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It is a good move to get the rights to the Barclay Premiership, hopefully the demand will be strong.

But I doubt soccer is the top sport in Australia. The Australian prefer rugby and cricket.

(03-11-2015, 08:13 AM)Dividend Knight Wrote: [ -> ]It is a good move to get the rights to the Barclay Premiership, hopefully the demand will be strong.

But I doubt soccer is the top sport in Australia. The Australian prefer rugby and cricket.

Optus scores soccer goal with English Premier League rights

• THE AUSTRALIAN
  
• NOVEMBER 03, 2015 12:00AM
  

Darren Davidson
[Image: darren_davidson.png]
Business Media Writer
Sydney

[Image: 474805-70079582-814e-11e5-9ebf-df2290582775.jpg]
Manchester United star Wayne Rooney will be seen on Optus from next season. Source: Getty Images
[b]Optus has reignited the pay-TV wars of the 1990s by snatching the English Premier League broadcasting rights from News Corp’s Fox Sports.[/b]
Premier League football regularly delivers shock results but none so amazing, perhaps, as the sale of live broadcast and digital rights for all 380 games across three seasons in a $60 million deal — a 140 per cent cent increase on the value of the previous agreement.
It is understood the bid was significantly higher than rival ­offers lodged by Fox Sports and Qatar-owned Bein Sports.
Optus chief executive Allen Lew said the agreement marked a “major pillar in our content strategy” as it gives the brand a way to differentiate its broadband plans in the increasingly competitive telco market against Telstra and TPG Telecom.
“We need to go into content in order to broaden our offering and, if you look at what’s happening in the media space, it’s obviously an opportunity for us,” said Mr Lew.
“This content has been something that we have been looking at for a while — the level of engagement here in Australia with football is extremely high.”
Optus, controlled by Singapore-based Singtel, holds some English Premier League rights in Asia and some Cricket Australia mobile streaming rights.
This deal is another example of escalating competition in the battle for broadband and mobile customers in Australia.
Mr Lew refused to rule out onselling the English Premier League TV rights to Fox Sports or a free-to-air network.
He also refused to be drawn on whether he was plotting to take over from Telstra the NRL’s ­mobile streaming rights.
“We’re looking at other sports, and genres of content make sense for us,’’ he said. “We have to look at it very carefully. The key is not just about sport for us — we are all about content and engagement.”
The strategy echoes the competition between Australis and Optus Vision in the mid-1990s as media moguls, including Kerry Packer, vied for control of the emerging industry in a Darwinian war of attrition.
Although no specific details were disclosed on how the company will distribute the rights and price them for football fans, ­observers expect Optus to negotiate a deal with internet-based TV service FetchTV because of an existing reseller arrangement for broadband customers.
“This now gives me an exclusive property that I can inject into my arsenal of competitive offers, that actually allows me to change the game significantly,” Mr Lew said. “It’s something that my competitor cannot respond to and offer the very next day.”
Under Mr Lew, Optus has reinvigorated its content play after he signed an exclusive bundling deal with global streaming juggernaut Netflix to offer customers a six-month free trial of the service.
For Fox Sports, EPL rights were important but not critical to its overall value proposition for subscribers, with many matches kicking off in the early morning.
News Corp is publisher of The Australian.

Why Optus may have struck a golden goal with English Premier League rights
DateNovember 2, 2015

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[Image: 1425254652922.png]
David Ramli
Reporter


