sorted by: recent | see :
popular
Content Tagged with current + Product
Live Current Media Signs a $50 Million Deal For Exclusive Online Rights To Indian Cricket
Here’s a deal straight out of Rupert Murdoch’s playbook circa 1994. Just like Murdoch established Fox back then by paying an exorbitant-seeming sum ($1.6 billion at the time) for the rights to broadcast the NFL, Live Current Media is paying $50 million over ten years for the exclusive online rights to official content from the Indian Premier League (a new cricket league in India with a shorter, more fan-friendly version of the game—first match is tomorrow). Cricket is huge in India and elsewhere. It is a sport perfect for online distribution, with fans spread all over the world. Globally there are about one billion fans, estimates Live Current Media. And the Indian Premier League has already on track to generate $2 billion overall this year.
As part of the deal, Current Live will create and operate official sites for the Indian Premier League (IPLT20.com) and the Board of Control for Cricket (BCCI.tv). Current Live will pay the Indian Premier League $3 million a year, and the BCCI $2 million a year for the exclusive online rights to official photos, video footage, live scoreboards, match results stats, a fantasy cricket league, ticketing, fan polling, contests, and more. It is a pretty big commitment for Live Current Media, a domain-name company with revenues of $9 million last year and a net loss of $2 million. The Canadian company is basically betting its entire $51 million over-the-counter market cap on this deal.
But Live Current also owns cricket.com, which will be seeded with content from this deal. Kulveer Taggar, the former CEO of Auctomatic (which was recently purchased by Current Live Media) and one of the internal champions of the deal tells me:
The Cricket.com vision is to create a site for cricket fans regardless of the country or specific league. Passionate cricket fans may be interested in watching a different league or may just want to stay up on all the cricket news they can get access to and that is what Cricket.com will deliver. Following this significant relationship with the IPL and BCCI, Live Current will be speaking with other cricket organizations and determining relationships for content, media access and distribution as appropriate.
There is no question that global multinationals are looking for ways to target the high-growth Indian market and that cricket is one of the few channels through which the majority of Indians are engaged with. It’s not surprising to see sponsors of the league such as Pepsi, Honda, and Citibank. It is not a local Indian phenomenon. There are major business players globally tapping into this market.
He expects to launch Cricket.com by the end of the summer or early fall. So really, this deal is all about gaining exclusive content for Cricket.com. But did Current Live Media pay too much for the rights? Taggar argues not:
Recently the Cricinfo.com site was sold to ESPN for over $50 million and while the site had good traffic, it did not have exclusive content rights negotiated for that price.
In other words, he wants to take on ESPN.com. Will this be the start of bidding wars for the exclusive online rights for other sports leagues, or does this only make sense for cricket? Whle you ponder that and wait for Cricket.com to launch, cricket fans can check out Cricketwires, a recently-launched Digg-like site for all things cricket.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Current News: An Even Easier Way For Web Audiences To Get On TV
As Al Gore’s Current Media gets ready for its IPO, the cable channel is drawing more on its Website audience for TV content. Today, it is launching Current News, a three-minute wrap-up culled from audience submissions on the Web that will play every hour on Current TV. As such, the site now has a new look, with the audience contributions front and center. Each one can be voted up the page, and at the very top are the most popular, which get packaged together every hour on TV in the new Current News segment. The video can also be seen on the Website.
From the very beginning, Current has solicited submissions from its Web audience. About a third of the segments on the news channel are shot and produced by freelancers who submit via the Website. If their video is played on TV, Current pays them at least $1,000. But, says Current’s Web strategist Robin Sloan, “There is a pretty limited audience of people who can create good stuff. We wanted to give more people a chance to contribute.” So last October, the company relaunched its Website as Current.com (from Current.tv), and let the audience items that are easier to create than a fully-produced TV-quality video. They were allowed to submit links, YouTube videos, Flickr photos, and Webcam comments.
Now, with Current News and the redesign of the site, the audience contributions that are voted to the top of the page are put together into a video by editors at Current, who throw in some graphics and a quirky computerized female voice that narrates. The feedback loop between the Website and the TV channel will now be measured in hours, not days. “This is the perpetual beta taken to TV,” says Sloan. Here is an example of what the mashup video looks like:
The robot voice really needs to go.
Current Media makes nearly all of its money from the cable channel. Last year, it lost $9.7 million, on revenues of $63.8 million. But revenues grew 68 percent, and its Websiet is finally starting to show some signs of life. Sloan says monthly uniques are at 1.5 million. ComScore measured about 500,000 U.S. visitors in February, which spiked up from 150,000 before that (see chart). Making it easier to get on TV and revolving the entire site around that should help the Web traffic even more.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Radiohead To Promote Album With New Year’s Eve Concert on Current TV
You’ve got to hand it to those guys at Radiohead. Not only are they great musicians. They are great promoters who are at the forefront of figuring out how to use the culture of free music to sell CDs. On New Year’s Eve, just before their latest album In Rainbows goes on sale in stores on January 1, the band will broadcast a prerecorded concert of all the album’s tracks on Current TV. The concert will also be available on the Web at current.com. While Radiohead and Current are positioning this as a “commercial-free” broadcast, what it amounts to is a free commercial for Radiohead’s album.
Radiohead originally released In Rainbows as a pay-as-you-like digital download for a limited time. (Although, that did not stop people from downloading it from BitTorrent networks). If fans were going to download the album for free anyway, at least this way Radiohead could control the way it was distributed somewhat. It also got some karma points from their fans and even more free press than they would have otherwise. Now that all the buzz has propelled the album to No. 1 on many critics’ lists, the band is going to start selling the album in CD form through traditional channels. It is no longer available as a free download from the official Radiohead site. What better way to kick off sales than with a free New Year’s Eve concert on both TV and the Web?
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
