Sunday 2 March 2014

NDM: Premiership rugby: Sun and Times subscribers get online and mobile clips

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/feb/28/premiership-rugby-sun-times-online-mobile-clips

This article focuses on News UK agreeing on a deal with Avivia Premiership Ruby to show online and mobile clips of the sporting events. The clips will be shown across the Sun, Times and Sunday Times mobile and online offerings until June 2017. As a result, this would be beneficial for viewers who are fans of rugby as they can watch clips of the match through their smartphones.

Significantly, the News UK chief executive Mike Darcy states:."The partnership with Aviva Premiership Rugby significantly strengthens our offering to loyal subscribers of our world-renowned titles. Passion for rugby is shared across members of the Sun, Times and Sunday Times and we are delighted to take our post-match clips packages beyond football for the first time". This establishes that the partnership with Aviva Premiership is extremely useful for News UK as it would increase the amount of subscribers who are rugby fans and therefore want to watch the latest clips. Furthermore, News UK believe that the new sport content will increase subscription numbers to its three UK new sites, which include paywalls aswell. As a result, this is effective as it may increase the revenues for Sun, Times and Sunday Times if people want to access the sporting events.

Overall, it can be argued that the News UK made a right decision on making a deal with Avivia Premiership Rugby to include online and mobile sporting events. This is because, it would increase the amount of subscriptions and revenue to their new sites which include paywalls. Notably, sporting fans are likely to subscribe to the website or purchase the app if they want to watch the latest clips on the matches. In relationship to new/digital media, the development of smart phones has giving audience the chance to actively engage with the content by watching the sporting events through their devices whenever they wish to.

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