Bell to showcase Olympics on mobile TV with exclusive rights

BCE Inc.'s exclusive mobile rights for this year's Summer Olympics in London are more of an opportunity to showcase the company’s brand and technology with consumers than to seek direct revenues from data or subscriptions, said Nauby Jacob, vice-president of products, services and content at Bell subsidiary Bell Mobility. This month the company announced a range of features for customers to watch the Olympics live or on-demand via their mobile devices, home computers or televisions. Through the Bell Mobile TV app, the company’s mobile customers can get feeds from channels owned by Bell and Rogers Communications Inc.—partners in the consortium that has the Canadian broadcasting rights to the Olympics—as well as an “enhanced viewers guide” and daily on-demand highlights. Although the companies share TV rights as part of the broadcast consortium, Bell has exclusive mobile distribution rights to the Games, which run from July 27 to Aug. 12. Nauby Jacob, Bell Mobility’s vice-president of products, services and content, said in a phone interview that there will be 15 channels available for Bell mobile subscribers, seven of which will be in high-definition for devices with that capability. This is an upgrade from Bell Mobility’s offerings for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, when it offered nine live channel feeds and no video-on-demand, HD or viewers guide. Bell's mobile TV app is available to the company's subscribers for $5 per month, which includes 10 hours of viewing per month. Each additional hour costs $1 (mobile viewing through the app does not count towards a customer's monthly data cap). Jacob downplayed data revenues as a goal of Bell’s Olympics strategy and said the company seeks to enhance its reputation as a telecom provider. “Our business is a network-based business,” he said. “People using our network is always a good thing. What’s more important is our goal to make sure that we put products out there that can take full advantage of the speed and the strength of our network.” Bell’s wireline IPTV customers will also receive access to Olympic content, including competitions, features on athletes, and the opening and closing ceremonies, the company said. An app will be available through the company's Fibe TV service, providing standings and statistics, live scoreboards and video highlights. The company is also offering its Fibe and satellite TV customers access to a specialty service called London 2012 Mosaic Channel, which provides access to five of the Olympic consortium's specialty channels. Bell's Internet users will receive live, online streaming of the Olympics from CTV, TSN and RDS. Any Internet subscriber—not just Bell Internet users—can also watch live Olympics coverage at CTVOlympics.ca. Jacob said offering consumers more opportunities to tune into the Olympics increases engagement and generates demand for Bell's services, which can translate into more subscriptions, data usage and advertising deals. “Having the right content engages the users more, and having end users engaged with our products obviously leads people to be more satisfied with their products and possibly into doing more business with Bell, because we are able to meet their expectations and deliver a product that is up to their expectations of what they think they should get from their television service provider, or from their mobile-service provider, or from their Internet provider,” Jacob said. Rogers took a 20 per cent stake in the Olympic broadcast consortium and Bell 80 per cent. The companies bid $153 million US to secure the Canadian broadcast rights from the International Olympic Committee for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and the 2012 Games in London. Bell spokesman Jason Laszlo said the broadcast rights were secured in 2004 and that Bell took exclusive mobile rights as part of the deal. Rogers spokeswoman Kaili Lupp confirmed in an email that Rogers, also a wireless provider, does not have any mobile rights to the Olympics. Brian Schecter, a media analyst and president of consulting firm Puddle Duck Productions, said in a phone interview that ramping up mobile viewing options for the Olympics gives Bell an advantage over its competitors. “Since they have the exclusive rights for , it’s a service that they can offer that their competitors like Telus can’t,” he said. “I’m pretty sure that when they bid for it , mobile rights were pretty much an afterthought, but since has them, they’re trying to leverage it and maximize it,” he said. It's unclear what Canadian companies will have what rights to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Rogers has said it will not bid for the broadcast rights to the 2014 and 2016 Olympics. Bell Media spokesman Scott Henderson also said his company will not be pursuing the next round of Games, and Dervla Kelly, a spokeswoman for Shaw Communications Inc., said the same for the company's Global television network. That would leave CBC/Radio-Canada as the only major Canadian broadcaster that has not ruled out a bid. CBC’s executive director of sports properties, Jeffrey Orridge, told The Wire Report this month that, despite ending a partnership with Bell for bids on the Olympics in 2014 and 2016, the public broadcaster will continue to seek rights to the games if it can do so profitably. Schecter said Canadian broadcasters' lack of interest in future Olympics results from the International Olympic Committee demanding too much. It’s unlikely Bell or Rogers will make back the money they spent to secure the rights to the 2010 and 2014 Olympics, he said. They paid a premium because the 2010 Games were on home soil, Schecter said. The IOC rejected a bid for the 2014 and 2016 Games from Bell and CBC that was less than $77 million, the Globe and Mail reported in January, or about half of the amount paid for the rights to the 2010 and 2012 Olympics. The IOC is seeking about $100 million for the rights, the Globe reported. The IOC will have to lower its expectations for a broadcast deal in Canada, Schecter said. If Bell and Rogers are out of the running for the broadcast rights to the next round of Olympics, that’s doesn’t mean they will not have mobile access to the Games, he said. “I’m sure CBC, if they became the lone bidder, they would scoop up those rights and they might offload those rights to a third party,” Schecter said. Any new deals for mobile rights must be agreed to under the CRTC’s rules for vertically integrated carriers, which ban large communications companies from providing their broadcast content on mobile platforms exclusively to their own mobile subscribers. Last December, the commission said Bell's exclusive mobile rights agreements with the NHL and NFL violated the ban and ordered the company to offer sub-licensing deals with other carriers. The commission subsequently withdrew the order because Bell did not have the authority to sub-license the rights and entered into the licensing agreements with the sports leagues before the commission's moratorium on exclusive deals was imposed in 2011. news@thewirereport.ca

Bell to showcase Olympics on mobile TV with exclusive rights

Broadcast | July 23, 2012

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Bell to showcase Olympics on mobile TV with exclusive rights

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