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ESPN & Star Sports

A couple of weeks ago there was an advert in the SCMP for ESPN HD and ESPN News, but with no mention of Now TV.  Which seemed a bit odd.

Today’s SCMP explains that the contract between PCCW’s Now TV and ESPN Star Sports expired last Tuesday, and so far there is no deal in place for a renewal.  Which means that the channels could soon be available on Cable TV (ESPN used to be on Cable TV, but Star Sports was a free-to-air channel at the time), or even disappear completely - as the SCMP rather melodramatically speculates:  

Sports fans face threat of TV viewing drought

John Carney
Sep 05, 2010

The prospect of blank television screens is looming large for Hong Kong sports fans, as protracted contract talks between ESPN Star Sports and PCCW (SEHK: 0008) go down to the wire.

An exclusive six-year deal between the two companies to broadcast some of the world's biggest sporting events ended on Wednesday, and if a deal isn't struck coverage will end this week. The sides suspended cancellation of programmes to undertake 11th-hour discussions to broker a new agreement.

"This has been dragged out over the past few weeks," an executive with detailed knowledge of the negotiations said. "The talks have all but collapsed. It's been ongoing for weeks, but the situation is in limbo and there's been no progress. It was public knowledge that they had a six-year exclusive deal which has finished, but now they're in these talks and they're just not reaching an agreement. There are some frantic negotiations now taking place."

If an agreement is not found it will mean a viewing drought for many armchair sports fans.

ESPN Star Sports provides a range of sports from live coverage of Formula One, cricket internationals, golf majors and tennis grand slams, to top American sports like the NBA Finals, Baseball's World Series and the Super Bowl in American football.

ESPN Star Sports would have to find another carrier for its channels to be shown in the city. If the deal with PCCW collapses, it would have to strike a deal with Cable TV or Hong Kong Broadband Network.

"At this stage our official comment is that we are committed to work in the best interest of sports fans in Hong Kong and we continue to work closely with PCCW [towards a deal]," ESPN Star Sports said.

PCCW was also tight-lipped, as the negotiations continued.

However, the executive insider said discussions were on their last legs. "It could easily happen that they're not going to reach an agreement and that the partnership with PCCW will end," the executive said.

"ESPN Star Sports and Star Cricket channels would no longer exist, along with other new sports packages they had hoped to open to the Hong Kong market - some of these have already been promoted in the region, like ESPN HD, ESPN 24-hour News, and ESPN Player."

This year has been a tough one for Hong Kong fans, especially as, in November, PCCW's Now TV lost the rights to screen live English Premier League matches to Cable TV, leaving many soccer fans in the lurch.

Industry insiders said Cable TV paid more than US$200 million to obtain the rights. It had lost them to Now TV in 2007 when the broadband-television operator paid US$180 million for a three-year deal.

Cable TV winning the rights back prompted an angry response from viewers and bar owners faced with having to sign contracts with both television operators.

Now TV had to reduce the price of their “Now Sports megapack” when they lost the rights to the EPL, so what will they do if they also lose ESPN & Star Sports?

Dragonair – Shanghai to Hong Kong

Dragonair’s main USP is that it’s the Hong Kong airline that flies to China.  Which is also its main problem.  The table on the right is from the Dragonair website, and shows the scheduled and actual arrival times of flights from Shanghai to Hong Kong on one day (Wednesday 25 August).

The day starts off so well, with flights leaving on time and arriving on time (or early, which is possible because they schedule the flight at around 2hrs 40 minutes when it really only takes 2 hours).  CX365 and KA857 both managed to arrive 20 minutes earlier than scheduled.

The next three flights to depart were also quite good (one was four minutes early, the other two arrived less than half an hour late). 

Ah, but what about KA803, you may ask.  This was over six hours late leaving, and six and a half hours late landing.  Which must mean that it spent nearly an hour after leaving the gate taxiing around before it actually took off.   Just what you need after a six hour wait (though I assume that most of the passengers were switched to earlier flights).

Things didn’t get any better after that.  Out of the eight flights scheduled to depart after 2pm, the "best" performances are from two that <only> had a delay of 90 minutes, and the worst a staggering 3 hours and 45 minutes late arriving.  Then there’s a Cathay flight weighing in with a 3 hour 20 minutes delay - and there’s quite a big difference between landing at 8.10pm and 11.30pm as your evening completely disappears.

