Then airing game highlights on British TV
By Heidi Dawley May 2, 2006
In the US, the newest big thing is broadcasters making their shows available on the internet after airing on TV. That makes lots of sense, if only as a means of persuading advertisers of their ability to deliver audiences beyond their one medium.
In the UK, one broadcaster is doing quite the opposite: airing sports matches first on the internet and then showing highlights from the games on its TV network. The goal is also quite different: to use the TV airings to promote its internet sports service, which is a paid offering.
But there is a bigger goal: That's to create a new economic model for niche sports that lack the broad appeal of, say, soccer, that's necessary to survive on traditional television. If this first effort succeeds--it's with U.S.-style basketball--it could lead to even more niche sports finding homes on the internet, with television serving to build a wider awareness.
Beginning on April 13, pay-TV operator UKTV started offering live Euroleague basketball games on its broadband subscription service, uktvslam.tv. Once the games have aired on broadband, UKTV shows highlights on one of its TV channels.
"It’s the first time we know of in the UK that the TV has been used to drive audiences to broadband coverage in this way," says Martin Henlan, sports development manager at UKTV, a network of 10 highly focused channels.
"It’s an interesting new twist," says John Mansell, senior analyst at JupiterKagan Research in the U.S. "In the U.S. the experimentation has been the other way. For instance, you have Disney taking three hit TV shows and the day after they are aired they are putting them online, but I don’t think that anyone has done it yet the other way around."
Henlan explains that UKTV’s G2 channel will show highlights of the Euroleague basketball games each Sunday night, several days after the full games have aired live on broadband, with the TV exposure serving as a marketing device to drive subscriptions for the broadband service. The plan runs about $7 a month, or roughly $57 per year.
Ultimately the idea is to help build up the broadband audience of basketball, which is a niche sport in Europe, unlike in the U.S. "It is difficult for niche sports to get broadcast windows. There has never been room on cable for sports like this," says Henlan.
If the model is successful, UKTV plans to use it for other niche sports. For instance, with the summer Olympics due to be held in London in 2012, there would be a host of niche sports that could be handled in this way.
UKTV has not released forecasts on the number of subscribers that they need to get to break even on the basketball project. But the company has said that additional revenue streams will be available from ads placed on the surrounding web site and the possibility of getting sponsors for the events. The actual broadband broadcasts will not have advertising in the programming.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on the internet during the week ended April 23, Microsoft, Yahoo, Time Warner, Google retained their positions as the top four parent companies for another week, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. EBay fell from fifth to sixth place, replaced by News Corp. Online.
Vonage took the top advertiser spot back from GUS Plc this week, dropping the latter to second place. United Online and Netflix flip-flopped to third and fourth place, respectively. NexTag rounded off the top five, up from No. 10 the week before.
The top advertising site for the week was Yahoo. MySpace took over second place from MSN, which dropped to third. AOL.com and eBay completed the top five, with the latter rising from No. 8 the previous week.
The average computer sessions per person held at 16 for the week but the average PC time per person rose nearly 3 percent to 16 hours and 21 minutes. The average number of domains visited per person was also up by 8 percent to 39.
Top 25 parent companies Week Ended April 23
#
Parent
Unique Audience (000)
Reach %
Time spent per person (hh:mm:ss)
1
Microsoft
78,457
60.9
0:40:08
2
Yahoo!
71,205
55.2
1:07:25
3
Time Warner
67,864
52.6
1:43:47
4
Google
62,174
48.2
0:20:23
5
News Corp. Online
30,907
24.0
0:43:35
6
eBay
30,678
23.8
0:53:08
7
InterActiveCorp
25,012
19.4
0:13:52
8
Amazon
19,782
15.3
0:12:22
9
Landmark Communications
17,683
13.7
0:18:52
10
Walt Disney
Internet Group
17,375
13.5
0:16:52
11
RealNetworks, Inc.
16,947
13.1
0:26:24
12
Apple Computer
16,030
12.4
0:29:13
13
New York Times Company
15,788
12.2
0:07:27
14
United Online
14,760
11.5
0:26:27
15
Verizon Communications
11,743
9.1
0:14:28
16
Bank of America
11,327
8.8
0:23:56
17
AT&T Inc.
11,015
8.5
0:17:09
18
CNET Networks
10,748
8.3
0:07:38
19
E.W. Scripps Company
10,550
8.2
0:05:29
20
Wikipedia
9,944
7.7
0:08:53
21
Gannett
9,293
7.2
0:09:24
22
Comcast Corp.
8,966
7.0
0:23:24
23
Viacom
8,862
6.9
0:25:28
24
CBS Corporation
8,508
6.6
0:11:47
25
Gorilla Nation Media
7,471
5.8
0:07:21
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings
Top 25 brands Week Ended April 23
Parent
Unique Audience (000)
Reach %
Time spent per person (hh:mm:ss)
1
Yahoo!
70,840
54.9
1:07:32
2
Google
61,075
47.4
0:19:54
3
MSN
60,740
47.1
0:35:53
4
Microsoft
59,235
45.9
0:16:18
5
AOL
46,306
35.9
2:17:56
6
eBay
26,463
20.5
0:56:06
7
MySpace
21,065
16.3
0:57:00
8
Real Network
16,944
13.1
0:26:24
9
Weather Channel
16,864
13.1
0:19:31
10
Apple
16,030
12.4
0:29:13
11
MapQuest
15,995
12.4
0:06:33
12
Amazon
15,776
12.2
0:11:43
13
Ask Search Network
15,514
12.0
0:13:36
14
CNN
11,799
9.2
0:23:11
15
About.com
11,205
8.7
0:03:00
16
Wikipedia
9,775
7.6
0:08:55
17
Bank of America
8,825
6.8
0:26:39
18
PayPal
8,040
6.2
0:12:12
19
Comcast
7,933
6.2
0:24:47
20
Blogger
7,596
5.9
0:06:51
21
Gorilla Nation Media
7,471
5.8
0:07:21
22
Lycos Network
7,389
5.7
0:03:49
23
Dell
7,328
5.7
0:10:52
24
IMDb - Internet Movie Database
6,852
5.3
0:08:38
25
Userplane
6,767
5.3
0:17:22
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings
Top 25 advertisers (excludes house ads) Week Ended April 23
#
Company
Impressions (000)
1
Vonage Holdings Corp
4,120,032,000
2
GUS Plc
3,918,634,000
3
United Online, Inc.
1,971,315,000
4
Netflix, Inc.
1,756,985,000
5
NexTag, Inc.
1,271,414,000
6
Classes USA, Inc.
944,520,000
7
Ameriquest Mortgage Company
887,792,000
8
American InterContinental University
884,057,000
9
Apollo Group, Inc.
807,846,000
10
HSBC Holdings plc
722,011,000
11
Verizon Communications, Inc.
699,353,000
12
LowerMyBills.com, Inc.
696,980,000
13
Providian Financial Corporation
669,589,000
14
Flycell
658,179,000
15
BellSouth Corporation
633,707,000
16
GreenLight Financial Services
595,978,000
17
Dell Computer Corporation
556,783,000
18
Colonize.com
535,149,000
19
Ask Jeeves, Inc.
433,126,000
20
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co
423,990,000
21
Scottrade, Inc.
413,006,000
22
E*TRADE FINANCIAL Corp.
412,006,000
23
InterActiveCorp
400,345,000
24
Skype Technologies S.A.
396,332,000
25
Bank of America Corporation
394,911,000
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance
Top 25 advertising sites (excludes house ads) Week Ended April 23
