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Written by: Commentary Editing Room
2021-04-13 17:45
Last update date: 2021-04-13 17:45
The Tokyo Olympics, which has been postponed for one year, will open on July 23 if there are no accidents.
The world continues to be busy fighting the epidemic this year. The Tokyo Olympics has confirmed that it will not accept overseas audiences to watch the games. The general public can only watch the broadcasts if they want to enjoy the games. However, the Tokyo Olympics broadcast costs as high as 35 million US dollars (over 270 million Hong Kong dollars). Under the conditions, it is also difficult for local TV stations to afford it.
It is still unknown whether the Hong Kong people of this Olympic Games can "watch the broadcast".
The Tokyo Olympics, a type of international sports event, relies on broadcast rights income collected from different TV stations around the world to maintain its operations.
For example, in the 2016 Rio Olympics held last year, local TV stations spent a total of nearly US$4 billion (about 31.2 billion Hong Kong dollars) to buy broadcast rights. According to the Olympic Committee, their broadcast rights accounted for 73% of their total revenue.
Behind the high broadcast fees, theoretically, it was accompanied by huge number of viewers and advertising revenue. About 3.6 billion people watched the Rio Olympics last year, among which NBC’s total advertising revenue during the Rio Olympics It will exceed 1.5 billion US dollars (about 11.6 billion Hong Kong dollars).
It is not a new case to broadcast the loss of money and no one to do East Olympics
However, for Hong Kong, a small market, the huge broadcast costs may not be able to bring huge profits to the TV station.
Among them, in 2016, the free-to-air TV broadcast rights for the Paseo Olympics was awarded for 160 million yuan. Taking into account the station’s program production costs of more than 100 million yuan, the total cost of wireless TV was nearly 300 million yuan.
However, due to the 11-hour time difference between Brazil and Hong Kong, the number of viewers was also greatly reduced. When TVB announced its results in 2017, it stated that the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in Brazil failed to recover the cost due to the fact that advertising sales did not meet the expected target. Incurred a loss of 150 million yuan.
If pay TV stations dominate the broadcasting rights, although they can share the cost with users through a charging plan, the bidding for broadcasting rights for the past few World Cups and Olympics has caused disputes from time to time after the purchase of broadcasting rights by pay TV stations.
For example, in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the cable TV, which was awarded the right to broadcast at the time, planned to broadcast only on its own channel, and only let the free TV stations broadcast some of the events after the government intervened.
Until the 2012 London Olympics, they were unable to fulfill the requirement of 200 hours of broadcasting on free TV due to the purchase of broadcasting rights due to cable television. In the end, the Olympic Committee sent staff to Hong Kong to follow up and required the government to intervene to mediate.
The world continues to be busy fighting the epidemic this year. The Tokyo Olympics confirmed that it will not admit overseas audiences to watch the games. The general public can only watch the broadcast if they want to enjoy the games.
(Profile image/Getty Images)
The Tokyo Olympic prime time investment in Hong Kong and Taiwan is worth considering
The problem of broadcasting rights in Hong Kong has repeatedly occurred. The high broadcasting costs may not be in the interest of free TV stations and will prevent the public from enjoying these sports events. However, if they are purchased by pay TV stations, they will undoubtedly make the Olympics and World Cup sports events become " Money is limited," and the government cannot ask TV stations that have bought the rights for real money to give up their rights.
Therefore, whether it is a free TV station or a pay TV station, the burdens and disputes in the past have caused them to "keep one's wisdom through the same thing," and no longer actively care about broadcasting rights.
Under the current economic conditions, it is understandable that television stations will bid for broadcasting rights more cautiously, but on the other hand, this is the opportunity for the Hong Kong government to deal with the broadcasting rights disputes for many years.
The Hong Kong government has always said that it attaches great importance to sports development. The Olympic Games is a four-year sports event. Tokyo and Hong Kong have only a one-hour time difference. Hong Kong also believes that it can make a resounding effect. If it is introduced by the government and broadcast to the public for free, it will help Hong Kong's sports. Popularization and event-oriented, it is convenient for the society to create a sports atmosphere.
The Hong Kong Association and Olympic Committee Vice President Huo Qigang accepted an exclusive interview with "Hong Kong 01", saying that the broadcasting rights for the Tokyo Olympic Games have not yet been secured, and he hopes that the government will buy it.
(Photo by Zeng Ziyang)
The Tokyo Olympics is about to be held. If no TV station in Hong Kong is willing to bid, the Hong Kong government may consider using Radio Hong Kong to buy it and broadcast various sports events.
After all, if the Hong Kong government directly subsidizes private free-to-air TV stations to purchase programs, it will naturally lead to controversy over "government-sponsored grants and acceptances." On the contrary, Radio Hong Kong is originally a government department, and the government pays for the programs to be broadcast by the government, which is in the public interest.
Taking into account that other TV stations may have more experience in the production of large-scale sports programs, the Hong Kong government can also lead the cooperation between multiple TV stations in Hong Kong, sharing part of the broadcast fee according to the number of broadcast hours, allowing multiple TV stations in Hong Kong to broadcast jointly The Olympic events have achieved a win-win situation among all TV stations in Hong Kong.
In the future, it may even be possible to study whether to cooperate with CCTV in the Mainland to purchase broadcasting rights, so that the broadcasting signals can be "landed" in Hong Kong in a cheaper way.
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