CTH aims to sell 1m EPL subscription packages to break even

It is also aiming for Bt10 billion revenue by the end of next year.
Chief financial officer Vanchai Srisuchon said last week that CTH would pay Bt9.94 billion, excluding tax and related expenses, for live audio-visual rights to televise the English Premier League in the coming three seasons (2013/14 to 2015/16 seasons).
Given this huge investment, the company was working on a business plan, Vanchai said, adding that the initial price of subscription packages must, however, be accessible for local sports fans.
“To get access to live broadcast of EPL content, CTH subscribers should pay for combined packages, not more than Bt1,000 per month,” he said.
The combined packages include Bt399 standard package and EPL package. The price will be finalised soon before the relaunch in February.
After the rebranding of CTH, the company will offer 120 exclusive channels, including eight channels for EPL. It has also earmarked about Bt100 million for importing content and producing its own programmes.
Apart from subscription fee revenue, the company is also seeking other sources of income – for example offering a sponsorship programme, and partnering with strategic broadcasters.
With all these efforts, the company expects to earn Bt10 billion in gross revenue next year and it targets to have at least 1 million subscribers of EPL packages from a total 2.5 million subscribers from 300 local cable TV operators.
In a separate interview, chairman Wichai Thongtang said that CTH was in talks with leading cable-TV operators and private broadcasters in Cambodia and Laos to grant sub-licence rights to broadcast EPL as his company had acquired live broadcast rights for the EPL not just in Thailand, but also Cambodia and Laos.
There will be 380 soccer matches a season.
Wichai added that the negotiations were expected to be completed in January. The company was offering two options to business partners in the two neighbouring countries
The first option was to grant sub-licence rights to broadcast the EPL alone and another was to grant sub-licence rights along with fibre-optic network installation.
Underlining this point, Rathakorn Surbsuk, trading partner at GroupM, suggested that with EPL content on hand, CTH could use this content to expand its business to Laos and Cambodia, which had much more opportunity and less competition.
Rathakorn added that in the modern media landscape, content was the king regardless of the platform so CTH would be able leverage this content to other platforms such as mobile or IPTV.
However, cost to consumer or service fee would be the key factor to determine the success of CTH, he added.