Adam Rabiner - LiveCurrent

India mobile market on a tear

nospam@example.com (Adam Rabiner) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:24:32 -0700

India added 6.42 million GSM mobile users in July 2008, and the country had 218.9 million GSM users at the end of July. View the source article here.

Also, Telcommunications Magazine published a report, India’s mobile market is on the move, which can be read here.

Big TV pays $31.1M to be official IPL sponsor

nospam@example.com (Adam Rabiner) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:05:49 -0700

India's contentSutra reports:

Big TV, Reliance ADAG’s to-be launched DTH service has bagged the official DTH partnership rights for the IPL for Rs 137 crore ($31.16 million) for four years. According to BS, the only other contender was Airtel’s rival DTH service, Digital TV, which had put in a bid of $30.28 million (Rs 127 crore) for the same term. This doesn’t mean Big will hold rights for DTH, the telecast rights are with the World Sport Group, for which they had paid $1 Billion, for 10 years. Big TV will be the official DTH sponsor, just like Pepsi is the official beverage and Kingfisher, the official airline.

LIVC conference call/webcast coming soon

nospam@example.com (Adam Rabiner) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 09:59:20 -0700

Live Current will host a conference call and webcast to discuss the upcoming second quarter results and provide a general business update to shareholders. The details of the event will be announced soon.

Also TBA shortly are details of an investor conference LIVC will present at during the first week of September.

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UPDATE, Aug. 14/08: Click HERE to see today's press release.

Hello LIVC, goodbye CMNN

nospam@example.com (Adam Rabiner) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 05:04:00 -0700

Live Current has a new stock ticker symbol, "LIVC", which will take effect at the open of the markets today. The change in trading symbol reflects the company’s official name change from Communicate.com Inc. to Live Current Media Inc. The company also announced the appointment of a new transfer agent & registrar.

Please see the press release HERE.

The Economist: Cricket, lovely cricket

nospam@example.com (Adam Rabiner) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:14:52 -0700

A special 'Business of Sport' report from the latest issue:

LALIT MODI might have written the script himself. Tense to the end, the match was not settled until the stroke of midnight and the last ball. Lakshmipathy Balaji, of the Chennai Super Kings, bowled it: Sohail Tanvir, of the Rajasthan Royals, hit it through midwicket for one run. And with that Rajasthan won the final of the inaugural Indian Premier League (IPL).
No follower of cricket needs to be told who Mr Modi is. As vice-president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the national governing body, he conceived and now runs the IPL. The sudden arrival and apparent success of the new league has shaken cricket from top to bottom. It is the most vivid illustration in sport of the shift in the global economy from rich countries to the emerging world.
The IPL is bright and brash, mixing India’s great sporting passion and Bollywood’s glamour, topped with lashings of money. The fun starts with the format: “Twenty20”, a short version of cricket in which each team bowls 20 overs (sets of six balls). Matches last three hours or so, about as long as a baseball game—just right for an evening’s entertainment. By contrast, international Test matches, the purist’s favourite form, can take five days....
“I was very sceptical about whether it would succeed,” says Ramachandra Guha, a historian and author of “A Corner of a Foreign Field”, a social history of the game in India. “I don’t much care about it as a form of cricket, but as a business model it’s turned out better than expected.” Certainly the league, screened every evening in a prime slot at 8pm, pulled in viewers, with women as well as men watching. In a survey carried out in franchise cities for the Economic Times, more than one-tenth of respondents said that they had cut back on going to see films or eating out (the main alternatives in Indian cities to a night in front of the television) in order to watch the IPL. Cinema-going in Mohali was reckoned to be down by almost half....
Innovation, then, seems to be winning the fight with tradition. In the battle of new powers and old, the new—represented by India—is also coming out on top. India has hundreds of millions of cricket lovers, far more than any other country. As their purchasing power grows, so does their value as television [and online & mobile] viewers. And that provides the wherewithal to pay cricketers more than they have ever been paid before.

It's no wonder why we believe our involvement with the IPL, BCCI and Indian cricket is such an incredible opportunity.

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IPL TV ad rates expected to jump 50% for 2nd season

nospam@example.com (Adam Rabiner) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:35:29 -0700

In addition to our press release about IPLT20.com's dominance in the sports category among mobile users, as well as the massive opportunity for mobile applications and services in the Indian market, here is more exciting IPL news today:

In the wake of a hugely successful first season, the television advertisement rates for the second edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) are expected to increase by 40 to 50 per cent, say analysts.

Source: Business Standard

Cricket to receive $300M global development investment

nospam@example.com (Adam Rabiner) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:53:05 -0700

Reuters (via Yahoo) reports:

The International Cricket Council (ICC) will pump in around $300 million to develop the game worldwide, the governing body announced on Tuesday.
Haroon Lorgat, CEO of the ICC, described the initiative as "the biggest investment in global development by any sport outside football".
The ICC pledged around $40 million a year for seven years from 2009 to help its 94 associate and affiliate members, placed below the 10 test-playing teams.

