TV station faces risks when spending millions of dollars to buy Asiad copyright
Not only the problem of attracting advertising, when buying copyright, TV stations also have to face the problem of illegal exploitation on the internet.
The Voice of Vietnam (VOV) has just announced that it has acquired the copyright to broadcast the 2018 Asiad and will broadcast it on VTC3 channel of VTC digital television.Although the tournament has gone one-third of the way. Previously, according to information from the organizing committee, in Asia, Vietnam was the only country that did not buy the broadcasting rights, the main reason being the high price.
VOV leaders said the cost for copyright is about 1.2 million USD, and they have to rely on the help of two large businesses.Not only the 2018 Asiad, before that, the 2018 World Cup just took place a few months ago, Vietnam Television also had to have financial support from businesses to own the broadcasting rights for 64 matches, and the negotiation was only completed at the last minute.
An expert in this field said that it is understandable in the current context, because the TV station owns the copyright at a high price (the exclusive package for Asiad 2014 is 400,000 USD).contains quite a lot of business risks.In case of copyright purchaselate like VOV, the risk is even greater.
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When the Asiad passed one-third of the way, Vietnamese fans were able to watch it live on television. Photo:German Dong. |
Currently, TV stations have two main sources of revenue to offset copyright costs: sponsorship, advertising, and viewer service fees.
With tournaments like the 2018 Asian Games, broadcasting does not rely on user fees, but only on sponsors and advertising. "However, with tournaments like the Asian Games, if the national football team does not make it to the next round, the tournament is considered over, and viewers will not care about the results of other competitions. At that time, the station will face the problem ofnot enough space to pay for advertising,sponsors and must balance to compensate with other programs," said an expert from VTC.
He also said that, vThe "heavy lifting" when making the decision to buy copyright in recent years further proves that it is not easy to recover the investment cost of buying copyright.According to this expert, the price of broadcasting rights for sports programs like a few years ago was very "reasonable". Therefore, although the profit may not be large, sports rights can bring good brand to the station.
"If the purchase price increases sharply like recently, it will not be easy to ensure advertising revenue. In reality, TV stations often negotiate copyright before they can develop a business plan, invite sponsors, and advertise. If the cost of purchasing copyright is high, it will be very difficult to develop a business plan," he said.
In addition to the reason of continuously rising copyright prices, according to VTC representative, the widespread illegal broadcasting situation can cause the business plans of TV stations to fail.
To prove the problem of copyright infringement, an expert from the Ministry of Information and Communications cited the storyA website illegally broadcasted live football matches that Vietnam played at the Asian Games before VOV negotiated to buy the copyright a few days ago.TThis unit even advertises on it.
Sports broadcasting copyright infringement is very common in Vietnam. VTVcab once spent a huge amount of money to buy the C1 copyright.faced with years of uncontrolled piracyThis station even had to pay a huge fine and was asked by foreign partners to stop broadcasting, causing heavy losses in advertising and reputation with audiences and partners.
Along with the copyright of sports programs, the copyright of the movie "Story of Yanxi Palace" has recently caused a lot of trouble for the stations. While the copyright owners, FPT Play, HTV7... are still negotiating the broadcast schedule, on some websites, even many personal fanpages, dozens of episodes of the movie have been posted with full subtitles. Although they did not reveal the troubles they encountered from their partners, the stations have all had toannounced a temporary suspension of the film's broadcast to negotiate with the copyright provider, citing the complicated situation of piracy.
"The Vietnamese public's habit of watching for free still exists, so if we charge a fee, there will be fewer viewers. Meanwhile, aBusiness plans and advertising exploitation can fail, causing the station to lose millions of dollars if it encounters illegal broadcasting.", said an expert from VTC.