Oh, and KA875 was cancelled.

Of course it’s not all Dragonair’s fault, but rather a result of the vast number of flights down the east coast of China - from Beijing, Shanghai Pudong and Honqqiao, Nanjing, Hangzhou (and a few more besides) down to the Pearl River delta (Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzen and Macau), and don’t lets forget the flights between Shanghai and Beijing, and even Hong Kong to Guangzhou for people who really hate trains.

So much football, lah

It doesn't seem that long ago that we only got one EPL game live on Saturday night.  Then it became two of the 3pm kick-offs, and then (3 years ago) every single game.

Perhaps even more amazing is that we now get up to 3 live games on Saturday from the Championship (the second tier of English football) courtesy of Goal TV, which has recently been added to the Now Sports package.

Goal TV also has selected programmes from the club channels of Chelsea, Liverpool, Real Madrid and Barcelona, including full matches (but recorded rather than live).

MUTV (Manchester United’s channel) is no longer available through Goal TV but has become a standalone channel on Now TV - for which you have to pay extra.  They seem to show their EPL games a few hours after they have finished.

So what is available? 

• English Premier League - Cable TV has the live rights
  • MUTV (Manchester United TV) - Now TV
  • Chelsea TV, Liverpool TV – Goal TV (Now Sports) 
• Champions League and Europa League - Cable TV
• Italian Serie A - Cable TV and Now Sports
• Spanish La Liga - Now Sports
• German Bundesliga - Cable TV
• French Ligue 1 - Now Sports
• Scottish Premier League -  Goal TV
• Dutch League -  Goal TV
• English FA Cup - Star Sports (Now Sports)
• English Football League -  Goal TV

As ever, updates and corrections are very welcome.

Why I switched on comment moderation

Some recent comments:

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No daleks

Just watching The Hotel Inspector on BBC Lifestyle, and I was puzzling over what had been blurred out.   BBC Lifestyle has been known to blur out all manner of fairly innocuous things lest they offend sensitive viewers.

Turns out that it was a dalek (unblurred image shown right)…

It did seem odd that there were numerous references in the programme to the dalek in the entrance hall, that somehow we never saw it, and apparently it was for copyright reasons rather than for reasons of decency.

Thanks, by the way, to the person at Now TV who finally figured out that it is now being broadcast in widescreen and made the necessary changes so that we didn’t have wide bands at the top and bottom and a squashed picture.  You might want to do the same thing on BBC Knowledge.

Storm warning

Am I the only person in Hong Kong who is happy that Tropical Storm Chathu is apparently heading away from here?

Earlier today everyone else seemed to be eagerly anticipating a day off on Thursday on the assumption that the Observatory would raise the #8 signal.  Except that it now seems rather unlikely to happen, and all we will get is some rain and a bit of wind as the storm heads past, and maybe the rather unsatisfactory #3 signal. 

Anyway, my experience is that they usually raise or lower the #8 signal at inconvenient times, so everyone rushes home at the same time and all public transport is horribly overcrowded.  I can’t quite see the benefit of being sent home an hour early and then spending twice as long as normal to actually get home. 

On the other hand, if you can ignore the hysterical behaviour of your colleagues and stay in the office until most people have fled back home (to stick tape on their windows and rush to the supermarket to stock up on emergency rations) you might actually have a more pleasant journey home.  And busy places such as Causeway Bay take on an almost surreal quality when most people have gone home but buses and other public transport are still operating.

Prudential boss takes over at AIA

The Prudential/AIA saga continues - last week the chairman of AIG quit, and now AIA has replaced its CEO. 

Mark Wilson was quoted by the FT as saying that he would quit if Prudential acquired AIA, though he probably knew he would have the decision made for him if the deal had gone through.   But instead of being asked to leave by Prudential he has met the same fate at the hands of AIG, who were not best pleased by his candour.

And the amusing twist is that he is being replaced by someone from Prudential - Mark Tucker, who was very successful in building Prudential's Asian business (based in Hong Kong) before being promoted to become CEO of the parent company in 2005 (a job he left last year).

Air rage

So there I was in the usual throng of people waiting to get on the plane.  A middle-aged man was trying to get past me, and became upset when I didn’t immediately get out of his way.

