UEFA Contract Change Urged On Blackouts: Thailand

[webfact]

UEFA contract change urged on blackouts

WATCHIRANONT THONGTEP

THE NATION

BANGKOK: -- Satellite TV customers might be able to view live broadcasts of the Euro 2012 tournament if the Union of European Football Associations (Uefa) agrees to change its contract with GMM Grammy, which holds the broadcast rights in Thailand, to extend those rights to other satellite TV platforms.

Those would probably include PSI, IPM and TrueVisions satellite dishes equipped with conditioned access (CA) systems.

Music and entertainment giant GMM Grammy yesterday faced heavily pressure both from a consumer-rights group and the government to renegotiate its deal with Uefa to allow free TV providers ThaiTV3, the Royal Army's TV5 and MCOT's Modernine TV to transmit the satellite signal of live matches to satellite TV receivers.

Satellite TV customers need a set-top box equipped with the CA system to encrypt and control transmissions of the copyrighted programmes within the Kingdom to meet current Uefa rules.

In a discussion hosted by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunication Commission yesterday, Boonyuen Siritham, chairman of the Confederation of Consumer Organisations, urged the NBTC to protect consumer rights, as more than 10 million satellite TV viewers had been suffering from blank screens since Euro 2012 began last Friday.

NBTC commissioner Supinya Klangnarong, speaking as the moderator of the discussion, appealed to GMM Grammy to explain the current situation to the rights owner (Uefa) and urge it to allow authorised free-TV operators to pass along the live matches via satellite TV signals soon to protect consumer rights.

In a separate discussion, the House of Representatives panel on consumer protection and communications also called in all relevant parties, including the NBTC, TrueVisions and GMM Grammy, urging GMM to call for a new round of negotiation with Uefa to resolve this problem.

Dew Waratangtagoon, managing director for platform strategy at Grammy content provider GMM Z, said yesterday that the company understood the situation and had asked Uefa to change the contract to extend the broadcast rights as per the requests of the NBTC and the House panel on consumer protection and communications.

"We expect to receive the answer from Uefa shortly and report the result to the permanent secretary of the Prime Minister's Office" early this afternoon, Dew said.

Teerayuth Boonchote, senior vice president for broadcast at Thaicom, the parent company of DTV, a satellite broadcast partner for Euro 2012, said that if Uefa allowed those free TV providers to do so, the company would also request a change in its contract.

-- The Nation 2012-06-15

[punisher]

Why Thailand always needs an extras way?I don't think its job of the UEFA to take care about thailands media landscape..If the thais are to stupid,or just not willing to have clear rules and laws then nobody else is to blame but Thailand.GMM bought the rights to broadcast the EURO 2012,then only GMM can decide what they want to do,if there is a law in Thailand what says U can,t buy exclusive rights,then sue GMM or come with a preliminary injunction,if there is no law like that,then just shut up.I start thinking True,GMM and NBTC working together,seems a bit fishy to me True let GMM sell their boxes at a sister company of True,NBTC sentenced True only to 20000bt a day,so that way everybody keeps face,and all 3 can share to profit,amazing thailand

[Curt1591]

Honor contracts? Who honors contracts?

[Thai at Heart]

This has absolutely NOTHING to do with the Uefa contract.

Grammy has a contract with 3,5 and 7 and is trying to get True to pay for something it already should get due to its existing arrangements with 3,5 and 7.

It isn't True's fault that it already has these agreements in place, but it is very much Grammy's problem. I don't like True one bit, but why should it do anything at all? I am amazed at all that True even sits to negotiate, it has no obligation to talk to Grammy whatsoever. Of course, Grammy could offer its Grammy channel to True also, but then who would go out and buy Grammy's set top box? No one.

Of course, Grammy would love to get True to pay for the football, but all it can do is scream that True is playing foul, but the decision whether or not True gets the signal is entirely up to Grammy, since I don't see what right Grammy has to "change" the long standing arrangements between 3,5,7 and True.

