Hong Kong, September 1, 2005 — The inaugural CASBAA/CITVC China International Sports Television Forum in Beijing on August 25th produced new insights on the long-term implications of the 2008 Beijing Olympics for the sports TV industry. Rights protection was at the top of the agenda, according to participants in the Forum which attracted 400 delegates and speakers, as well as more than 100 media from across China and around the world.
“This Forum in Beijing comes at the right time for the sports TV industry in China,” said Marcel Fenez, Chairman of CASBAA. “Chinas economic growth and modernization is one of the defining features of the new millennium and Beijing in particular, is making huge strides ahead of hosting the Olympics. The challenge for the sports broadcast industry is to harness this appeal. Then sport does more than just unlock TV rights, it also unlocks the bigger prizes of advertising, merchandising and corporate sponsorship,” said Mr Fenez.
Referring to sports rights protection, Alex Gilady, VP Sports at NBC, who is also an IOC member, said however, “There will be no streaming of Olympics on the internet because rights are territorial. If we do not protect rights, we will lose them.”
Past viewing figures point to a strong underlying interest in the Olympics in China. In the Athens Olympics 100 million viewers in China watched the womens basketball finals with the China team participating and a total of 400 million viewers, the replays.
Jiang He Ping, chief executive officer of co-organiser CCTV-5 (CCTVs sports channel) said he expected China to surpass the Sydney Olympics record where 75% of the population watched the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.
The one-day CASBAA/CITVC Sports Television Forum was co-organised by CASBAA and China International Television Corp (CITVC), co-hosted by the State Administration of Radio Film & Television (SARFT) and China Media Group, supported by CCTV, the Beijing Olympic Committee Organising Group (BOCOG) and sponsored by sina.com.
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ABOUT CASBAA – www.casbaa.com
The Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia is an industry-based advocacy group dedicated to the promotion of multi-channel television via cable, satellite, broadband and wireless video networks across the Asia-Pacific. CASBAA represents some 120 Asia-based corporations, which in turn serve more than 3 billion people.
Members include ABN AMRO, AETN, AsiaSat, ASTRO, Bloomberg Television, CSG Systems, Discovery Networks Asia, EMC (Taiwan), HBO Asia, IBM, MTV Networks Asia Pacific, Nokia, now Broadband (PCCW), PricewaterhouseCoopers, Sony Pictures Television International, STAR Group, Sun Microsystems, Turner International Asia Pacific, UBC (Thailand), Walt Disney Television International, Zone Vision, Ascent, CNBC Asia, BBC Prime, ESPN STAR Sports, Harmonic, Irdeto Access, Juniper Networks, National Geographic, NDS, Mediacorp News, Nagravision, Open TV, PanAmSat, Sky News Australia, Starhub, Worldsat and Zieland Productions.
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Communications, CASBAA
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