Nah...I won't be so hasty as to put down Starhub right away. As a local company, they been through lots of tough times to get to where they are today. I still remember the times when there were only 1 telecom operator and thats Singapore Telecom. And then there was the time of numerous operators like Sunpage and some other forgotten names. Only 2 of them emerge as market leaders besides main monopoly Singtel. I had issues with their services at times like when I was double-charged for my mobile bills but ,like juggler says, I am over it.
Charging a premium for WC 2006 is a logical move for the company from the business point of view. Since Mediacorp surrender the air time rights for WC 2006 to them and having paid a huge sum for that, It is only fair to cover back the cost of that investment. I guess Mediacorp knows it is not viable for them to buy the air time rights and still operate on that minimal fees we pay them via the TV license fees. They can't suddenly up the fees just for WC unlike Starhub which as a commercial entity can.
As a consumer, we frequently question the acts of businesses making money out of opportunity. If we put ourselves into the shoes of the CEO of the company, we would garner a different perspective. Of course if they do charge money for NBA Final and Cricket World Cup, then I guess it is stepping a little over the line. Yet the only other alternative is to pay higher TV license fee so that Mediacorp can buy all the rights over these sporting events. Remember that Malaysians pay TV license fees as well so the WC 2006 that they are watching ain't exactly free. Besides, they have a much larger population than Singapore and assuming they pay the same amount or slightly lesser than us, they would still have more funds to play around compared to Mediacorp.
Of course the next entity in line that we can point our fingers to is, of course, the organisers of such sporting events. They are the one who charges fees for air time rights. Right now, it may look like they are the evil ones but dig a little deeper and you shall see that they are only right to do this. Most sporting events like this do not have funding from the governments . They rely heavily on sponsors to finance the whole campaign and these companies get free advertising in return. TV companies from various countries also pay money to get rights to show it in their countries. Without these funding, I doubt any of this sporting events will operate as smoothly as they do now.
All this is done just for the benefit of the consumers, which in turn generate profit for the companies. It is one big engine running and if we as consumers pull the plug, pardon the pun, everything will go to ground. By the way, I am no way connected to any of the entities mentioned in this post except as a consumer so I am taking an unbiased point of view.
Best of luck in the World Cup bets and enjoy the beautiful game.
Avan
Yours Truly, Avan
I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life... to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
~ Henry David Thoreau
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How many of us really appreciate those "extra" channels except for coaches? As for the HT/FT analysis, why can't we have Mr. Tohari Paijan/Fandi/Brain Richmond/Sundramoorthy etc. (sorry for the wrong spelling, if any) doing all those analysis for us? Just because Singaporean (me included) are always good at making excuses for others people's action?
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!!!!!GOAL!!!!
Now must watch the last 10 mins of the game to be sure of the score.
Originally Posted by juggler
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