Chapter 487 Premier League Broadcasting Rights

Last year, Barron had received some outstanding students from Devonhill International School in Colo Prairie Province, when those selected students came to London for a study tour.

In August, as he had promised before, five outstanding students will receive his funding to come to London for further studies.

To be precise, there are actually 6 students, because Rami, the elder brother of the pair of siblings who were born in Palestine, still ranks first among all students. According to Barron’s original agreement with him, , his sister Ravi will also come to London with him.

After these people first adapt here for a month, they will go to their respective schools to continue their studies after the term starts.

During this period, Barron also met them again, had dinner with these children, and encouraged them.

It can be said that these children who were raised by Barron and have always received a "gratitude" education have the strongest loyalty to the Devonshire family.

"At present, our broadband equipment upgrades in regions including Ireland and the UK have been completed, but so far, BT is still ahead of us in terms of user share..."

In a conference room at O2 Telecom's London headquarters, its CEO Berry Trelles showed Barron their development plan.

After O2 Telecom went public, they received ample funds, which they still invested in infrastructure upgrades.

However, since the beginning of this year, BT has launched their video platform and begun to provide users with online video services. It is said that they will also launch IPTV business in the future.

In order to cope with these services of BT, O2 Telecom also decided to increase investment in DailyVedio.com. Based on this video website, it will provide video on demand services to users in the British and European markets.

In the beginning, DailyVedio.com only existed as a video service provided by O2 Telecom for its broadband users. At that time, O2 Telecom and Digital UK each held 50% of its shares.

Later, after Digital Future Investment Company joined, they injected capital into DailyVedio.com and acquired the shares held by Digital UK.

As of now, Digital Future already holds 70% of the shares held by DailyVedio.com, and O2 Telecom still maintains a 30% shareholding ratio.

Next, O2 Telecom will increase its investment in DailyVedio.com to increase its shareholding ratio to 40%. DailyVedio.com will not only be a video sharing website for users, but will also provide users with Video on demand service.

This also means that they will start to purchase a lot of film and television content to facilitate users to watch - SEM Group has also reached an agreement with DailyVedio.com to provide it with content and share the profits.

"Sky TV will not be able to exclusively enjoy the Premier League broadcasting rights next season. At that time, O2 Telecom can support DailyVedio.com to compete for some of the game broadcasting rights."

After hearing Barron's words, Barry Treles frowned slightly and said:

"I'm afraid the price will not be too low by then, and we will also face fierce competition..."

"But if DailyVedio does not participate in the competition, then BT Sports may not let go of this opportunity."

BT Sports is the sports channel of the video platform launched by BT. When Barron said this, Berry Trelles immediately agreed. After all, the two parties can be said to be fighting hard in the broadband business. O2 Telecom Naturally, we cannot give BT Sports such an opportunity to gain more users through Premier League broadcasts.

It is estimated that the mood of BT's senior executives is very subtle - after all, who would have thought that O2 Telecom, which was once developed from the mobile communications business department that was spun off from their company, has now become one of their biggest competitors.

According to the requirements of the European Commission in charge of commercial competition, after the 2006-2007 season, the Premier League will no longer be able to sell the live broadcast rights of the league to only one television broadcaster.

This also means that in the Premier League broadcast rights bidding next year, the Premier League will sell the broadcast rights of Premier League matches to at least two broadcasters.

Because the relevant European Commission believes that Sky TV has always monopolized the live broadcast rights of Premier League matches, which violates fair competition.

In fact, as early as the end of 2003, the EU Commercial Competition Commission had already warned about this matter. At that time, under pressure, the Premier League reformed its sales methods and added The number of live matches and divided into three levels for bidding.

However, the wealthy Sky TV station at the time still obtained all levels of broadcast rights at a price of 1.024 billion pounds. Only the BBC, as a public television station, obtained the rights to broadcast game highlights.

At that time, the EU was very dissatisfied with this and demanded that the Premier League break Sky TV's monopoly. If the Premier League did not make concessions, the EU would require each Premier League club to negotiate for the television rights.

You should know that the Premier League broadcast rights are currently sold in bundles, and the Premier League negotiates with the broadcasters on behalf of the 20 clubs.

Because if each club negotiates on its own, in addition to big-name teams such as Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal that are favored by broadcasters, the TV broadcast revenue of other mid- and lower-tier teams will be greatly affected.

But here comes the problem. If the Premier League makes concessions and increases the number of broadcasters, then Sky TV will not be able to bid more than 1 billion pounds to purchase the broadcast rights. The income of each club will be significantly reduced, and some will even face bankruptcy.

At least that's what the Premier League and those clubs thought, so at the time some clubs said they would go to court if the EU insisted on breaking up Sky's monopoly.

The EU does not want this matter to drag on for too long or even go to court. Originally, in Barron's previous life, the final solution was for the EU to proactively request Sky TV to give up the live broadcast rights of at least eight games, and then representatives of the Premier League clubs After discussion, the EU's compromise was accepted.

But it is certainly impossible for Barron to see such a thing happen again. Otherwise, although it will not be able to obtain the complete broadcast rights of Premier League matches, Sky TV will still retain the exclusive broadcast rights of most matches and will still occupy the largest share in the field of sports channels. user.

Therefore, not only the SEM Group, he also contacted the BBC and other TV stations to negotiate with the Premier League and proposed two plans, either splitting the Premier League matches in half and allowing at least two broadcasters to obtain the exclusive broadcast of one of them. rights; or the broadcast rights for all events will be jointly obtained by at least two broadcasters.

And they promised that no matter which plan they choose, they will compete with no less than the last bid made by Sky TV...

The last four-year Premier League broadcast rights, Sky TV's bid was 1.024 billion pounds, which means that according to the plan of SEM Group and the BBC, if the two companies participate, the Premier League will receive at least 2.048 billion pounds in revenue...

This has indeed dispelled the concerns of the Premier League, and the European Union is also very supportive of this plan. So even if Sky TV obtains one of the quotas from these two broadcasters in the future, it is destined to be unable to monopolize Premier League live broadcasts.

The current situation is that everyone except Sky TV supports these plans. Only Sky TV probably feels like a dog...