Edited June 15, 2012 by Thai at Heart

[theblether]

The final round of group matches start tomorrow, will Hokland beat Portugal, will Denmark get a draw against Germany and knock Holland out?

Torres is on form!! 2 rapdid fire goals, Wayne Rooney will be back for England against tournament hosts Ukraine, can Wayne fire England to the quarter finals!! The excitement is building, the players, the coaches, the fans are full of nerves, biting finger nails, sleepless nights, whole countries are coming to a halt in anticipation!! A billion eyes look on in anticipation when.....stop everything!!

'Sawatee Khrab Mr UEFA man, can you come to negotiating table and redo the Thai market broadcast rights please, you see, we know we had years of notice but we're incapable of forward planning, don't ask why, it's Thai culture, it's a mystery for farang, Khrab'.

[beano2274]

Grammy bought the rights from UEFA, the deal is closed. True had the chance of getting a stake in the showing of football but did not want, Grammy then wanted to get some of its investment back and decided to talk to another company, who jumped at the opportunity to have viewers watching its channels.

UEFA have done the deal, they will not change it now.

True messed up and are trying to say it is not their fault, but now they are losing the monopoly on showing TV from other countries, which can only be good for the consumer.

[carra]

Surely it is not Grammy that is saying True can not broadcast, it is eufa, so how are Grammy at fault?

Are you suggesting Grammy should breach their agreement with eufa just so true can be let off the hook, the rules are clear that no satellite broadcaster can show the games whether they are on free to air channels or not.

Sorry but True messed up here by not checking the rules and regs thoroughly, the assumed it would be shown on the free channels and they were wrong, and they were wrong because nobody bothered to check.

[LuckyLew]

What part of

"UEFA do not care who watches it as long as they got their money"

do these people not understand?

[theblether]

What part of

"UEFA do not care who watches it as long as they got their money"

do these people not understand?

That's not true, UEFA do care who watches and there will be a review of what happened with broadcast partners worldwide after the tournament, there always is.

UEFA may be irritated by what has happened in Thailand, Asia is an extraordinarily important marketplace for football.

They are however unlikely to drop everything half way through the tournament to address it as suggested by the Nation. Quite right too.

[Thai at Heart]

http://www.danielgeey.com/blog/?m=201206

In three separate cases, UEFA and FIFA brought actions before the European courts relating to the way its broadcasting rights can be marketed in Belgium and the UK. In particular, the UK listed every match in the EUROs as being of national significance. That practically meant that only terrestrial broadcasters could bid to screen the EUROs. UEFA challenged this decision.

The Decision

The court decided that the EUROs and World Cup could be listed in their entirety. Specifically, the court stated the following:

• all EURO and World Cup games could be listed by the UK government even if the game did not involve a home nations team. This begs the question as to how many UK viewers would deem a EUROs match between Ukraine v France as of cultural significance to the UK? However, if in the EUROs Ukraine v France was the determining fixture to decide whether England goes through to the knock-out stages of the competition, there would certainly be an argument for that game being of cultural significance. The context of the game therefore becomes very important and something that could not be easily catered for before a tournament began.
  
• the entitlement of a UK citizen to watch the complete tournament unravelling on a free-to-air, non-pay TV broadcast channel, is viewed by many as an inherent right. The expectation of not having to pay to watch live football which UK viewers have traditionally watched for free does hold some merit when one considers that the hugely popular Premier League and Champions League competitions are not protected under the UK list at all.
  
• a reduction in broadcaster competition would not destroy the value of the rights. If the rights holder decides to sell them on an exclusive basis then it understands such an exclusive arrangement can only be entered into with a relevant terrestrial broadcaster.
  

How Europe handles the issue.

[LucidLucifer]

What part of

"UEFA do not care who watches it as long as they got their money"

do these people not understand?

That's not true, UEFA do care who watches and there will be a review of what happened with broadcast partners worldwide after the tournament, there always is.

