ADMC to show EPL football online

Abu Dhabi Media Company (ADMC) has revealed it will broadcast English Premier League matches over the internet from the start of next season.

According to a report in The National on Thursday, the broadcaster said it will not resell its rights to a pay TV broadcaster or sublicence them to a terrestrial channel as expected.

Instead it will offer the matches over broadband internet in the Middle East and North Africa region.

“Broadband is growing. Etisalat and du are taking broadband to people’s homes. Why don’t you just distribute football games online at zero cost? Well, that’s what we intend to do,” said Edward Borgerding, the chief executive of ADMC, cited by the paper.

ADMC won a three year contract for exclusive regional rights to broadcast the EPL last year, taking it from Orbit Showtime, now known as OSN, which had had the package for since the 2007/08 season.

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FEATURED COMMENT This report is either wrong, or is this the most bonkers decision ever? I think Mr Borgerding must have been talking abo   1 Comments Read more comments »

ADMC’s television offering is made up of free-to-air satellite channels which are restricted from broadcasting EPL games, so it was assumed by some media commentators that the firm would seek a partnership with a pay TV operator.

Under the move, viewers will pay a US $15 monthly fee for the rights to stream games through online video, the paper reported.

“This is something that we are going to try to drive into the marketplace in the Middle East now,” Borgerding said.

“We are going to price it differentially, because it’s cheaper to do it online. We want to drive people to do this because it’s in our self interest to do this.”

There remains confusion as to whether there will be any satellite access to the EPL in markets without high-speed broadband access.

"We bought the English Premier League, and you can look at this, and you can buy boxes and you can buy cards, and you can ship it out to something that the pirates in six months will hack, but the costs just sink the business,” said Borgerding.

However, The National states that viewers will also be able to access an HD pay TV channel distributed by satellite.