Pay-TV body sets ceiling for Vietnam EPL rights deal


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Rebecca Hawkes

| 11 January 2016




The Vietnam Pay Television Association (VNPayTV) has confirmed it will turn its back on the English Premier League (EPL) if media broker MP&Silva demands too high a price for the local broadcast rights.



VNPayTV has set a price ceiling for the local rights to broadcast three seasons of the EPL from 2016-2019, which allows for a rise of no more than 20% from the US$40 million paid by broadcaster K+ to show live EPL action from 2013-2015.

K+, which has broadcast the EPL in Vietnam since 2010, originally paid $19 million for a three-season rights deal from 2010-2013. Rival VTC, who held the EPL rights from 2007 and 2010, paid $4 million – double the figure paid by VTV for the previous three years from 2004-2007.

Some commentators believed this year’s EPL rights might have hit US$100 million in Vietnam, resulting in escalating subscription costs being handed down to viewers.

In line with a government request, VNPayTV said that if MP & Silva refuses to negotiate on prices that are unreasonably high, it would stop pursuing the rights for the world’s most financially lucrative league, according to Vietnamnet.

MP&Silva has previously claimed that some members of the pay-TV association have illegally aired matches from the EPL, Italy’s Serie A and Spain’s La Liga, whose rights are exclusively held by different TV networks in Vietnam.

VNPayTV has accepted responsibility for policing such copyright infringements, and assured MP&Silva the matter would be investigated.