UEFA may be irritated by what has happened in Thailand, Asia is an extraordinarily important marketplace for football.

Quite right. Football is a business and thrives on advertising revenues which is directly linked to worldwide exposure. The greater the exposure, the greater the revenue.

[theblether]

What part of

"UEFA do not care who watches it as long as they got their money"

do these people not understand?

That's not true, UEFA do care who watches and there will be a review of what happened with broadcast partners worldwide after the tournament, there always is.

UEFA may be irritated by what has happened in Thailand, Asia is an extraordinarily important marketplace for football.

Quite right. Football is a business and thrives on advertising revenues which is directly linked to worldwide exposure. The greater the exposure, the greater the revenue.

Correct, I believe Sky TV agreed a new deal with the English Premiership yesterday for £3 billion.

In my opinion the Premiership is now the number one sporting advertising medium in the World, bigger than the Olympics by miles, quite simply due to the amount of worldwide interest on a daily!! Basis.

No other sport or league comes close, and it's fascinating for me to sit and watch the Asiam advertising money at play.

Tune advertise on the referees shirts, and one of my dodgy pals stole a pallet of Chang beer the other day, in Scotland.

Chang beer in Scotland! The Asians are not daft, they advertise in the Premiership to impress their home markets, and get the side benefit of breaking into the UK and other worldwide markets!! Good for them!!

My pal is bringing me a dozen case of Chang tonight, I'll buy a bag of ice, order a takeaway Tom Yam Kung and Pad Thai, and sit in my flat in central Glasgow listening to my Learn How to Speak Thai course. All I need is a couple of mosquitos and a bar girl and my night will be complete!! Wait, wait, what's that number for the local Thai massage place???

All thanks to TV money, the power of advertising.

[LucidLucifer]

What part of

"UEFA do not care who watches it as long as they got their money"

do these people not understand?

That's not true, UEFA do care who watches and there will be a review of what happened with broadcast partners worldwide after the tournament, there always is.

UEFA may be irritated by what has happened in Thailand, Asia is an extraordinarily important marketplace for football.

Quite right. Football is a business and thrives on advertising revenues which is directly linked to worldwide exposure. The greater the exposure, the greater the revenue.

Correct, I believe Sky TV agreed a new deal with the English Premiership yesterday for £3 billion.

In my opinion the Premiership is now the number one sporting advertising medium in the World, bigger than the Olympics by miles, quite simply due to the amount of worldwide interest on a daily!! Basis.

No other sport or league comes close, and it's fascinating for me to sit and watch the Asiam advertising money at play.

Tune advertise on the referees shirts, and one of my dodgy pals stole a pallet of Chang beer the other day, in Scotland.

Chang beer in Scotland! The Asians are not daft, they advertise in the Premiership to impress their home markets, and get the side benefit of breaking into the UK and other worldwide markets!! Good for them!!

My pal is bringing me a dozen case of Chang tonight, I'll buy a bag of ice, order a takeaway Tom Yam Kung and Pad Thai, and sit in my flat in central Glasgow listening to my Learn How to Speak Thai course. All I need is a couple of mosquitos and a bar girl and my night will be complete!! Wait, wait, what's that number for the local Thai massage place???

All thanks to TV money, the power of advertising.

Don't forget to detune the TV so you can't watch the footy.

[theblether]

@LucidLucifer

A lot of my pals are gamblers, and not bad at it. I don't gamble but I like winding my pals up so!!

I bet £100 a match single bets that every game would end up a 1-1 draw. I've been right 5 out of 14 so far. Works about 28 to 1 so far, two games to go tonight then I think I'll quit while I'm ahead.

It's driving my pals mental, great!! I love it!! Pass the Chang!!

I could be annoying for a living, I'm very good at it.

[Scorpio1949]

I am sure that True will be free to broadcast in the week after the final is played............................

