Its World Cup Fever Time, Especially For The TV Licensing Folk Who Say Watch It On Broadband At Work and The Employer Better Have A TV License Or Else!

Philip M. Stone June 15, 2006

TV viewing numbers for this year’s World Cup Football are as much as double the last tournament four years ago, and this time around mobile and broadband coverage is expected to increase viewership a whole lot more, but in those countries where a TV license is mandatory the authorities say they are serious about fining employers who let staff watch the games via broadband on their office PC if there is no TV license.

The licensing laws are pretty straightforward in most countries. If you have a device that can capture a TV signal, and that includes a PC with a TV card, then there had better be a TV license for the premises where that PC is located or there could be a hefty fine

In the UK, for instance, the BBC has announced it is streaming via broadband for access by people only in the UK those World Cup games that it is telecasting. And that has raised a number of issues.

First the TV licensing people made it clear that unlicensed businesses could be hit with up to a £1,000 fine plus court costs if staff watch the broadband coverage and there is no TV license. “We know exactly which unlicensed business premises to target,” a TV Licensing spokesperson, sounding just like she bounced out of Orwell’s 1984, warned solemnly.

And it is not a warning without some bite attached. For the Euro 2004 football championships the British TV licensing people nailed some 24,000 people watching at home or work without a license. In the UK a color TV license costs £131.50 and only one such license is necessary to cover all the TV receivers on the premises. Maybe the BBC has discovered that broadband can be a real money-spinner for increasing its license revenues!

Rights to major events such as the World Cup are sold on a geographic basis with the BBC and ITV sharing UK rights for live coverage. But they must restrict the broadband usage to those located in the UK so as not to run afoul of those geography limitations.

But the Internet is full of sites that provide chapter and verse how to fool a server that you are coming from in-country rather than half a world away. FTM has not tried the methods those sites propose nor do we know the legality of what they suggest.

But we are told by people in the rights business that identifying a user by their ISP number is only one of several methods used by broadband operators to limit access by outsiders to broadband services, so there is no guarantee that fooling a server into believing your ISP is in-country will get you access.

But it is not only broadband where there are geographic problems. Even terrestrial stations have problems. In Switzerland, for instance, the M6 French terrestrial national commercial station is on several cable systems and shows games with French commentary in competition with the French-speaking Swiss TV public broadcaster showing the same game. Cable operators have been advised to blackout those M6 games but, this afternoon at least, the Geneva cable system still had an M6 World Cup game.

The BBC plans to stream some 50 hours of World Cup football and it is believed that some five million UK workers could have broadband on their work desks and that means a whole series of other problems. For instance, some clever economist has figured out that if all who could watch at their desks do watch it will cost the British economy £500 million in lost productivity time.

But even more serious is what all those people watching broadband at their desks will do to their in-house networks. Will it cause congestion, slowing down business critical applications?

To help companies that have such fears the BBC has published a list of URLs that companies can block, if they wish, that will stop access to the broadband transmissions.

“Due to the high demand for live streams for the World Cup during office hours, we understand some corporate networks may wish to restrict access to the streams available from the BBC Sport website,” the public broadcaster said in a statement.

Not to be overshadowed by the broadband streaming are the mobile experiments taking place in Berlin, Hamburg, Hanover and Munich of the digital video broadcasting for handhelds –DVBH. T-Mobile, for instance, is broadcasting 20 matches for a €7.50 subscription fee. Some mobile phone users with 3G handsets in Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK are also able to watch matches.

Other mobile operators are using the World Cup to boost MMS services. Swisscom in Switzerland, for instance, is sending “live” multimedia content from game, including goal alerts, to subscriber handsets. In the UK Orange says it has highlights of games available five minutes after the final whistle.

Meanwhile the tournament appears to be a huge global terrestrial success. Germany’s first game drew a 75.7% share in the host country. For England’s opening game the BBC scored an 84% share. In France, just the opening ceremony gave TF1 a 42.4% share.

Even in the US, which usually ignores the world’s largest sporting event, the numbers are near double from four years ago. ABC’s coverage of the Mexico-Iran game was up 42% from the same time period four years ago, and the Spanish language networks in the US are doing particularly well.

Interestingly, ABC and ESPN who hold rights to the tournament are broadcasting the games live as opposed to NBC’s policy of prime-time tape delay for its Olympics coverage. Of course, the amount paid for the FIFA rights are negligible compared to the Olympics.

“It’s the biggest event on the planet, and we will televise it when it happens,” an executive for both ABC and ESPN explained.  Fifty-two of the games will be available in the US on broadband, too.

There does seem to be one group of loser in all of this – the large flat-screen TV makers. They had hoped for a bumper summer based on World Cup promotions, but early returns suggest forecasts will not be met because prices are still too high.

A statement from Korea Investments and Securities said, “Unlike panel makers’ high expectations for LCD-TV sales growth prior to the 2006 World Cup, there were no signs of brisk sales. Despite the aggressive marketing activities of TV set makers, demand for high-end TVs remained weak.”

LG-Phillips, the world’s second largest LCD TV maker, cut its growth forecast for the second quarter from 50% to 25%.

But on the bright side, since output was cranked up for the World Cup, and the sets didn’t sell as well as the manufacturers hoped, there could well be a post-World Cup sales bonanza.

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