But critic alarmed at price it paid for Premiership
Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch once famously described sport as the 'battering ram' that brought people to pay TV. PCCW's Now TV seems to think a gorilla is a better metaphor.
Now TV used the great ape yesterday to launch four sports channels and promote its jewel in the crown - the exclusive rights to screen next season's English Premier League soccer that was snatched from competitor i-Cable Communications for a record US$200 million for three seasons. There was fanfare with a gorilla mascot and gorilla T-shirts trumpeting a bigger and better sports pack.
Bullish PCCW executive director Alex Arena yesterday said it could 'rightly claim to be taking over the leadership of the pay television industry' and boasted Now was the Hong Kong home of all the world's big football competitions.
But a media critic warned Now could be paying too much. Vivek Couto, director of Media Partners Asia, said it would need a three-part strategy of more subscribers paying higher fees and greater advertising revenue to justify the 'ridiculous' money it paid for the English league.
'The fees people are willing to pay are a big part of it,' he said.
Mr Couto said i-Cable was obviously prepared to drop subscribers and was hoping that diversifying content by localising it would limit losses. 'They haven't just lost the UK's EPL, they also have lost popular stations such as HBO.'
