Who has the Rights?

Interesting story on the Guardian Web site today saying that mobile phone operators are now cooling on the idea of shelling out millions for exclusive rights to show Premier League football highlights.

It is an interesting problem for the Premier League and other rights holders as they seek to exploit rights in a world where technology is outpacing selling models.

Bob Fuller, chief executive of 3, is quoted saying that 3 will look at buying up the next rights package when it comes up, but says that he thinks that exclusivity is not worth paying lots of money for anymore.

His argument is sound. A few years ago when 3 launched and video on mobile was still in its infancy, paying for exclusive rights to Premier league highlights packages could be used as a carrot to get people on the network. Now, in the age where mobile TV is available for a few and is rapidly become a reality for all, paying millions for a hived off 'mobile only' package of rights does not make sense, especially if you then add in the convergence of delivery companies with triple and quad plays being launched into the market that will abe able to offer better content packages.

Interestingly mobile entertainment company Rok announced a few weeks ago that it had developed something it was calling the Rok Black Box (BLCX for short), a device that plugs into the TV, encodes and compresses the signal, delivers it across broadband to the Web and can then be acessed via 2.5G mobile using a Java application and viewed at 24 frames a second.

The BLCX (apparenlty standing for Bollocks to the networks) is not yet commercially available but is planned for a roll-out before the World Cup this summer. T-Mobile paid a vast sum of cash (£20m?) for the exclusive UK rights to bundled World Cup highlights packages, charging users for access for each view. The BLCX, if it works, will allow you to watch whatever you would normally receive on your TV - Sky, Cable of Freeview - for nothing more than the data charge on your phone, or for free if you happen to be in a Wi-Fi hotpost.

With technology like this and the rapid emergence of mobile TV, rights holders are going to have to re-think how they package and sell their rights.