Mark Holtz
05-06-03, 10:29 AM
From Yahoo/Variety (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=597&ncid=772&e=1&u=/nm/20030506/tv_nm/television_olympics_dc)
Networks Ready to Compete in Olympic 'Crapshoot'
If the bidding for the television rights to the 2010 and 2012 Olympics was a kids' game, it might be called Blind Man's Bluff.
On June 5, five networks are expected to submit sealed bids in Lausanne, Switzerland, in a multiday affair that could end up with the International Olympic Committee announcing a winner that week or holding off if it believes that the offers are insufficient.
But the bidders will be lacking some important information: They will not know where the Games will be held and how much to value the new ancillary rights package the IOC has thrown in that will include Internet, HDTV, wireless and video-on-demand transmission. And they have to put a value on an event that will happen seven to nine years in the future.
ABC can move many of the events onto its ESPN networks, and Viacom has a strong and youthful-skewing stable of cable services that could aid CBS. Fox has Fox Sports Net, a nationwide lineup of regional sports services, and other networks and could own DirecTV's distribution base as well.
"ESPN can hold MSOs for ransom," one observer said, noting that with license fees running at $2.12 a subscriber per month and rising by 20% a year, the network is pulling in $2 billion a year just from cable operators.
Full Article Here (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=597&ncid=772&e=1&u=/nm/20030506/tv_nm/television_olympics_dc)
Networks Ready to Compete in Olympic 'Crapshoot'
If the bidding for the television rights to the 2010 and 2012 Olympics was a kids' game, it might be called Blind Man's Bluff.
On June 5, five networks are expected to submit sealed bids in Lausanne, Switzerland, in a multiday affair that could end up with the International Olympic Committee announcing a winner that week or holding off if it believes that the offers are insufficient.
But the bidders will be lacking some important information: They will not know where the Games will be held and how much to value the new ancillary rights package the IOC has thrown in that will include Internet, HDTV, wireless and video-on-demand transmission. And they have to put a value on an event that will happen seven to nine years in the future.
ABC can move many of the events onto its ESPN networks, and Viacom has a strong and youthful-skewing stable of cable services that could aid CBS. Fox has Fox Sports Net, a nationwide lineup of regional sports services, and other networks and could own DirecTV's distribution base as well.
"ESPN can hold MSOs for ransom," one observer said, noting that with license fees running at $2.12 a subscriber per month and rising by 20% a year, the network is pulling in $2 billion a year just from cable operators.
Full Article Here (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=597&ncid=772&e=1&u=/nm/20030506/tv_nm/television_olympics_dc)