StarHub's loss of English Premier League rights a blessing in disguise

StarHub gains at least S$20m annually due to the absence of cost for EPL rights.

Here’s from analyst Sachin Mittal of DBS:

Neither of the players has an incentive to bid higher for exclusive rights, as consumers can access the content through cross-carriage arrangements anyway.

There are two possibilities depending on what is acceptable to the Premier League. (i) Both players place a common joint-bid; (ii) Each player bids on a non-exclusive basis so that cross-carriage does not apply.

In either case, each player has to incur some cost of owning the content-rights.  We estimate that StarHub has benefitted at least S$20m annually due to the absence of cost for EPL rights and these benefits may disappear going forward.

We don’t see much impact on SingTel due to the high cost-base of EPL rights.