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2 February 2007
Viewers
connect with NOW TV
By Vicki Rothrock
VARIETY
HONG KONG - i-Cable's Cable TV,
long the dominant paybox here, is looking to its laurels
as tyro rival NOW Broadband TV, owned by PCCW, is catching
up at a rapid clip.
Three-year-old NOW has
700,000 subscribers, just behind the 770,000 that Cable
TV reported in June, in part because it has successfully
wooed movie channels and high-profile sports from Cable
TV.
However, that policy
has not come cheap and NOW is looking for ways to recover
that money.
Vivek Couto, executive
director of Media Partners Asia, estimates
that NOW paid $201 million for exclusive rights to three
seasons of English Premier League soccer compared with
the $90 million I-Cable previously paid.
NOW also landed exclusive
rights to air the UEFA European soccer tourney in 2008.
The local press report
that NOW is mulling over a rate increase of 16% on its
basic $43.30 a month package, but NOW hasn't yet made
a decision.
Increases of 5% to 10%
are more typical, Couto says. “It will be interesting
to see how they do it.”
With fewer high-profile
channels, Cable TV is looking into other options.
“We are doing a
lot of things,” says a Cable TV spokesman. “We
are planning things on the programming side, the content
side and the marketing side.”
One possibility is a
free channel that local press describes as a Chinese
entertainment channel. The paybox, however, says details
haven't yet been confirmed.
The paybox denies plans
to cut its monthly $51 rate for its standard package.
The paybox has said
it would diversify its programming with the money saved
when it lost the two soccer tournament bids.
It will be interesting
to see how much the loss of soccer and other channels
is hitting Cable TV's subs numbers.
Couto adds that I-Cable's
share price took a beating last year and suggests that
Wharf, which owns 60% of I-Cable, might privatize the
business and delist it.
NOW, which also is losing
money, offers more than 120 channels, including HBO,
Cinemax, Star Movies, ESPN and Star Sports.
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