ICable May Lose U.K. Soccer Broadcast Right to ESPN, Paper Says
quote.bloomberg.com
By Cathy Chan
Hong Kong, Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- ICable Communications Ltd., Hong Kong's only cable television provider, may lose its right to broadcast the English Premier League when its distribution contract expires by the middle of this year, Ming Pao Daily reported, citing unidentified people.
Transworld International Ltd., which owns rights to the U.K. soccer league, reached a preliminary agreement to sell the program to ESPN, a sports channel owned by Satellite Television Asian Region, the paper said. ESPN earlier won the right to distribute the U.K. FA Cup matches from iCable, the paper said.
If ESPN completes the agreement with TWI, iCable may have to pay a ``hefty'' price to ESPN to redistribute the matches or lose a big chunk of its subscribers, the paper said.
I-Cable currently has 520,000 subscribers. It raised fees for its pay TV service by 6 percent this year because of higher programming and operating costs. The company expects the higher charges may lead to 1.7 percent of customers dropping subscriptions in the first couple of months.
(Ming Pao Daily 30/1, Business p.3) {MPDN } for the newspaper Web site. |
