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French channel strays onto i-Cable's pitch by showing World Cup games
Rugby fans with Now Broadband TV subscriptions can watch this weekend's Rugby World Cup semi-finals on a French channel despite rival i-Cable Communications signing a deal for exclusive rights to show the event in Hong Kong.
Some observant fans discovered TV5 Monde Asie  had broadcast the nail-biting quarter-finals between England and Australia last Saturday night and France and New Zealand on Sunday morning.
TV5 Monde costs only HK$18 a month on Now, compared with HK$329 a month for i-Cable.
Now, which has broadcast every French game in the tournament in Hong Kong on TV5 Monde (channel 714), will also show this weekend's semi-finals between England and France on Sunday morning and South Africa and Argentina on Monday morning.
TV5 Monde will also broadcast the final on October 21 and the play-off for third place on October 20.
A spokeswoman from i-Cable  confirmed the rugby was being shown on the French station and lawyers for the broadcaster said they believed the exclusivity contract had not been broken. 'It's not unusual for a nation's broadcaster to feature such a big event,' the i-Cable spokeswoman said.
'We are thrilled by the response of our coverage, and it has increased the number of subscribers. TV5 Monde's coverage is in French, and most people in Hong Kong cannot speak the language.'
But France's deputy consul general, Christian Ramage, said he doubted non-French speakers would be put off tuning into the channel.
'Does it really matter whether you can speak French when you are watching a rugby match?' he said yesterday.
'Rugby is not only the contest between the players but is loved for the ambience of the stadiums and the colour of the spectators.
'For France, it's been a great World Cup so far, knocking out New Zealand, who everyone was saying was going to win the entire competition.'
Mr Ramage said most of the French community in Hong Kong and around Asia had been watching the tournament on TV5 Monde Asie.
Before the tournament began on September 7, there was anger from  fans and pubs after i-Cable revealed it had signed exclusive rights to broadcast the event in Hong Kong. Many had assumed Now Broadband TV had the rights because Now broadcasts most of the popular international rugby competitions on ESPN, ESPN Star Sports and the Australian Network.
Hong Kong Rugby Football Union community manager Robbie McRobbie said fans without i-Cable would be happy if they could watch the games.
'If it's not in breach of anyone's commercial agreements or rights, then the more rugby that is on television, the better in terms of promoting the game,' he said.
Now TV  and i-Cable  have been  competing vigorously since Now paid a record US$200 million for exclusive rights to the English Premier League for three seasons.



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