Australians are a sports-mad people that have never been raised with soccer in mind – growing up in Sydney always meant the cricket on TV mixed in with weekends chasing rugby balls down trampled fields of green.
But by June 2014 about 28 per cent of people living in Australia were born overseas and as we become increasingly globalised so too has our taste in sports.
So the reason why Fox Sports and its half-owner Telstra will be hurting after Optus snatched the English Premier League Australian broadcast rights is bigger than bragging rights among the telco or TV giants.
It's about two key truths we encounter as a nation; the face of Australia is rapidly changing and the various ways we consume our content will gradually shrink to one.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the number of Australians born abroad has continued to rise year after year to peaks not seen since the gold rush era of the 1800s.
One of the world's biggest sports is soccer and the English Premier League is its most popular stage. Players from clubs such as Manchester United and Liverpool will be mobbed by fans from Mumbai to the MCG.
Foxtel subscription purely for soccer
The EPL is popular among several demographics, from English or Indian ex-pat workers to Chinese students and locals who have lived or travelled abroad.
If you ask your friends and family, there's a solid chance that at least one will say they've subscribed to Foxtel purely for the "privilege" of waking up at 2am to blearily watch the round ball game on the big screen.
And now, just as Foxtel battles streaming providers such as Netflix to convince customers to keep paying a hefty premium, a global sport with a growing audience has slipped from its grasp.
Optus will struggle to reap the profits from this service alone because there simply aren't enough fans here yet.
But the deal must be seen in a holistic sense. Each mobile or broadband customer comes with a net present value worth thousands of dollars, and gaining market share is vital.
As the national broadband network rolls out high-speed internet to every Australian home and business, we will increasingly get all our services online.
This convergence is a threat to telcos who will become dumb-pipe utility providers if they don't adapt. But it's also an opportunity for those who recognise the threat and use their internet know-how as a head start.
Halo effect
The EPL, added to other sports such as cricket and content such as Netflix's, will give Optus a halo effect that can make it feel like the home of content – a vital point as media and telecommunications become one.
And in a margin-scarce market like post-NBN broadband, this halo effect is vital for justifying a higher price compared with cheaper rivals such as TPG Telecom and potential big brand newcomers such as Woolworths.
It's important to note that Optus has not done anything special in Australia – its chief executive Allen Lew is merely replicating the strategy he successfully deployed at parent company Singtel.
The sports-mad Mr Lew convinced Singtel's board to spend more than his rival Singapore-listed StarHub expected on buying the EPL broadcast rights in 2009. Since then Singtel's TV service has become a dominant player in the island nation while acting as the anchor for its other services.
No-one understands the value of English football better than News Corp executive chairman Rupert Murdoch, who built his UK pay TV business BSkyB on the back of 20 years of English Premier League broadcast rights. 
And like any good football manager, he will be looking closely at the 'player' deemed responsible for conceding two costly late goals in big matches in the last three months, Fox Sports chief executive Patrick Delany.
Losing the lead in NRL negotiations to Nine Entertainment and now the EPL is a bad look for a Pay TV powerhouse whose main claim to fame is being the home of all sports in a sports-mad nation.
The manager will have to decide if it's time Delaney was substituted. 

