For anyone who’s been acquainted with Singapore’s media industry over the past decade or so, may be experiencing a strong case of déjà vu. For 2001 saw the Singapore government issue a broadcast license to Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) and a print licence to MediaCorp in order to stimulate ‘healthy competition’ in the city-state’s media industry. Bidding wars between SPH MediaWorks and MediaCorp pushed content prices through the roof (TVB content being one case in point); staff switched sides; and the rival broadcasters engaged in an embarrassing spat that belonged more in a play-school playground than in the mainstream press. A lot of money spent, tears shed and jobs lost, four years later saw a government admission that a market of less than five million people was not big enough to sustain significant competition in the media arena. So the latest move to encourage competition, this time in Singapore’s Pay TV space, shows some early similarities to Free-to-Air’s failed experiment. This time the hot ticket item is the English Premier League soccer; on 1 October 2009, SingTel announced that it had won the bid for the rights to the Barclays Premier League matches for three years commencing August 2010. These include rights for mio TV, as well as the internet and mobile. In addition to winning the Barclays Premier League rights, SingTel also secured the exclusive broadcast rights to a suite of sports networks and services from ESPN STAR Sports (ESS) for its mio TV customers starting mid-2010. Three of the channels are ESPN, STAR Sports and STAR Cricket that are currently available on a cable TV platform. These are ESS’ current flagship channel offerings, featuring sporting events including The FA Cup, AFC, Formula One, the Australian Open, Wimbledon, The Open Championship (golf) and the US Open Golf Championship. On the other hand, in a statement entitled ‘StarHub To Shed BPL and ESPN STAR Sports Channels’, StarHub implied that it was not willing to overbid this time round. “While we are committed to offering quality sports content, we are mindful of the balance in meeting consumers’ expectations with regard to price, and shareholders’ expectations in terms of profits. Presently our Sports package is priced below the cost of the content that makes up that package. Our bid for BPL was aggressive, but also made with the intent to hold retail prices stable,” said Kathleen Syron, head of content, StarHub. SingTel immediately retaliated by allaying consumers’ fears on content costs being reflecting in subscription prices. In a statement, SingTel said that the Barclays Premier League will cost S$23 (US$16.40) per month and will include all 380 Premier League matches.This includes one high-definition set-top box. Customers who sign a one-year plan to watch these matches will also enjoy the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League at no additional cost till May 2011. Allen Lew, SingTel’s CEO Singapore said, “We have promised football fans that they will not be charged more than what they have been paying their cable operator. And we are delivering on our promise – in fact, watching the Barclays Premier League matches will cost them almost 60 percent less.” Customers will also have the option to subscribe to a wider range of sports programmes at $25 on mio TV. Besides the Barclays Premier League, this will include other content which will be revealed once the composition of the additional channels is confirmed. In the run-up to the BPL bidding process, SingTel had announced 7 August 2009 that it was giving football fans the chance to enjoy Football Frenzy on mio TV for free till 31 October 2009. The offer was available to all 100,000 plus mio TV customers, and according to SingTel, anyone with a sports channel cable TV subscription also qualified for the free service. The free service included complimentary installation of the mio TV Set-Top Box and modem. With this, customers also received a month-long trial of mio TV’s full range of content. Meanwhile, the Media Development Authority (MDA) responded to letters and commentaries on the bidding for the Barclays Premier League rights. “We understand the concerns raised,” said a statement. “The bidding for the Barclays Premier League (BPL) rights is a commercial process, with the bidding and broadcast terms determined by the Football Association Premier League (FAPL) and agreed upon with the bidders. Prior to the BPL bidding, MDA had begun dialogue sessions with the industry on possible regulatory interventions to address this issue for the longer term.” “With the award of the BPL rights for the 2010 – 2013 seasons, MDA had asked SingTel to provide clarity on the pricing of their sports packages. We note that SingTel has committed to not charging more than what cable subscribers are currently paying and ensuring 100 percent rollout to all households by the time the EPL season starts in August 2010. Separately, MDA had also asked StarHub Cable Vision (SCV) to provide clarity on their termination charges for those subscribers who wish to switch subscription plans. We note that SCV has announced that they will not be charging any early termination fees for subscribers of sports packages who cancel their service after July next year.” Content exclusivity first came under public scrutiny in 2006 when Singapore Telecommunications appealed unsuccessfully to the Media Development Authority (MDA) to ban exclusive content such as the English Premier League (EPL) on the grounds that it