Vietnamese television stations face difficulties

VHO - The 33rd SEA Games taking place in December in Thailand is becoming a difficult problem for Vietnamese television stations, as the host country's Organizing Committee announced that it will collect participation fees of up to 20,000 USD (more than 500,000,000 VND) for each unit.

TV stations that want to work at the SEA Games will have to pay a large fee. Photo: QUY LUONG

This new regulation, issued by the Southeast Asian Games Federation (SEAGF), applies to all television stations in the region if they want to send reporters to work directly at the Games.

Unprecedented

According to the Vietnam Olympic Committee (VOC), all television stations wishing to report from the scene of the 33rd SEA Games must register with VOC. Once the list of reporters is approved, VOC will send it to SEAGF to serve as the basis for issuing press cards.

The prerequisite is that each station must pay a participation fee of 20,000 USD to the 33rd SEA Games Organizing Committee. For this year's Games, Thailand has decided not to sell television rights in the usual way, but instead apply the above-mentioned fixed participation fee model to the stations.

The $20,000 fee may be explained as a fee to share the cost of signal production and enhance the value of the event, especially when Thailand, as the host, will be responsible for producing and providing original television signals for about 29 popular sports at the Games. However, this collection of operating fees is considered unprecedented in the history of the SEA Games and has raised many concerns.

At the 33rd SEA Games Media Conference held in early September in Bangkok (Thailand), the atmosphere became tense when television delegates heard the announcement of the above fee. In response to concerns from television stations, the 33rd SEA Games Organizing Committee said it would work with SEAGF to consider adjusting or reducing this fee. The final decision is expected to be announced at the end of September.

In fact, at the 32nd SEA Games in 2023 in Cambodia, the host country also planned to charge participation fees from the press and television stations. However, this plan had to be canceled after strong reactions from the Olympic Committees of the countries. Cambodia's concession at that time allowed regional stations to continue to operate for free. Experts expect the fee of 20,000 USD this time will also be reduced or waived, thereby creating conditions for television work.

The 33rd SEA Games is scheduled to take place from December 9 to 20 in Bangkok, Chonburi and Songkhla (Thailand), with 54 sports (a total of 574 events). However, the host country only plans to broadcast live about 29 sports, including some new sports such as teqball and rugby, while sports such as road cycling, judo, kickboxing, pencak silat will not have a TV signal.

Burden for Vietnamese television stations

The regulation on collecting operating fees puts Vietnamese television stations in a difficult financial situation. If they accept to pay 20,000 USD for official operating rights, the stations will have to bear a significant additional expense in the context of tight budgets.

On the contrary, if they do not pay the fee, the station can still broadcast the SEA Games but only by “clean” rebroadcasting from the copyrighted TV station - that is, using the entire signal provided by the copyrighted station, including the available commercials, without inserting the station’s own ads and must be accepted by the copyrighted station for rebroadcasting or must buy it back. In order to rebroadcast, this causes the stations to almost lose advertising revenue, leading to great difficulty in calling for sponsorship to cover operating costs.

A TV station leader said that even attractive events like the World Cup or Euro are difficult to mobilize sponsorship, let alone the SEA Games when the station is not allowed to insert advertisements for sponsors. Another TV station representative also said that they may have to accept the option of paying the Organizing Committee, but will have to recalculate the costs, including streamlining the number of reporters working to reduce the burden.

In addition to the participation fee, the cost of organizing and producing news articles at the SEA Games abroad is inherently very high. Each SEA Games usually lasts about 2 weeks, which means that television agencies must send staff to stay in the host country during this time.

The cost of accommodation, food, and travel for a reporter team for about 20 days abroad is not small. With the 33rd SEA Games, the challenge is even greater as the Games are held simultaneously in three different cities. Even a small TV station may have to send at least 3-4 teams to work in parallel at different competition venues, with a total of more than 10 staff.

As for Vietnam Television (VTV), as a national station, it is often responsible for comprehensive news coverage and serving audiences nationwide, so the scale of the reporter group sent to the SEA Games is much larger.

In previous SEA Games, VTV usually sent a crew of 30-35 people. It is expected that in this Games, due to being held in 3 different cities, VTV may need to mobilize a larger number (including reporters, cameramen, technicians, editors...) to cover all the main events, as well as directly produce sideline programs on site. The cost of such a large crew is a significant burden for the station.

With a series of difficulties, Vietnamese television stations are facing a difficult choice related to the 33rd SEA Games. If they accept the expense of participating in full coverage, they must quickly balance their budgets or mobilize funding in a short time.

If they save costs by only broadcasting available programs from the Organizing Committee and copyrighted stations, the stations will have to accept a loss in revenue, and at the same time, domestic audiences risk not being able to fully follow all the competitions of the Vietnamese sports delegation at the Games.

Currently, everyone is waiting for concessions from the SEA Games 33 Organizing Committee. If the $20,000 fee is reduced or canceled, the burden will be somewhat relieved and Vietnamese stations can rest assured to plan operations and produce programs to serve viewers.

On the contrary, if SEAGF and Thailand maintain the fee collection requirement, it is likely that the coverage and quality of the 33rd SEA Games television in Vietnam will be significantly affected.

Source: https://baovanhoa.vn/the-thao/cac-dai-truyen-hinh-viet-nam-gap-kho-167647.html