EPL deal too pricey, says News CEO

• THE AUSTRALIAN
  
• NOVEMBER 06, 2015 11:06AM
  

Darren Davidson
[Image: darren_davidson.png]
Business Media Writer
Sydney

[Image: 569546-e7faf9ea-841d-11e5-9851-7bf406229885.jpg]
Wayne Rooney stars for Manchester United, one of the Premier League’s top drawcards. Source: Getty Images
[b]News Corp chief Robert Thomson has suggested Optus paid over the odds for the English Premier League’s broadcasting rights.[/b]
The telco pulled off a shock this week by agreeing to buy live broadcast and digital rights in Australia and New Zealand for all 380 games in an estimated $180 million three-season deal.
The bid was higher than rival ­offers lodged by Fox Sports and Qatar-owned Bein Sports, and represents a 140 per cent cent increase on the value of the previous agreement.
Currently, News Corp’s sports programming subsidiary Fox Sports is paying about $20 million per season. It broadcasts the matches on Foxtel, jointly owned by News Corp and Telstra.
Asked about any potential loss in Foxtel subscribers, Mr Thomson told analysts: “You can buy any rights as long as you are prepared to pay any price. But sometimes by our reckoning any price is not appropriate for us or our shareholders.”
Presenting News Corp’s first-quarter results, Mr Thomson pointed out that the matches are scheduled in an unfavourable time zone, which means they do not draw large audiences in the local market.
“We’re certainly not talking about prime time. A 3pm kick off in the UK is 2am in Australia so as you know hardcore fans of anything in Australia are called tragics but the sweet spot for EPL at 2 in the morning are tragics who are insomniacs,” said Mr Thomson.
In a lighthearted quip, Mr Thomson drew attention to the mixed fortunes of the top English club sides in the European Champions League competition, saying Arsenal’s 5-1 humiliation at the hands of German side Bayern Munich was “an indictment of the value of the Premier League”.
In an interview with The Australian, Optus chief executive Allen Lew said the deal marked a “major pillar in our content strategy”, giving the brand a way to differentiate its broadband and mobile proposition in the increasingly competitive telco market against Telstra and TPG Telecom.
Mr Lew refused to rule out onselling the rights to Fox Sports or a free-to-air network, and declined to be drawn on whether he was plotting to take over from Telstra the NRL’s ­mobile streaming rights.
The strategy echoes the competition between Australis and Optus Vision in the mid-1990s as media moguls, including Kerry Packer, vied for control of the emerging pay-TV industry in a Darwinian war of attrition.
Although no specific details were disclosed on how the company will distribute the rights and price them for football fans, ­observers expect Optus to negotiate a deal with internet-based TV service FetchTV because of an existing reseller arrangement for broadband customers.
For Fox Sports, EPL rights were important but not critical to its overall value proposition for subscribers, with many matches kicking off in the early morning.

Wonder how much Singtel paid for it..

Singtel secures Premier League broadcast rights for 3 more seasons

Singtel has been the broadcaster for Premier League matches in Singapore since the start of the 2010/2011 season.

SINGAPORE: Local telco Singtel has secured the broadcast rights to all Barclays Premier League matches for the next three seasons, starting from August 2016, it announced on Tuesday (Nov 10)

Said Mr Yuen Kuan Moon, Chief Executive Officer, Consumer Singapore, Singtel: “We are delighted to bring the Barclays Premier League to Singaporeans for another three seasons. Singtel TV fans can be assured that their football experience stays uninterrupted at rates that remain affordable.”

Singtel has been the broadcaster for Premier League matches in Singapore since the start of the 2010/2011 season.

Mr Yuen added: “Since the beginning, our aim was to bring the Premier League and other football properties to as many Singaporeans as possible. Football is for everyone and we intend to work with all relevant parties to make sure fans get access to the best League experience.”

Said Premier League Executive Chairman Richard Scudamore: “We are very pleased that Singtel has again chosen to invest in Premier League broadcasting rights in Singapore. We look forward to working with them for another three seasons.”

- CNA/es

Mobiles drive Optus’ first-half profit hike

• THE AUSTRALIAN
  
• NOVEMBER 12, 2015 10:35AM
  

Mitchell Bingemann
[Image: mitchell_bingemann.png]
Reporter
Sydney

[Image: 896864-93387ffa-88cc-11e5-8b46-8e342e83f9ff.jpg]
A person talks on his mobile phone next to an Optus shop in Brisbane Source: Supplied
[b]Optus has posted an 8.3 per cent hike in first-half profits as the telco continued to grow its dominant mobiles business.[/b]
Net profit for the six months to September 30 climbed to $426 million while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation at the Singtel-owned company increased 7.8 per cent to $1.35bn.
Optus’s mobile business continued to provide the bulk of its growth, with revenue at the division surging 13.3 per cent to $3.1 billion despite the telco reporting a slight dip in its subscriber base which fell by 20,000 to 9.36m in the last three months.
The decline in mobile subscribers came from its less valuable prepaid customer base which shed 45,000 in the quarter. The telco’s more lucrative postpaid base increased by 57,000.
The growth in Optus’s mobiles business underpinned a 9.3 per cent increase in the telco’s total revenue mix which came in at $4.61bn for the half.
But while mobiles boomed, the telco’s fixed telephony business slid with a 9.8 per cent decline to $210m for the half.
Revenue for Optus’s total fixed-line business grew 3.7 per cent to $573m.
Optus’s business division — which serves large corporates and government clients — also showed growth with a 3 per cent rise to $777m.
“These first-half results reflect the underlying strength of Optus’ operations. We have successfully captured consumers’ growing demand for data through innovative plans and service, investments in our fixed and mobile networks, and compelling entertainment offers,” said Optus boss Allen Lew.
“Over the coming quarters, we will continue to take the steps necessary to profitably grow our business with products and services that engage our customers.”
The telco has forecast that its mobile service revenue will grow by low single-digit level for the year ending March 31, 2016.

