The commercial negotiations between HiTV and the Association of Cable TV Operators of Nigeria (ACON) for the sub-licensing of some of the rights to broadcast the English Premier League (EPL) matches have broken down.  It seems that the key reason for this stalemate is that ACON is not prepared to pay a commercially viable price to HiTV for those rights. 

On Sunday, 1 November 2009 ACON published a Notice in Thisday Newspaper about this dispute.  However, that Notice contained some serious distortions concerning the sale and acquisition of broadcasting rights.

The background to this dispute is that the EPL has licensed to HiTV, a satellite Pay-TV operator, the rights to broadcast 80% of the EPL matches to its subscribers in Nigeria.  The EPL licensed those rights on an exclusive basis.  In other words, the EPL undertook that for the territory of Nigeria it would license those broadcast rights only to HiTV.  In exchange, HiTV paid the EPL a large amount of money for those rights. 
The agreement between the EPL and HiTV probably allows HiTV, subject to certain conditions, to sub-license some of those broadcast rights to other operators in Nigeria.  However, HiTV is only likely to do so if it is paid a commercially viable price. 

ACON alleges that HiTV is guilty of foreclosure and is out "to kill cable".  ACON argues that the international practice is for the rights holders (e.g. the EPL) to only license its broadcast rights to bidders who can provide national or regional coverage.  ACON states that whilst satellite is able to provide such coverage, cable operators, by virtue of their licences, are "forbidden" from the international bidding process to acquire the broadcast rights to sports events.  For this reason satellite operators must be forced to then sub-license the rights to cable operators.  ACON refers to the first, "satellite", window and to the second, "cable", window, and that programming "offered through one window must therefore be made available to the other window". 

However, ACON's reference to "windows" in this context is incorrect.  The notion of "windows" in the international auctioning of sports rights does not exist. 

It is also important to realize that by far the largest source of income for a sports body is the revenue it receives from the sale of its broadcast rights.  So in selling those rights, a sports body will generally seek to acquire the highest price possible.  It does so by considering a range of strategies, including in which territories it wants to sell its rights, and how to package the sale of those rights.  The reality is that the sale and acquisition of sports rights is a highly competitive global market.  In the situation under consideration, the EPL has decided to sell the broadcast rights to its matches to some operators in Nigeria.  The rights are to broadcast those matches on Pay-TV (the EPL does not distinguish between satellite and cable).  This is entirely in accordance with international practice.

Furthermore, to succeed, each broadcaster has to distinguish itself from other broadcasters.  The best way of doing this is to broadcast attractive content that is offered by no other broadcaster.  In other words, a broadcaster, and particularly a Pay-TV operator (to whom the subscriber pays a fee in order to receive the subscription broadcasting service), must include in its service exclusive premium programming, including premium sports programming. 

It seems that HiTV has recognised this, and that in order to expand its subscriber numbers it would have to offer subscribers attractive content which its competitors would not be able to offer.  This has yielded positive results for HiTV, whose subscriber base has grown significantly since acquiring those rights.  And having acquired those rights, it is up to HiTV to decide whether to sub-license some of those rights to other operators, including cable operators.  Given the high price paid by HiTV to acquire those rights, it is understandably only likely to sub-license those rights on terms which are commercially viable.  But HiTV cannot be compelled to sub-license those rights. 

ACON could just as easily have formed a consortium to bid for the broadcast rights to the EPL matches.  And if it had won those rights, it could then have elected as to whether or not to sub-license the satellite rights, and at what price.  ACON needs to wake-up to the highly competitive commercial realities in which it finds itself, instead of abusing processes and confusing the public.

The federal government should enact an enabling law to nip this piracy thing in the bud,how can people just wake up and start eating from another man`s sweat.ACON or what ever they call themselves should be ashamed of themselves for even having the guts to take HITV to court on this issue that is so crystal clear that they are guilty of piracy.Infact after judgement has been made in favour of HITV ,acon shld be made to pay for the backlog of fee they havent paid to HITV or risk outright closure.A word is enuf for the wise.

Story! Hitv is as dry as the Kalahari and Sahara deserts put together. Those guys need to improve their pictures and programming content. One day, another company will come up and outbid them for the rights to the EPL and that will be the end of Hitv.

HiTV kò, HiTV nì.
Develop more programming content.
Thats what ppl want.

Its only God that will punish HITV, cus it has been proven that man cannot.

in as much i agree that Hitv do not programme content, it should also be noted that Piracy in all ramifications should be discouraged

i think we should try and encourge local companies. Hitv is not doing too bad