SINGAPORE: Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) has won exclusive rights to broadcast UEFA Champions League and UEFA Cup 2009-2012 on its mobile, internet and mio TV platforms.

SingTel also plans to stream UEFA Champions League games both ‘live’ and on-demand on mio TV, and the Internet through the IDEAS portal www.ideas.singtel.com. It will also offer clips on its mobile service.

Local football fans usually have to stay up till the wee hours of the morning just to catch the games, due to the time difference as the UEFA games are played in Europe.

But this won’t be the case now with mio TV’s on-demand feature.

Mr Allen Lew, SingTel’s CEO Singapore, said: “The flexible mio platform has the unique capability of offering video-on-demand and SingTel’s extensive mobile and broadband customer base allows us to package this content in an innovative way that will certainly excite the public in Singapore.”

Mr Lew continued: “Based on our research, sport is a key genre that drives pay TV take-up, and European soccer is a significant driver for people who subscribe to sport content. mio TV is an integral part of the services that SingTel provides, and what drives pay TV take-up is the quality of content.”

The UEFA Champions League and UEFA Cup are premier European club competitions and this content is popular among locals and expatriates as they feature top soccer clubs from the UK, Italy and other major European nations.

Meanwhile, UEFA has said that they are excited at the prospect of working with their new partner, SingTel.

“The commitment they have made to acquire the media rights is evidence of the tremendous popularity of the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Cup in Singapore,” UEFA said.

Meanwhile, StarHub said it did not bid for the broadcast rights for the Champions league for the 2009 season onwards.

But fans can still catch the action on two cable channels, ESPN and STAR Sports, which will continue to broadcast the Champions League till May 2009.

And there'll still be other world class football matches on these two channels.

These include the FA Cup, England international home matches, and the Asian Football Confederation Package.

That package includes AFF Championships, Asian World Cup Qualifiers and Asian Champions League. - CNA/vm