Upgrades to help Optus play English Premier League Ball

• THE AUSTRALIAN
  
• NOVEMBER 13, 2015 12:00AM
  

Mitchell Bingemann
[Image: mitchell_bingemann.png]
Reporter
Sydney

[Image: 895773-1dd52fd6-8919-11e5-9620-9dfba13face1.jpg]
Optus revenue. Source: TheAustralian

[b]Optus will spend tens of millions of dollars upgrading its fixed and mobile networks so it can broadcast English Premier League matches in high definition to as many homes and smartphones as possible.[/b]
Speaking to The Australian on the release of its half-year results, Optus chief executive Allen Lew said the upgrade of its network would cost less than $100 million and come from the $S1.9 billion ($1.88bn) that its parent Singtel has allocated it this year to boost its presence in Australia.
Optus shocked the broadcast industry this month when it snatched the Premier League broadcasting rights from News Corp’s Fox Sports in a three-year deal worth $189m.
But the telco faces many challenges before it will be able to offer a consumer-grade product to smartphone users and households by the next season’s kick-off in August next year.
“Although broadband penetration is high (in Australia) the ability to stream HD and 4K depends on the last mile and there are a significant number of homes … that won’t get the minimum speed required for HD. So we are working on how we can get Premier League in HD and 4K,” Mr Lew said.
Unlike other content such as on-demand TV and movies that can be stored and accessed from local data centres, the live nature of sporting events and the fluctuating audiences that tune in can cause congestion problems for internet providers that lack capacity and speeds to deliver high-quality streams.
“We will have to do some work to our existing networks to make sure that the streaming experience is what the Australian public expects. There will also be other networks that we use to get the EPL (to consumers),” Mr Lew said.
Until now, no specific details have been disclosed on how Optus would deliver the popular sporting code to homes, but Mr Lew said Optus was considering delivering its suite of content — which also includes the mobile streaming rights to cricket and popular service Netflix — across a multitude of platforms and devices.
This would include smart TVs, traditional free-to-air broadcast­ers and pay-TV platforms such as Foxtel and FetchTV. But he emphasised that the mobile platform would remain at the heart of any offer.
“We are talking to a lot of platforms and different platforms are coming to us including free-to-air,” he said.
“This is not about us being a pay-TV provider. For us it’s about using this content and the exclusivity to enhance our core mobile business. So whichever platform we put this content on has to result in it being beneficial to our core mobile business.”
Optus reported an 8.3 per cent lift in first-half profits as the company continued to grow its dominant mobiles business.
Net profit for the six months to September 30 climbed to $426m while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation increased 7.8 per cent to $1.35bn.
Optus’s mobile business provided the bulk of its growth, with revenue surging 13.3 per cent to $3.1bn despite the telco reporting a slight dip in its subscriber base, which fell by 20,000 to 9.36 million in the last three months.
The decline in mobile subscribers came from its less valuable prepaid customer base, which shed 45,000 in the quarter. The more lucrative post-paid base increased by 57,000.
The growth in Optus’s mobiles business underpinned a 9.3 per cent increase in total revenue to $4.61bn for the half. But while mobiles boomed, the telco’s fixed telephony business slid 9.8 per cent to $210m for the half. Revenue grew 3.7 per cent to $573m.
Optus’s business division rose 3 per cent rise to $777m.

