Why Starhub priced Euro 2012 Tournament a lot more expensive

Sports group subscribers four years ago only paid S$10-20 while non-sports paid S$50 but it has now gone up to $S$69.55.

StarHub has announced the pricing for the UEFA Euro 2012 football tournament which will start from 8 Jun to 2 Jul and jointly hosted by Poland and Ukraine.

Starting from 27 Mar, all viewers (regardless of whether they are from StarHub or SingTel) will be able topurchase
the Pay-Per-View pack, with an early bird discounted price of S$58.85 before 30 Apr, instead of S$69.55.

According to OCBC Investment Research, the pricing is a lot steeper than what it charged for the same tournament four years ago. Back then, sports group subscribers paid S$10-20 (before GST) while non-sports group subscribers paid S$50.

“One reason behind the steeper price could be due to rising content cost – according to media reports, the pricing for broadcast rights for the 2012 event has more than doubled the 2008 event. For example, Vietnam was reported as paying some US$5m for the latest rights, as opposed to US$2m in 2008. As such, we are not surprised by the higher pricing announced by StarHub.” said OCBC analyst Carey Wong.

According to Ms. Carey, the Euro 2012 event will also be the first test of the new crosscarriage mandate of exclusive content, where SingTel mio TV subscribers will also be able to purchase the pack at the same price
(subject to a one-off connection fee of S$10.70).

“StarHub will be able to sell the content into more households beyond its 545k subscribers; SingTel has some 353k mio TV customers although we estimate that 50% may already own a StarHub setup box,” she added.