[joecos]

There is no way i will get up at 2 am to watch the games live,but i would love to be able to watch a replay a few hours later.Football is one of the few sporting

pleasures in Thailand now they have taken that away.

[reenatinnakor]

Don't know how many times this needs to be spelled out! It's not True Visions fault.

True already have a contract and pay annual fees to Ch3, 5, 7 and 9 to take their signal NO MATTER WHAT IS BROADCAST. They pay an annual fee or whatever fees they pay to take the signal.....it's not their fault if Ch3, 5, 7 and 9 then say to them.....oh we just bought this event we're not giving you the signal unless u give us more money.....oh we just bought this new soap opera we're not going to give you the signal unless u give us more money....oh we just bought this interview but we're not giving you the signal....oh someone paid us to broadcast this ad but we're not giving you the signal.....

Are people saying that True has to check every time a programme comes on air to see if they have the signal or not?? It's already written that they will broadcast whatever is shown on Ch3, 5, 7 and 9.....they've already paid for the right to do so. How is this is so difficult for people to understand? Can you imagine Sky checking whether they have the signal from ITV or BBC or not every time the tennis, horse racing, snooker or Easteneders or Coronation Street is on?? It's not a complicated issue.....True have the right to broadcast anything that's on Ch3. Grammy and Ch3, 5, 7 and 9 and have fuc_ked this all up.....and we're the ones that have been screwed.

[Hellhound66]

Surely it is not Grammy that is saying True can not broadcast, it is eufa, so how are Grammy at fault?

Are you suggesting Grammy should breach their agreement with eufa just so true can be let off the hook, the rules are clear that no satellite broadcaster can show the games whether they are on free to air channels or not.

Sorry but True messed up here by not checking the rules and regs thoroughly, the assumed it would be shown on the free channels and they were wrong, and they were wrong because nobody bothered to check.

Can we just be absolutely clear here. GMM were trying to force True to pay for the Euro content that should have normally "passed through" to True via the free to air channels. So we must assume that if True had paid they would have been allowed the content -make sense?? The letter from UEFA is a total blag conjured up to get GMM off the hook. If True had paid they would have got the signal. UEFA would not have even been involved because GMM were perfectly within their rights as the rights holder to sub license (probably with UEFA approval which would not have been withheld). Put it another way, would GMM have been trying to get True to pay if they thought that UEFA would not allow it?? Thought process people!!

[theblether]

Thought process? Okay, correct me if I'm wrong, I may well be.

GMM bought the rights from UEFA

They sold partial rights to free to air

Obviously they retained partial rights to air

So GMM and free to air have done a deal to share broadcast rights.

So far so easy ( I think )

Free to air has a broadcast agreement with True

Free to air does not own the onward broadcast rights for EURO 2012, so cannot give True the signal.

So the Thai internal market is at fault, not GMM or UEFA

True say we want to broadcast, GMM make a commercial decision to take advantage of the rights they have purchased.

On top of that, True are a multi country platform, so even if GMM had supplied the signal, UEFA would need to approve as it may interfere with other broadcast agreements.

I'm no expert, but the failure to me seems to fall between free to air and True.

Am I wrong somewhere here?

Edited June 15, 2012 by theblether

[cardholder]

Thought process? Okay, correct me if I'm wrong, I may well be.

GMM bought the rights from UEFA

They sold partial rights to free to air

Obviously they retained partial rights to air

So GMM and free to air have done a deal to share broadcast rights.

So far so easy ( I think )

Free to air has a broadcast agreement with True

Free to air does not own the onward broadcast rights for EURO 2012, so cannot give True the signal.

So the Thai internal market is at fault, not GMM or UEFA

True say we want to broadcast, GMM make a commercial decision to take advantage of the rights they have purchased.

On top of that, True are a multi country platform, so even if GMM had supplied the signal, UEFA would need to approve as it may interfere with other broadcast agreements.

I'm no expert, but the failure to me seems to fall between free to air and True.

Am I wrong somewhere here?