http://www.straitstimes.com/business/com...ls-profits

Aussie dollar slump hits Singtel's profits

Published
2 hours ago
  [/url]
Q2 earnings down 0.8%; firm susceptible to currency volatility as 70% revenue overseas
[url=http://www.straitstimes.com/authors/jacqueline-woo]Jacqueline Woo

The steep fall in the Aussie dollar capped second-quarter earnings at Singtel despite growth across its markets. Net profit came in at $1.03 billion for the three months to Sept 30, down 0.8 per cent from the $1.04 billion in the same period a year ago. Operating revenue slid 2.9 per cent to $4.18 billion on the back of "currency headwinds". Earnings grew 5 per cent to $1.97 billion for the half year, while operating revenue fell 0.8 per cent to $8.39 billion.
About 70 per cent of Singtel's revenue is derived from outside Singapore, which makes its earnings susceptible to currency movements, including that of the Aussie dollar, which weakened 13 per cent against the Singdollar during the period.
Group chief financial officer Lim Cheng Cheng told a briefing yesterday that while the firm hedges its debts and trade payables, it does not do so for profit and loss-related transactions.

Earnings per share for the quarter came in at 6.46 cents, down from 6.51 cents previously, while net asset value per share stood at $1.54 as at Sept 30, compared with the $1.55 as at March 31 this year.
Singtel declared an interim dividend of 6.8 cents per share, unchanged from last year, or a payout ratio of 58 per cent of its underlying net profit for the half year. It maintained its outlook for full-year earnings, noting revenue for the 12 months to March 31, 2016 will likely grow at a mid single-digit rate while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation could expand at a low single-digit rate.

• AT A GLANCE
  
• NET PROFIT
  $1.03 billion (-0.8%)
  
• OPERATING REVENUE
  $4.18 billion (-2.9%)
  
• DIVIDENDS
  6.8 cents (unchanged)
  

But it cut its forecast for mobile communications revenue in Singapore. This is now expected to deliver a low single-digit growth instead of a mid single-digit rate due to lower contributions from mobile roaming, as customers switch from voice roaming to data roaming services.

Phone and internet complaints fall at most providers
DateNovember 13, 2015 - 1:18PM

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[Image: 1425254652922.png]
David Ramli
Reporter


Optus has overtaken Vodafone as the most complained about phone and internet provider per customer in Australia, according to an industry survey.
The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman on Friday released its contextual complaint figures, which show the number of complaints per 10,000 services provided. This acts as a way to gauge the service levels of big and small players on a relatively even playing field.
The average number of complaints per 10,000 services across the industry are at their lowest level in 18 months, falling from 7.6 in April-June 2014 to 6.5 in the latest figures from April-June 2015.
Vodafone Hutchison Australia has garnered the most new complaints per 10,000 customers for the past five quarters, leading it to vow to become Australia's favourite telco by the end of 2015.

While it has not yet achieved that distinction, it was by far the most improved in the current survey, with complaints falling from 14.3 to 6.3 over the same period.
But Optus recorded a sharp increase from 5.2 to 8.5. Amaysim was the only other provider in the survey to record an increase in complaints, from 1.3 to 1.8.
Telstra reduced its complaint rate from 7.2 to 6, despite adding 850,000 customers over the period.
Telstra, Singtel-Optus and Vodafone Australia are the nation's three biggest telcos with more than 35 million subscribers combined. TPG Telecom, iiNet and M2 Group all chose not to take part in the survey, making it impossible to accurately judge their service quality in context.
[Image: image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x0.png]
Optus blamed poor weather, network issues and a big increase in data usage over its 4G mobile network as the main reasons for the increase over 2015, according to a response from the industry body Communications Alliance. It also said a range of changes had been implemented to improve services for mobile and fixed-line customers.
"Optus reports that these initiatives have been well received by customers and that complaints decreased in the July-September 2015 quarter," it said.
Amaysim said the relatively small rise in complaint levels was caused by customers adjusting to new products and plans released in the past year. The mobile service reseller only recently got access to 4G services, which led to a revamp of its offers.
TPG Telecom, iiNet and M2 Group all chose not to take part in the program, making it impossible to accurately judge their service quality in context.
The latest result put Vodafone on track to fulfil its promise to beat Telstra and Optus by the end of 2015 - a move that would represent a dramatic turnaround for the company sinces its dark days of network and customers service failure in 2010.
Its director of customer service, Errol van Graan, vowed to slash its complaints per 10,000 customers to 5.25 by the end of 2015.
"It's very pleasing to see our customers are even happier with their Vodafone experience, with the ratio of complaints in the April quarter less than one third of that just 18 months before," a company spokeswoman said. "Our aim is to be best-in-business, and while we will continue working hard to achieve that, it's encouraging that our ratio is now below the industry average."

