Fans the losers as fight for TV rights hots up

For all these years, TrueVisions, Thailand’s leading cable and satellite television operator, has been a dominant player, holding the licences of major football leagues such as the English Premier League (EPL), Spanish La Liga, German Bundesliga, Italian Calcio Serie A and French League 1. 

But now, the company is facing tough competition with GMM Grammy giving them a run for their money. The leading music and entertainment firm won the broadcast rights for the Bundesliga for three seasons starting next season, as well as the media rights for the 2012 European Football Championships. The matches will be shown on its GMM Sport satellite channel.

RS, another leading music and entertainment company, has been awarded the broadcast rights for La Liga for the 2012-2015 seasons. The company will launch its first sports pay-TV channel via a satellite platform in the middle of this year to broadcast soccer matches live and related TV programmes of the Spanish League. 

TrueVisions currently holds a three-year broadcast licence for the EPL, which will expire next season (2012-2013). The firm last year secured the media rights for the Uefa Champions League and Europa League from the 2012-13 season to the 2014-15 campaign in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos.

The three companies, TrueVisions, GMM Grammy and RS, are reportedly the main bidders for the EPL’s broadcast rights in Thailand for the next three years (2012-2015).

English Premier League chairman Dave Richards told Siamsport during his recent visit to Thailand that five companies from Thailand have submitted bids for the licence. The winner will be announced in May. 

Siamsport labels it as the “clash of the titans”, since several big companies are involved. A source quoted by Siamsport believes the bid could be the most expensive paid by a Thai company to broadcast foreign football league matches. The source feels the fees could be 30-per-cent higher than the last bid.

TrueVisions reportedly paid around Bt6 billion for the three-year deal.

There is no doubt that the winner of the bid will eventually become the leading sporting channel in the country, because soccer fans in Thailand make up one of the biggest audiences in Asia. Any company winning the rights will certainly get more subscribers. 

Apparently, the bigger the competition in business, the better it is for consumers. But in this case, it remains to be seen whether the end user would get the benefits of competition.

I feel the lives of individual viewers would become more complicated. For all these years, by subscribing to TrueVisions you were able to watch matches of several football leagues. But in the near future, if you are a hardcore fan of several leagues you will have to subscribe to different broadcasters, which means you have to pay more.

One cannot guess at this stage whether the subscription fees will be cheaper or more expensive. It depends on who will be awarded the rights to broadcast the EPL, which is the principal attraction of any TV operator. In fact, TrueVisions is thriving because most of its subscribers are football buffs, who pay to watch live EPL matches. 

While TrueVisions desperately needs to secure the EPL rights, the others cannot afford to lose it. The competition will be high and intense, which means huge money as fees would be offered. And if the bidding price is high, it is unlikely that consumers will benefit. Eventually, fans will have no choice but to pay to watch their beloved club.