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SCMP Reporter

Broadband service provider i-Cable Communications is trying to expand its share of its niche market by broadcasting the United States National Football League (NFL) over its online portal.

For a monthly fee of HK$198, subscribers are offered two live NFL games and two archive games from the American Football Conference and National Football Conference every Monday night starting next week.

I-Cable will also show eight post-season play-off games, divisional play-offs and conference championships, as well as some NFL highlights.

Some of the games will also be shown on Cable TV's ESPN dedicated sports channel.

The company hopes to attract new users as well as draw increasing revenue from existing broadband subscribers.

'Hong Kong people are not used to watching football games over the Internet. We want to promote the culture with the more popular NFL games and test the market,' said an i-Cable spokesman, Garmen Chan Ka-yiu.

The Wharf-controlled company has managed to capture 210,000 subscribers - paying about HK$300 per month - since its launch in 2000. It has offered Italian League matches over its portal i-cable.com and Mr Chan said it might show other sporting events if the response to NFL was encouraging.

New users have to subscribe to the broadband service first if they want to purchase the sport package, which might come to a total monthly fee of about HK$500.

I-Cable declined to offer a projection of how much revenue or how many subscribers the new service might attract.

Its rival, now.com.hk, run by PCCW Netvigator, did not think i-Cable's move would threaten its market. It said sport was a niche market that it would not put too much emphasis on.

The portal - positioned as a video-on-demand platform - offers content including local dramas, music videos, and news from TVB, Commercial Radio, BBC, Bloomberg and Mei Ah Entertainment.

It also started offering Disney children's programming from last month.

It has about 140,000 customers at the moment, at a monthly subscription fee of HK$30.

Users will be charged from HK$5 to HK$20 each time they download ring-tones, games or watch films.

Although the portal will offer sport news from EuroSport channel later this month, now.com.hk has no plan to broadcast live sporting events, according to Monita Leung Hoi-yi, PCCW's vice-president of Internet operations.

'We do not think watching live sport games is a popular choice for our customers,' she said. 'We are targeting a younger and family audience.'



I-Cable to offer live NFL games through online portal