French Connection: LFP Restructures Broadcast Rights

France’s Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) unveiled a new structure for its TV rights, splitting the soccer games into 12 packages, up from four in '04, in an effort "to level the playing field and attract smaller bidders,” according to Jethro Mullen of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. Canal Plus, the “dominant pay-TV operator in France" with 10.4 million subscribers, outbid rival pay-TV operator Television Par Satellite, which it later acquired, for French soccer rights in '04.  The new structure “includes three ‘premium’ packages for the prime-time games as well as three ‘fan’ packages comprising the rights for games of particular clubs.” There are also “four highlights packages and a multiplex package, which covers the rights to broadcast up to 20 minutes from all matches on four specific days during the season,” as well as a mobile phone package.  The LFP is also “selling the rights for four seasons rather than three in the hope of drawing the interest of digital-content distributors, which need the additional season to boost their audience shares and realize a return on their investment.”  The restructuring makes the current situation in France “similar to that in England, where the European Commission forced an end to [BSkyB's] monopoly on the rights to live soccer games” in ’05. BSkyB “ended up paying more money for fewer games," and Setanta bought two of the packages. The English Premier League collected US$3.5B over three years beginning in ’07, up from US$2.4B under the previous deal (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 12/5).