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Overpowering pirate broadcasts is expensive
No advertising from Morocco
Spain’s commercial broadcasters are still complaining about pirate stations. They’d still like the government to do something about what they estimate as three thousand unlicensed broadcasters. The illegals are causing, they say, a huge technical problem.
“We must demand from the public administration, once and for all, a ‘D-day’ for the closure of illegal broadcasting,” said commercial broadcaster’s association (AERC) president Javier Gonzalez at the close of the group’s general assembly, reported El Mundo. (July 15). “When we are surrounded by interfering illegal stations we, who are legal, must over-ride the signal so people can hear us. We pay our taxes. We give a lot to our workers.” (See more about media in Spain here)
It seems the big commercial channels have been boosting output power on their FM transmitters, which has led to hefty fines. “We have no interest in putting our signals into Morocco or Algeria,” explained Sr. Gonzalez. “There’s no advertising in these regions.”
Music and performance rights fees were also – as always – a point of contention. AERC members complained of “discriminatory treatment” from collecting agencies charging lower fees to public broadcasters.
Deal-flow in the post-modern age
Or just another “rosebud”
When it comes to headlines in the media world, nobody splashes bigger than Rupert Murdoch. The giga-billion bid by 21st Century Fox for Time Warner – rejected, so far – attracted considerable attention; financial analysts over the moon, media analysts slightly more muted and consumer advocates horrified. Should it succeed the Murdoch family would add a major Hollywood studio (Warner Bros), hugely successful TV network (HBO) and a huge stable of sports rights holdings to its already highly profitable business.
For institutional investors and other money people deal-flow in the media sector means more money in their pockets. Some noted – correctly – that consolidation in the distribution business – telecoms expanding into TV – is being met with consolidation in the content sector, each looking for leverage over the other. Media watchers hear echos of the News Corporation – before entertainment was split from newspapers – acquisition of Dow Jones; over-priced, value written-down, the Wall Street Journal considerably diminished. (See more on Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation here) Others see the crusade to acquire Time Warner as just another “rosebud” moment.
There’s no reason for Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes to sell, pressure from institutional investors looking for a cash-out notwithstanding. Time Warner is off-loading its cable business to Comcast, which gobbled up NBCUniversal creating a huge vertical and horizontal media business. (See IfM 2014 ranking of global media companies here) Time Warner is considered well-run and “disciplined” while the Murdoch family is mired in succession issues.
The European interest in all this, aside from long-standing attention to all things involving Rupert Murdoch, is the expressed intention of creating a Sky Europe pay-TV network, combining BSkyB in the UK and Ireland with Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia. BSkyB off-loaded its small but not insignificant stake in UK TV operator ITV this week to Liberty Global, owner of Virgin Media, suggested as a precursor to the creation of Sky Europe. Last year Time Warner took control of CME, the major television operator in Central and Eastern Europe. It’s another possibility for convergence.
As it usually happens, once institutional investors and their financial advisors start to smell money in the water the temperature rises considerably. Hints that Google, Apple or Amazon might bid for Time Warner to cement content strategies aren’t completely crazy. Maybe we can watch “Money Never Sleeps” on Netflix this afternoon.
Surge for contemporary music channels
Dearth for news
Portugal’s two biggest nation radio channels are only bigger, according to the March-June Bareme Radio/Marktest survey. Grupo Renascenca (R/Com) channels held aggregate market share leadership over Media Capital Radios (MCR) channels; 36.4% vs. 33.7%, respectively. Total weekly reach was unchanged year on year at 80.9%.
Radio Comercial (MCR) held the top position with 23.0%, up from 20.3% year on year. Second place, again, went to RFM (R/Com) with 21.2%, up from 17.8%. Both are contemporary music channels. (See Portugal national audience trend chart here)
General interest channel Radio Renascenca (R/Com) placed third, falling to 8.2% market share from 9.5% one year on. Pop/dance music channel Mega Hits (R/Com) added a full point, 4.3% market share and 6th place. Oldies music channel M80 (MCR) dropped to 5.4% market share from 6.7%.
Public general interest channel RTP Antena 1 held 4th place, off slightly to 6.7% market share. Contemporary/alternative music channel RTP Antena 3 dropped to 2.8% market share from 4.0%, not recovering from a format change last year.
News-talk channel TSF (Controlinveste) showed the biggest audience deficit, falling to 3.8% market share from 5.3% year on year but holding 7th place in the national rankings.
Records, records and more records
“Fútbol, fútbol y más fútbol
It would be remiss not to restate the obvious: TV audiences for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil were record breaking. Eventually worldwide totals will be tallied, likely well above the pre-match estimates of one billion viewers. So far, lots of fun facts are being traded back and forth.
The Germany-Argentina final Sunday night drew 34.6 million viewers to the ARD broadcast in Germany. It was the largest ever TV audience in Germany, reported Spiegel.de (July 14). The previous German record was set earlier in the week for the Germany-Brazil match.
The World Cup final drew a 42.7% audience share in Argentina on TV Pública. Interestingly, the Brazil-Germany semi-final drew a bigger audience share: 51.5%. Several channels in Argentina divided up World Cup broadcasts.
“Fútbol, fútbol y más fútbol,” wrote Argentine news portal pagina12.com.ar (July 15). “That’s (almost) the only thing that the Argentines wanted to see since June 12. After the World Cup, TV audiences will probably return, more or less, to their natural state.”
Audience records tumbled across Europe, noted trade Association of Commercial Television in Europe (ACT), as well as online viewing, out-of-home viewing and, naturally, second screen engagement. (See ACT presser here) The amount of money changing hands – from sports rights to advertising and production – will keep up that post-tournament glow.
Controversial broadcaster plans to enter production business
“visual product”
Entering the production business is very attractive for broadcasters, particularly those of a certain scale. With so many new outlets for audio and video content there is potential for new revenue streams. The idea has not escaped Alexei Venediktov, managing editor of Russian news-talk radio channel Ekho Moskvy.
Pending board of director’s approval, Ekho Moskvy could set up a production arm, “which will sell content to other Russian and foreign broadcasters,” he said, quoted by Itar-Tass (July 11). “It is not just TV; it’s television and radio. The question is how radio content becomes television, a visual product.” (See more about media in Russia here)
Ekho Moskvy is nearing its 25th anniversary in August, surprising nearly all Russian media watchers because of a history of reporting often critical of the State. Mr. Venediktov, one of Russia’s most well-known broadcasters, also indicated he is preparing to ask the channel’s owner, Gazprom Media, to sell its majority stake to him when the board meets next week. Ekho Moskvy launched Ekho TV in 2002, which operates separately offering video streams of talk shows on cable networks.
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