Showtime sticks its neck out over Premiership football

[BGonaSTICK]

Showtime Arabia is mounting a major effort to win new subscribers in the Middle East, using English Premiership soccer.

Dubai-based Showtime spent a fortune to secure exclusive English Premier League soccer for its subscribers, and the marketing build-up has begun. Showtime will air every one of the 380 games kicking off August 11. In fairness, Showtime has gone the extra mile, investing in new local studio facilities, local hosting (in English and Arabic) and has secured some top-line talent to host the pre-match coverage, and actual match commentary.

Showtime is dedicating up to three live channels (Showsports 1, 2 and 3) and Showsports Extra to manage up to four live games simultaneously. There are occasions when six games are being played at the same time, and the soccer games will pre-empt some programming on other channels.

Nevertheless, the decision to back English soccer is a huge risk. There are fans of the Premiership in the Middle East, but in previous years Showtime’s rivals have held the exclusive coverage without much benefit in terms of subscribers. Time will tell whether Showtime’s blanket coverage is what soccer fans want. Critics of Showtime’s philosophy have argued that while English soccer IS important, it does not have the ratings power of local soccer, local national soccer, or local international soccer, all of which is available in abundance to pan-Arabic audiences from a number of low-cost sources.

Source: World Media

[Analoguesat]

Originally Posted by BGonaSTICK

Showtime is dedicating up to three live channels (Showsports 1, 2 and 3) and Showsports Extra to manage up to four live games simultaneously. There are occasions when six games are being played at the same time, and the soccer games will pre-empt some programming on other channels.

What - only 6 being played at the same time? Surely its more than that on a saturday afternoon

[Jimdefruit]

If they dont do well, perhaps they will recover some costs by subbing to Art.

[jontydog]

Or they could move it to hotbird so us mere mortals with tiny 80cm dishes can get it

[BGonaSTICK]

Originally Posted by Analoguesat

What - only 6 being played at the same time? Surely its more than that on a Saturday afternoon

Nope - Sky put paid to the traditional 3pm Saturday kickoff - they dictate that the fixtures are moved around to generate maximum TV viewing numbers/revenue. Only on special occasions, such as the last game of the season etc. are loads of games played concurrently.