He spoke.  “Typically, I like to be with my children”.  I looked around for a distraught seven year-old, but all I could see were two teenage girls who seemed fairly unperturbed to be momentarily separated from their father.

But of course I let him through.

Invaluable advice

I was recently asked what “invaluable” means.  Simple enough, but also rather puzzling when you consider that in+valuable should mean not valuable, as in words such as inconsistent and inexact.

The explanation is that valuable used to mean something that you could value (in contrast to something that is impossible to value, or priceless).  So you might have said that a pound of potatoes was valuable (because we can calculate its value), whereas good advice was invaluable.

Of course, valuable has now come to mean something with a high value - though it is often used almost interchangeably with invaluable, thus causing great confusion to anyone trying to learn English.   See also: flammable and inflammable.

Ovi not so suite

What is it with people who design upgrades to software?

I was prompted to ”upgrade” my Nokia PC Suite to Ovi.  This brilliantly designed piece of software thinks that I want to copy all the music and podcasts from my PC to my mobile phone.  I don’t.  And there isn’t space.

Never mind, it just goes ahead and tries to use up all the space that is available.  Then the phone displays dozens of messages telling me that there is no space.  Well, thanks for that.

The only solution I could find was to delete most of the podcasts off the phone (to create some space) and then manually remove a lot of the music from the Ovi desktop software.  Eventually it was able to synchronize.  What a mess.

What were they thinking?

Stupid letters

Why does the SCMP publish a letter from someone living in South Africa about US domestic politics?

Reject Kagan

US Solicitor General Elena Kagan's ascendancy to the Supreme Court should be emphatically rejected.

Kagan has not yet had time to develop a mature philosophy of judging.

People need to know of Kagan's agenda-driven approach to legal interpretation, which in terms of the life issues is out of step with the mainstream of the American public.

John Smith, Sandton, South Africa

A quick Google search reveals that a longer version of the same letter has been published in the Barbados Advocate (a publication of which I had not previously been aware), but that “John Smith” claims to live in Brooklyn.  Curious.

National Geographic trying to save paper

Save time and money, it says.

By signing up for two years, you save the Society the expense of sending renewal reminders to you next year (and you help us conserve paper)

Well, if you want to save paper maybe you could resist the temptation to stuff the envelope with all these different bits of paper.  That I really don’t need.

Thanks, that’s all.

AIA staff celebrate

When Prudential’s ill-fated attempt to buy AIA was first announced, the SCMP was very slow getting on to the story.  Today (Thursday) they even seem to have more coverage than the FT (or at least its Asian edition), so I think I wasted HK$28 on the pink 'un.  This is one of the SCMP’s three stories:

AIA staff celebrate Prudential deal collapse

Enoch Yiu
Jun 03, 2010

The champagne corks were popping at American International Assurance offices in Hong Kong yesterday after the collapse of the deal with British insurer Prudential.

AIA staff and agents feel more secure in their jobs and are hoping parent American International Group will revive the listing of the company in Hong Kong in the third or fourth quarter. Insiders at both AIG and AIA said a separate listing of AIA would give them a better chance of keeping their jobs and receiving share options.

"I am a shareholder of Prudential and was prepared to vote against the deal," said one AIA staff member. "This is the time to celebrate and we plan to have a drink as our lives can get back to normal now."

The staff member, who did not want to be named, said many AIA staff and agents had felt uncertain since Prudential's offer in March of US$35.5 billion to take over AIA. Their main concerns were job security and change of management style.

"AIA and Prudential have many differences in their history, background and management style," the staff member said. "If the merger had proceeded, many staff and agents might have faced lay-offs."

Prudential would lay off agents from AIA?  What would be the point of that?  Isn’t it the sales force that they wanted to acquire?

Another person familiar with AIG and AIA said the management and agents have never been happy with the idea of the merger with Prudential. "Management feared a merger would lead to the loss of their jobs while the agents worried about a change of house rules and sales practices," the person said. "For senior management and some agents, many of them hoped the listing of AIA would give them share options."

Well, yes, that seems closer to the truth.

Failed

Well, well.  Common sense prevails (for once) and a huge and stupid acquisition is abandoned.

Prudential top brass fight for their jobs as AIA takeover abandoned

Prudential has bowed to shareholder pressure and formally abandoned its attempt to take over the Asian insurer AIA, leaving its management team with a £450m bill as they fight for their futures.

