Experts ponder impact of Sky Italia on soccer market, subscriptions

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Italian media and soccer experts pondered Thursday the impact of a near monopoly in Italy's pay-per-view television business after Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. was given the go-ahead by the European Commission to merge the country's two satellite platforms, Telepiu and Stream.

The merger will lead to the establishment by the end of this month of Sky Italia, which might begin full operations in Italy in July through a single digital platform.

``The new situation will give us a precise idea of the value of Italy's soccer — if it's much less than what has been paid so far or much more,'' Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy's largest sports daily, wrote in an editorial under the headline ``Rupert is here.'' The editorial said Murdoch's arrive should be greeted without suspicion and even favourably.

For soccer fans a single platform should mean easier and less expensive subscriptions, Gazzetta suggested.

So far Stream, a joint venture between News Corp. and Telecom Italia, and Telepiu, a subsidiary of the struggling French group Vivendi Universal, shared the rights for most Serie A and Serie B clubs and broadcast the matches through separate platforms.

The double platform forced Italian fans to subscribe to both Stream and Telepiu to watch home and away matches of their teams and is one the main reasons cited for the somewhat low subscriptions in Italy.

While there are about six million satellite dishes in Italy, pay-TV subscriptions averaged 2.2 million last year.

Milan analysts suggested that a first tough test for Sky Italia will be the need to negotiate television rights with individual soccer clubs, while in England, for instance, soccer rights are dealt by the national league, for all teams.

Meanwhile eight Serie A clubs, not satisfied about their contracts for the current campaign, are still pursuing the launch for the next soccer season of an independent pay-TV platform under the label Plus Media Trading (PMT).

While sport events are considered the core business of Murdoch's group, with Champions League matches added to the current soccer programs of Stream and Telepiu, Sky Italia will also make available a wide range of non-sport channels, including movies.