discourages competition. Consumers also voiced their dissent on having to pay more for premium content that cannot be obtained elsewhere. Three years on, after SingTel out-bid StarHub, online forums and newspapers were flooded with complaints about the possibility of having to pay extra for an additional pay-TV subscription. Early November saw SingTel mio TV announce 126,000 subs, plus an Early Bird offers for sports fans. The telco said that during Q3, mio TV attracted 25,000 new customers to reach 126,000 as at 30 September 2009. With 18,000 net customers added in the quarter, the total customer base for mio Plan and mio Home bundles grew to 152,000 as at 30 September 2009. Mr Allen Lew, CEO Singapore, said, “In a game-changing move, SingTel secured the rights to broadcast the Barclays Premier League for three seasons starting in 2010 and also a suite of ESPN STAR Sports channels. And this will significantly enhance our competitiveness.” SingTel also announced that it is offering two Early Bird specials to sports fans who sign up for the Barclays Premier League 2010/11 and the ESPN STAR Sports suite of channels, or the standalone Barclays Premier League 2010/11 matches. For a limited period, customers who sign up for either the Barclays Premier League 2010/11 season or Barclays Premier League 2010/11 with ESPN Star Sports Channels on a 12-month subscription basis will receive the Football Frenzy Pack (worth $15.90 per month) absolutely free till 31 July 2010. This lets them view all the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League matches – both ‘live’ and demand – over TV, mobile phone and online, as well as the Italian Serie A (09/10 season) matches on mio TV. StarHub, meanwhile, reported 535,000 cable TV subs and that it would be offering two free sports channels. Pay TV revenue rose two percent for the quarter. YTD, revenue also saw a two percent growth to S$303 million from S$298 million. Driven by a higher customer base and steady ARPU, pay TV ARPU remained stable at S$56 YoY. It also kept constant at S$57 YTD. The customer base was up three percent to 535,000. Digital customers now make up 100 percent of the total pay TV customer base. And come 2010, StarHub will offer cable TV customers free access to two sports channels. StarHub will launch a new self-packaged 24-hour sports channel which will be available free to its entire cable TV base from January 2010. This channel will carry a wide variety of sports content including football, wrestling, tennis and local sports. From July 2010, all StarHub’s cable TV customers will also enjoy a free 24-hour sports news channel from Eurosportnews, presently offered as part of StarHub’s Sports Group. In addition, StarHub has pledged to reduce its pricing for the Sports Group by more than 50 percent from July 2010, and the new price will be unveiled in the coming months. Currently, StarHub TV customers can add the Sports Group for a monthly subscription fee of S$25. StarHub also announced a collaboration with Mirror Group Newspapers for the launch of a football news channel on StarHub Mobile – Mirror Football. StarHub Mobile post-paid customers can access Mirror Football for free for the latest stories, pictures and videos on The Premier League, Champions League and Europa Cup. Customers can access Mirror Football via StarHub’s Gee! mobile content portal from their 3G mobile phone. And in an interesting PR strategy, StarHub made public that it was willing to carry mio TV’s sports channels on its Cable TV platform, at no cost to SingTel. This, they said, was to avoid the two set-top-box dilemma that some customers were complaining about. Said a statement, “StarHub would like to make it clear that we completely disagree with any claims about technological reasons for not accepting our recent proposal. And it is not true that StarHub TV customers must upgrade their set-top box next year for the NGNBN. It is StarHub’s opinion that they should wait for the new universal set-top box rather than introduce another proprietary set-top box. The issue is simply having the convenience of one box, whether or not it needs to be upgraded in 2012 or 2020. It is very clear that most StarHub TV customers who want access to BPL in the future while also enjoying the other branded content from StarHub do not want to wrestle with two set-top boxes, more wiring and multiple connections.” Continues the statement, “The sub-agenda for each of us is transparent. Each operator would like to have its set-top box as the preferred box in the home. That is one reason why StarHub is making the proposal, and the only reason why our competitor would not accept it. But we believe our agenda is very much aligned with public interest and consumers’ wishes. We also support a universal set-top box solution that would be operator agnostic, and connected to the new national infrastructure. So we accept a future that does not include a proprietary box. This too is aligned with consumers’ interest. Our proposal maintains the status quo until the Government has an opportunity to study the concept of a universal set-top box. StarHub has approached SingTel formally about our offer to carry SingTel’s branded BPL channel and ESS channels on the StarHub TV network. It should be noted that our proposal provides an option for consumers. If for whatever reason they want two set-top boxes, or only our competitors’ boxes, they can. So if our competitor really thinks their box has some technical advantage, then they should welcome StarHub’s proposal.”