Heng Ah...

Optus cable blow to NBN rollout

• THE AUSTRALIAN
  
  
• NOVEMBER 25, 2015 5:01PM
  
• Mitchell Bingemann
  [Image: mitchell_bingemann.png]
  Reporter
  Sydney
  
  

[*]

The company building the National Broadband Network has drawn up plans to build over Optus’s cable network, in a move that would cost the project $375 million and make it miss its 2017 and 2018 connection targets.

The NBN paid $800m in 2012 for Optus’s hybrid-fibre coaxial (HFC) network — which is used to deliver broadband and pay TV services — but the company has since discovered that large portions of the network are in such poor condition that they will need to be replaced to deliver superfast internet access speeds to consumers.
In a confidential NBN document titled “HFC Plan B: Overbuilding Optus”, the network builder said the Optus network is not “fit for purpose” in parts and lacks the capacity to support NBN’s services.
It says overbuilding the network with either Telstra HFC cables or NBN fibre could deliver “higher probability of success” and “significant operational simplicity”.
“Some Optus equipment is arriving at end of life and needs to be replaced,” the document said.
However, any move to replace the Optus network would come at a cost of up to $375 million, overbuild some 470,000 premises and make the NBN miss its rollout targets by a total of 633,000 across 2017 and 2018, leaving those premises unconnected until 2019.
Those costs would be contained in its already revised construction costs, which the NBN said in August were now expected to come in between $46 billion and $56bn.
The confidential plans — leaked to and released by Labor Communications spokesman Jason Clare — suggest a range of options to overcome the problems associated with the Optus network including: expanding the reach of Telstra’s cable TV network; and overbuilding Optus’ network with fibre-to-the node technology.
It also suggests using Labor’s preferred technology choice of fibre-to-the-premise as a replacement, but that would come with an additional cost of $600 million in peak funding.
The documents suggest NBN’s preferred option is to use a mix of technologies costing between $150m and $375m.
A spokesman from NBN confirmed the veracity of the leaked document, saying the company regularly prepares for multiple scenarios to mitigate risks in the project.
The spokesman also said forecast cost increases in the plan were accounted for in its corporate plan.
“Our corporate plan has accounted for the ebbs and flows expected in a project of this scale. NBN has met or exceeded all targets over the past 18 months and we remain confident in our long range plan and the various strategies we have in place to manage the risk,” he said.
Opposition communications spokesman Jason Clare said the document provided “more evidence of the absolute mess that Malcolm Turnbull has created with his second rate NBN”.
“It reveals that the Optus HFC network, a key component of Malcolm Turnbull’s second rate NBN, is in far worse condition than Australians were led to believe and NBN Co is considering overbuilding the network — costing hundreds of millions and meaning hundreds of thousands of Australians will have to wait longer to get the NBN,” he said.
An Optus spokeswoman said it and NBN had always acknowledged parts of the HFC network would need an upgrade.
“In advance of handover there has been and continues to be major investment into the HFC network to manage subscriber growth and capacity demand,” she said.