In a statement released overnight, the Pru said it is terminating its negotiations with AIA, after parent company AIG refused to accept a reduced offer of $30.375bn (£24bn) against the original terms of $35.5bn.

Pru chief executive Tidjane Thiam, who is under pressure following the deal's failure, insisted that he was right to target expansion opportunities in the far east.

"We entered into this potential transaction from a position of strength in Asia and we view the region as offering excellent growth opportunities for Prudential," he said.

Blah, blah…

Pru chairman Harvey McGrath blamed recent market turbulence for sinking the "excellent opportunity" to buy AIG's far eastern assets.

"We listened carefully to shareholders over the price and initiated a renegotiation of the terms with AIG. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to reach agreement so we feel it is in the best interest of our shareholders not to pursue this opportunity," said McGrath.

It was never an “excellent opportunity”.  If Prudential have money to invest in Asia they should be using it to grow their own business, or buying much smaller companies that they could absorb.

The Pru must now pay a break fee of £152.5m to AIA for walking away from the deal, plus £81m in fees to City institutions. The rest of the £450m was incurred in legal and advisory fees, plus the estimated cost of various derivatives contracts which were taken out to hedge the value of the pound against the dollar. These contracts were needed because the Pru planned to raise £14.5bn in a record-breaking rights issue, but pay $23bn in cash. The pound had fluctuated against the dollar in the months since the bid was launched, and some analysts believe this may actually have generated profits, reducing the total cost of the failed bid.

Leading City investors warned last night that both McGrath and Thiam face calls to step down. Robin Geffen, chief investment officer of the fund manager Neptune, said the pair were guilty of attempting to buy "a large Asian company, at a very high price, with a very unclear strategy". James Chappell of Olivetree Securities questioned whether investors still had faith in Thiam, who became chief executive last October.

How can investors have any confidence in Thiam?  Surely he has to go.

Prudential & AIA: more problems

Prudential’s madcap scheme to buy AIA is still not going well.  Earlier in the week, the CEO of AIA was reported as telling friends that the deal was “unworkable”, and now they are trying to reduce the price.  And the SCMP finally seems sufficiently interested in the story to have assigned one of its own writers rather than recycling agency reports:

Prudential seeks price cut to save AIA deal

British insurer in talks with AIG for discount to win over investors opposed to buyout

Prudential is scrambling to secure a last-minute discount on the US$35.5 billion price it is paying for Asian rival AIA Group, in a bid to save the controversial buyout that a significant minority of its shareholders oppose.

The British life insurer said it was talking to AIA's US parent, American International Group, about changing the terms of the transaction. It would now offer US$30 billion for AIA, analysts at Bernstein Research said, although Prudential did not confirm this.

While it is highly unusual for shareholders in blue-chip British companies to vote against acquisitions, Robin Geffen, a London-based fund manager who has set up an action group to oppose the takeover, said 20 per cent of Prudential's investors supported him.

Even at US$30 billion, some investors say the ambitious takeover remains too risky, because the British firm will still be paying vastly more than its £13.7 billion (HK$155.62 billion) market value for AIA.

"Discussions regarding the current status of the transaction have taken place between Prudential and AIG and are continuing," Prudential, which is primarily listed in London but also joined the Hong Kong stock exchange on Tuesday, said. "These discussions may or may not lead to a change in the terms of the combination of AIA and Prudential".

"Paying US$5 billion less is a side issue," said a British fund manager, who owns Prudential stock but cannot talk publicly about individual companies. "And shareholders who are against the deal have other fundamental concerns."

The investor said Prudential could fail to integrate its already large Asian insurance sales force with AIA's because the two companies had operated as bitter rivals in this region for decades.

Well, indeed.  That won’t be easy to solve, as Mark Wilson understands.

He added that he was "very uncomfortable" with Prudential chief executive Tidjane Thiam's plan to rapidly transform the insurer into an Asian business.

"This is a stable British company paying good dividends. After this deal, over 80 per cent of its business would be in Asia. And I don't run an Asia fund," he said.

Today, the Observer takes a negative view (Prudential's bid for AIA wilts under heat of criticism), whilst the Sunday Times seems more positive (Pru wins backing for 10% off AIA) – but why should AIG agree to cut the price when there’s already a deal in place with penalty clauses if Prudential fail to complete on time?