No, I think you have grasped it and you seem to have identified another Dad's Army effort on the part of the Thais.

Does anyone else think that this should have been sorted out some weeks before the competition started ?

[bigbamboo]

Get real.

This should have been sorted out ages ago. Thailand is just one of the 100 plus countries around the world UEFA sell their broadcasting rights to. If one of those countries is so inept and poorly regulated that it can't sort out it's local arrangements when the competition has actually started that is their problem.

UEFA is busy now with a football tournament to run.

Edited June 15, 2012 by bigbamboo

[Hellhound66]

Thought process? Okay, correct me if I'm wrong, I may well be.

GMM bought the rights from UEFA

They sold partial rights to free to air

Obviously they retained partial rights to air

So GMM and free to air have done a deal to share broadcast rights.

So far so easy ( I think )

Free to air has a broadcast agreement with True

Free to Air has a Pass through agreement with True

Free to air (FTA) does not own the onward broadcast rights for EURO 2012, so cannot give True the signal.

It's a little more complicated. FTA bought the rights and usually in most countries a "pass through" agreement has something called a "must carry" addendum. This basically says that the FTA channels cannot change content. They "must carry" through all of their content to whoever they have a "pass through" agreement with. Here in Thailand the TV laws are governed by the NBTC. The NBTC does not have sufficient legislation in place to cover what has happened with the Euro rights. So technically the NBTC is at fault.

So the Thai internal market is at fault, not GMM or UEFA

In the light of insufficient legislation you are correct neither GMM or UEFA are responsible- But then neither is True.

True say we want to broadcast, GMM make a commercial decision to take advantage of the rights they have purchased.

True never said we want to broadcast. True were under the misconception that GMM could not block the signal due to the pass through agreement. TIT NBTC ruled that True "must carry" the content or face a fine but GMM just plain refused to decrypt the signal.

On top of that, True are a multi country platform, so even if GMM had supplied the signal, UEFA would need to approve as it may interfere with other broadcast agreements.

Indeed they are but they have the ability to switch off content to a certain card base -say Cambodia and Laos if they so wish.

I'm no expert, but the failure to me seems to fall between free to air and True.

The failure is I believe with the NBTC. They say they are going to update their legislation. Let's see what they update it to.

Am I wrong somewhere here?

[Hellhound66]

Get real.

This should have been sorted out ages ago. Thailand is just one of the 100 plus countries around the world UEFA sell their broadcasting rights to. If one of those countries is so inept and poorly regulated that it can't sort out it's local arrangements when the competition has actually started that is their problem.

UEFA is busy now with a football tournament to run.

You are right, should have been sorted out ages ago. GMM were holding out to get money from True and True believed the content could not be blocked due to their pass through agreement with the FTA channels. As a consequence I have to go down to Cowboy every night and be tampered with while I try and watch football. It's a disgrace.

[volk666]

Go ahead, guys, blame True all you want, they sure deserve a lot of flak but in the meantime there's a huge shitstorm coming Grammy's way.

Essentially, Grammy decided that it has the right to dictate what and where can and can't be shown on Thai free to air channels. They say if the government wants to regulate Thai national TV channels it has to get Grammy's permission first. They say the UEFA gave them this right - let's see what Thai government thinks about UEFA authority to order Thai TV channels around.

To top it off, Grammy is refusing to present their contract with UEFA when demanded by the government. It's a secret, they say!

And now, when there's a talk about criminal charges, Grammy changed the tune and is willing to let everyone watch their Thai TV with football on it on any platform they want. UEFA might be pissed but it looks like a lesser evil now, doesn't it?

NBTC wants to license all satellite TV operators and threatening to consider "past behavior" when granting the licenses. Sounds like Grammy's satellite's business might be grounded for good. It also looks like there's a fat zero chance Grammy will get any more business from UEFA, and they can forget about EPL, too.

The positive outcome is that True might be forced to show some EPL games on free to air TV, too.