about people who set their PVRs to record matches if they are not able to watch a live match ? I doubt the viewership figures take this into consideration. Again what about people who watch the re - telecast ? Did the survey include that as a parameter ? Then again what about people who download torrents of a match telecast they have missed ? This is why your viewership theory is flawed. 4> As for the times ( late afternoon/early evening ) not being favourable , i refuse to accept that. The matches are played on weekends so i doubt majority of people are working on weekends. Anyways the point is if your are a true supporter and love your team , you will always try to watch the Live game and if not possible , try to catch it later. 5> As for the soccer coverage in U.S , i find it hard to believe that soccer coverage over there is poor. There are a lot of sports channels there and soccer rights must be distributed over them. You also cannot ignore channels like ESPN Deportes which must be rage among latin americans and also americans as they show the Uefa Champion's League.

 

[Neo001]

DishTV is not a better alternative as they have poor customer support & service. Also there picture quality is inferior in comparison. So there is no choice for existing Tsky subscribers. Grin & bear it. :wall:

Dear Rishi,
I am using both the DTH at my home Dish tv and Tata Sky....and just to say you that customer support and services of Dish tv has really improved very much as what they have previously and also moving in upward trends also about picture quality i don't think there is much of difference in that only for a few channels and now dish tv has already looking on that ....and might be you have noticed the change in picture quality og Star sports and CNN in recent times and also on some other channels which are now with superior quality picture. so i think options are always there.

 

[maahkaal]

I still haven't heard you really reason out why football is so utterly unviable as a sport of reasonable levels of viewership in India. The banter is fun, but let's hear some solid logic of your own now.
This is what i said earlier and i was right.
A little bit of banter on the forum is fun but i just feel that you have completely misunderstood my original post.


This is what i said in my original post ;
Exclusive Football channel is not realistic at least in the time being. Football is becoming popular too but it is still confined to only urban and semi urban areas.
I never said that football is unviable in the absolute sense ,it's only your imagination.

Now onto your second part of the post.

1> I can see where you are coming from when you talk about quality but that doesn't make it viable for setanta to launch their own channel or distribute content in the current scenario. The problem is the epl rights and Champion's league rights are already with espnstar and ten sports. Like i said earlier they would not be having anything to show which will interest people. Even if they managed to get the Goal TV content it would be a impossible task to get people to watch dutch ,french and scottish football over EPL inspite of the superior quality coverage. If setanta had the telecast rights of EPL or CL then it makes a hell lot of sense to launch their own channel or distribute content but the fact is they do not have it.

2> You say that it is in your interest as a consumer seeking quality, and in their interest as a company looking to expand its market base. There is nothing wrong with that but a lot of market research goes into this before launching a channel or distributing content and it would be utter foolishness to go ahead on the basis of a small section of people who are prepared to pay a bit extra to watch superior quality content. How are they exactly going to know that ? It's a lot risky than you seem to think.

A example which comes to mind is the recent launch of Neo Sport cricket channel by Nimbus. It's not like Nimbus hadn't won the distribution rights before but the situation that time was different. Earlier they won the rights of quite a few Test series and ODIs then why did they not launch their own channel that time ? Instead they sold it to other sport channels. Because what they had was not enough to go against channels like espnstar who were far more superior in terms of quantity , quality and programming content. The same is true for setanta in the current scenario.

But now that Nimbus have won the rights for cricket matches in india for the next 4 years , they decide to launch their own channel. Why ? Because it makes a lot of sense as they have 4 years to catch upto espnstar. During these years the money they earn through advertising , mobile and internet broadcast will obviously put them in a better position to bid the next time. Over the 4 years they will be able to improve their quality which is pathetic compared to espnstar's right now.

3> You make a lot of other points but they are irrelevant to our current discussion because you misunderstood my original post.