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It is great to hear that the ICC will be spending such a large sum to develop the sport globally. As we recently announced, Live Current plans to launch Cricket.com as a global cricket site and anticipates cricket to become the next major sports media business.

Live Current in Kiplinger's

nospam@example.com (Adam Rabiner) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:02:38 -0700

In the July '08 issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, columnist Andrew Feinberg writes that he likes Live Current (CMNN) "even more now" than when he first praised the company in Kiplinger's March issue.

Read Look Ahead, Not Behind HERE.

Media analysts: IPL viewership 'unprecedented'

nospam@example.com (Adam Rabiner) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:25:27 -0700

From the Times of India:

If you were glued to your television set on Sunday, you were not the only one.
Groans or cheers (depending on which team you were supporting) filled the air in numerous pubs, coffee shops, homes and offices with the Indian Premier League reaching its crescendo and millions of viewers logging on to the final between Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals.... Media analysts say that IPL viewership has been unprecedented. TAM has pegged the aggregate viewership between April 19 and May 24 at 99 million.

Meanwhile, the Economic Times reports:

Riding on the hype, franchisee owners are exploring avenues such as maximising sponsorship revenues by hiking fees for new sponsors, extensive brand building on localised platforms and marketing the event to other countries from where they have player representation, among others.

And IBN Live writes:

Sony, which had set a target of Rs 200 crore of ad revenue, says it has beaten its expectations and raked in 300 crores [~US$75,000,000].
Sony had sold spots for 2.5 lakh per ten seconds initially in the tournament but that rate went up to 4 lakh for the last stage and reportedly up to 10 lakh per 10 seconds for the final 3 matches.
Media planners say the real windfall for Sony too will come next season as the channel can charge at least 50 per cent more than this year in Season 2.

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UPDATE: NPR's All Things Considered covers the success of the IPL. You can listen to the report here.

CNN on Lalit Modi and IPL

nospam@example.com (Adam Rabiner) — Wed, 28 May 2008 10:58:23 -0700

CNN "TalkAsia" has an exciting 3-part special about Indian Premier League Chairman Lalit Modi and the the insanely popular new league he founded that is revolutionizing the world of Cricket.

Watch Lalit Modi: Cricket's billion-dollar brain, HERE.

LCM grows more multinational

nospam@example.com (Adam Rabiner) — Thu, 08 May 2008 09:31:18 -0700

Fresh from scooping the online rights for the IPL and Indian cricket, Live Current Media today announced:

Perfume.com Expands Internationally to Offer Sweet Smell of Savings to Shoppers Worldwide

Please the press release HERE.

Perfume.com already receives thousands of non-US visitors each month, and many have told us they want to shop there. Now, we will be able to serve the very sizable international community of fragrance consumers.

CBC TV covers Live Current Media

nospam@example.com (Adam Rabiner) — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:11:14 -0700

Yesterday, CBC TV covered Live Current Media Inc. and its involvement with the Indian Premier League site (IPLT20.com) powered by Cricket.com. Live Current is enabling passionate cricket fans around the world to connect with the sport as it grows its online destinations into multi-million dollar international businesses.

BTW, the young looking red-haired gentleman being interviewed is Mark Melville, Live Current's Chief Corporate Development Officer, who was the driving force behind our agreement with the IPL & BCCI. Mark was in India for the opening match of the IPL, which he said was spectacular.

Report: IPL takes the life out of cinema, theatres, TV

nospam@example.com (Adam Rabiner) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:33:15 -0700

For the past two weeks, we have been saying that the Indian Premier League is off to a hugely successful start and is taking India by storm. However, you don't have take our word for it. The Economic Times reports:

The ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) matches have virtually taken the life out of cinema theatres and television programmes....
Star Plus sources said the fresh Television Audience Measurement (TAM) ratings are expected in a day or two. However, till April 22, the IPL dominated the TAM ratings.

I read another report that the TV commercial inventory for the IPL was already oversold and that Sony was selling commercials for IPL matches at a 30% to 40% premium to Cricket World Cup ad rates. The fact that Live Current has the exclusive online rights for all things IPL and BCCI for the next ten years is just awesome, and presents us with amazing opportunities. The IPLT20.com site received millions of visitors within days of its beta launch -- with no SEO, marketing etc. -- with Alexa ranking it in the top 400 of all sites last week.

England to launch its own version of IPL?

nospam@example.com (Adam Rabiner) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:27:44 -0700

How successful is the Indian Premier League? Enough so that the England and Wales Cricket Board are reportedly planning to launch its own version of the IPL.

Read the report at BBC Sport.

Radio Canada International reports on LCM's IPL-BCCI agreement

nospam@example.com (Adam Rabiner) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:18:42 -0700

To view this report, which includes an interview with Live Current CEO Geoff Hampson, please visit the web page of RCI's "Indo-Canadian Report with Wojtek Gwiazda."

You can listen to the actual audio file HERE.

In my opinion, this report is 'must listen' material.