Spark moves into sport with Premier League football rights
Spark kicks off sports division with Premier League Football rights win
Spark has won exclusive New Zealand rights to the English Premier League for three years, starting with the 2019-20 season and running until May 2022. It has also secured local rights to Manchester United TV.
The company says it plans to wrap both football deals into a new standalone sports media business. Spark already holds the rights to next year's Rugby World Cup.
English Premier League football fans are used to watching games via streaming.
The EPL was the first major sports property to be acquired by a New Zealand digital broadcaster when Coliseum Sports Media held the rights from 2013 to 2016. Spark previously partnered with Coliseum before BeIN Sports took over the rights.
Telcos and sporting rights an international trend
In a media statement Spark managing director Simon Moutter say his company developed its plan after looking at overseas sports content media trends.
He says: “We’ve carefully considered the different models and will be looking to replicate the good things other businesses have done and learn from the challenges they’ve had — all the while thinking carefully about how sports media fits in a New Zealand context”.
Spark plans to launch its own sports streaming platform in early 2019 and will announce pricing and packages closer to launch.
Jeff Latch to head Spark Sport
Spark has appointed Jeff Latch to lead Spark Sport. He will oversee content acquisition and manage the platform. Latch previously served as TVNZ’s director of content, where he was responsible for acquiring programming, including sports rights. Spark is also partnering with TVNZ on the Rugby World Cup project.
Latch says Spark will work with a specialist sports streaming company and that the platform will be different from the one used by Spark's Lightbox service.
He also says Spark aims to run its sports media operation as a standalone business, rather than using it to attract broadband or mobile customers—a strategy similar to how it has operated Lightbox.
Netflix close to two million NZ viewers
Roy Morgan research shows Netflix now has nearly two million viewers in New Zealand. Subscription numbers grew35 percent over the past year to 1.9 million. The research firm reported:
"Now over three million New Zealanders have access to some form of Pay or Subscription TV, up 13.9 percent on a year ago. The growth in Pay and Subscription TV is being driven by the likes of Netflix along with a suite of rival streaming services including Lightbox, Sky TV’s Neon and Amazon Prime Video."
Viewer growth has been slower for Sky TV’s Neon, which grew just 1.7 percent over the year, reaching 1.6 million viewers. Lightbox is the second most popular video-on-demand service, with 830,000 users—up 43 percent year-on-year, growing faster than Netflix. Vodafone TV has 295,000 users.
Northpower plans $194 million investment over ten years
Northpower says it plans to inject nearly $200 million into the Kaipara and Whangārei economies over the next decade. Most of the investment will go toward electricity maintenance and modernisation to support the growing demand fromelectric vehicles, rooftop solar and storage technologies.
Northpower Fibre connected 2,603 new users to its UFB network in Whangārei during the past financial year and a further 306 outside the city. Growth has continued in the 2019 financial year, with 1,044 new connections added in the past four months.
Vodafone offers Netflix to mobile customers
Vodafone is offering 12 months of Netflix to mobile customers. To qualify a customer has to be on a pay monthly plan costing $80 or more. The company offers similar deals in several overseas markets.
Australian National University squeezes more from light
Scientists at the Australian National University have developed a device that can change the colour of light, which they say could boost internet speeds.
Professor Wieslaw Krolikowski, one of the lead researchers from ANU, describes the device as a new type of nonlinear photonic crystal. It is as thin as a human hair and represents a major breakthrough.
He says: "Our device can produce different types of light and in different colours, simply by changing the angle that we shine a laser beam into the device, and it is reusable for different purposes.
"Scientists had previously been restricted to one- or two-dimensional structures in nonlinear photonic crystals, which had limited scope to change light, but we found an innovative way to modify them in three dimensions to unlock exciting new capabilities."