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[Free Services] [Film, Entertainment, News] [Sport] [Information and Life Style] [Business]
Channel Lists: [Free Channels] [Sky digital] [Sky digital Sporting Rights] [ITV Digital (was ONdigital)] [Telewest]
These are the services that to-day predominate from the main service providers.
They are there to attract the mass audience and to gain market share. Once
established future services will go for the value added niche market.
| Sky digital has the most
comprehensive offering to date (see box on right). This is a result of
substantial acquisition of TV sporting rights (see below),
even to the point of buying the Manchester United football club. Sky digital
has also made many deals with the major Hollywood film studios.
Sky digital has also its own news channel, Sky News. The BBC has invested £30m in 24 News service and spend £12m per year to run it. The BBC plans a Children's Channel for 1999 to be available on satellite, cable and terrestrial. Channel 4 makes Film Four available on satellite, cable and terrestrial at £5.99 per month. Film Four plans to show 400 quality films each year, broadcasting from 6 pm to 6 am each day. Channel 4 hopes to enlist 150,000 subscribers in the first year and sees the channel as the first of many aimed at a niche audience. The initial investment is £30m. In 2000 Channel 4 will launch E4 a pay-TV entertainment channel. Channel 4 is expected to offer E4 to BSkyB and to strengthen its negotiating position has for $200m acquired a 3 year contract to show Friends (series 7 onwards) and ER. BSkyB who has the current rights to show Friends is reported to be livid. ITN (Independent Television News) is equally owned by the 2 main UK independent television companies and 3 other media companies. In August 20001 it launched a 24 hour satellite and cable news channel with a complementary web site. It is likely to be floated in 2001. In July 2000, BSkyB said it would make a bid to supply news services when the 10 year ITN contract comes up for renewal in December 2002. NTL and Telewest jointly own a pay-per-view movie channel Front Row that is available on both networks. |
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| ITV Digital
(formally ONdigital) is sourcing
material both from its commercial TV owners Carlton and Granada, as well
as from its rival BSkyB who will provide many of the movie and sports
channels (see box on right). It will also show the new ITV2 channel.
Many of the cable providers will be broadcasting almost the same channels as Skydigital. |
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| The pay-to-view movie market is set to explode (see box). In the UK, BT sees pay-to-view feature films, with a choice of 1000s of films, as a competitive offering. It is providing pay-to-view in its ADSL broadband trials and from July 2001 will be allowed to offer the service nationally. |
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| Sport is a very popular past-time and some of the most
aggressive acquisitions have been in this area.
Sky Digital has secured the television rights to many sporting events both in the UK including cricket, football, boxing, rugby and golf (see box) and abroad. Sport has a huge and loyal following and many spin-off services are expected in the future (See Interactive Services) including more pay-per-view programmes. ITV Digital launches ITV Sport in August 2001. It will cost £6.99 per month. The channel is owned by Granada and Carlton. In the first year it plans to show 330 football games, 150 of these will be live matches. They include Uefa Champion League (157), Nationwide League (80), Worthington Cup (15), and live pay-per-view Premier League (40) at £9.99 per month. Retailer Currys was advertising a package of all the ITV Sport's football inclduing many live matches for £19 per month. Next year the channel will show the Tour de France cycle race. Channel 4 has won acclaim for its interactive horse racing coverage. ITV won the Formula1 motor racing from the BBC.
In 2000 the Premier League football rights were
once again bitterly fought over. BSkyB secured
the main prize for the rights to screen 66 live matches a year for 3
years with a bid of £1.1bn. NTL secured rights
for 40 pay-per-view matches with a bid of £328m. With a bid of £183m,
ITV beat the BBC's bid of £123m for the rights
to screen football highlights. However, the economics didn't stack up and
October 2000 NTL withdrew its
bid. |
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| Elsewhere in Europe, the Italian commercial TV company Mediasat
SpA continues in its quest to create a European
Football League and News Corp. / Sky digital has been involved as
a possible partner. BSkyB with its 35% stake in Stream is also a rival
for the rights to the Italian Serie A and B football leagues. In Germany,
BSkyB is transforming the tm3 channel into a sports channel. Also in Germany,
Premiere World's £6bn investment in World Cup football and Hollywood
film rights has almost bankrupted the company and opens the door for
a BSkyB acquisition.
BSkyB has the rights to English club rugby but rights are soon to be renewed for a further 3 years in a deal worth £150m-£200m to be awarded by the Rugby Football Union. Commentators are expecting BSkyB to win again but the BBC to win the highlights. Currently the BBC has the rights to the Six Nations games (excepting the home game that belongs to BSkyB) but these are up for re-tendering at the end of the year. |
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Information and Life StyleAs television is moving away from being a mass audience communication as viewers seek to find media that addresses personal needs. One area that is predicted to particularly grow is health information. A survey showed that 49% of the public claimed they regularly watched or listened to a health programme. In May 2000 the Discovery channel will launch Discovery Health that will be targetted at the general public.In the US, where there are over 1,500 web health sites, Discovery invested $300m in launching the TV channel and associated web site. In the UK, income will come initially from subscriptions and later also from advertising. On the same day BSkyB launched the UK's first dedicated health channel, securing the well known BBC presenter Martyn Lewis to present it. It is aimed at the UK's 35,000 general medical practitioners as well as other medical professionals and National Health administrators. The service, which will be free, is on the air from 7am to 10 pm each day. Being a closed user group it will be funded by advertising (there are tight restrictions on medical advertising to the general public). A complementary web site and Teletext services are planned. Wealthy TV personality Noel Edmonds, announced in June 2000, that he was going to launch 4 digital TV channels. Positivity is a "mind, body and spirit" channel will associated internet site, magazine, books and tapes. Biz4Biz is a business to business channel aimed at small companies who can have 4 minute slots for just a £100. The third is a children's channel and the fourth was not revealed. With all these numerous channels it has required the development of Electronic Programme Guides to help viewers select programmes of interest. BusinessBSkyB did have speciallised business programmes but discountinued them in c 2001. Now in June 2001 the BBC is launching a Business Today programme on its digital channel BBC News 24. It will be broadcast at 8.30 pm each day. |
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