Mike Stanger's Blog

Mike Stanger, Managing Director of QuipuTV continues his blog on the rise of this Scottish based company as they depart for Dubai.

There will be some in Scotland who may be wondering, in the wake of the success of the live internet streaming of the Scotland v Ireland match last July, whatever happened to the webcasting idea?
 

The answer is that, with the encouragement of Roddy Smith and his opposite number in Ireland, Warren Deutrom, we set up a limited company to take the idea forward. Under the name of QuipuTV, our first commission came from Cricket Ireland and, with additional support from Cricket Canada, QuipuTV covered the two September ODIs in Dublin between those countries.
 

Although, initially, we again had internet access problems, we were able to demonstrate real improvements in other ways, particularly with our production techniques. Picture and sound quality was improved, and we learned what more could be done to make further progress.
 

QuipuTV was keen to extend its experience to other sports during the winter months, and we had hopes of covering international events in curling, table-tennis and indoor hockey. We were even approached by karate and boxing events organisers. And someone who had seen our efforts in Dublin e-mailed us to enquire if we could cover domestic cricket matches in Canada!
 

All of these possibilities came to naught for one reason or another, although there is still a possibility we will be able to cover a three-week competitive tour to Scotland by the US curling squad next month.
 

All the while, we were going through the agony of any small start-up business: how to generate the funds you need to get going. Believe it or not, at a time when government agencies – even if not banks – are said to be flush with funds to encourage start-ups, QuipuTV has had plenty of encouragement but not a single penny in either public sector grants or loans since we were formed in July!
 

We pricked up our collective ears at the beginning of December when we heard on the grapevine about the plans for the England squad to open their tour to the UAE, ahead of their matches against Pakistan, with a warm-up game against an ICC Select team drawn from the Associate and Affiliate countries.
 

We heard that Kyle Coetzer and Majid Haq had been invited to play in this team, along with a clutch of Irish players, three Afghans, two from Namibia and a solitary UAE player, the prolific Saqib Ali. And then we heard it was to be a three-day game. And, bearing in mind the likely interest of the Barmy Army as well as the Associate countries, we wondered if this was just the opportunity we needed to establish our credentials to the wider international community in one fell swoop.
 

First, though, who owned the broadcast rights? The ICC? Or England? Or Pakistan, whose home series this would be? Or the other ECB, the Emirates Cricket Board? The ICC had to work it out, and we heard on December 15 that we would be granted live streaming rights –  non-exclusive, apparently, because some mainstream broadcaster might wish to stream even five minutes of the game live!
 

So, we had exactly three weeks in which to organise ourselves – and others – to make this possible, with much of the period characterised by key people taking a break over Christmas and the new year holiday.
 

Crossing fingers, we think we have got most of the essentials in place, but not before a lot of heart-searching about how our coverage was going to be financed. There was too little time – and it was the wrong time of year – to attract a broadcast sponsor, or advertisers, though we tried, with no response once again.

So we looked at the possibility of a pay-per-view approach, making the first day free so that we could gauge the 'open market' viewer interest. The expression 'free-to-air' is, however, a misleading one; somebody has to pay for all that data bandwidth usage.

We contacted several 'content delivery network' companies to compare prices; we did the sums, over and over. And we concluded that, if not only the 25,000 strong Barmy Army but cricket fans all over the world, particularly in the huge Asian market, were to tune in to Day 1, we would certainly be bankrupt, as pay-per-view on Days 2 and 3 was unlikely to exceed 5% of those watching Day 1 free of cost to themselves.
 

So, on December 23, just two holiday weeks ahead of the game due to start this Wednesday (January 7), we finally decided to go for a 'payment gateway' on all three days. With the dollar being the international electronic media currency, we've set the payment charge at $9.99: that's £6.35 to watch any or all three days of the game, should you so wish to do so! To encourage commitment, if you decide to skip Day 1, we are still asking for $9.99 for the two remaining days! And we hope to have an immediate repeat of each day's play, for a separate, daily, payment.
 

The Cricket Scotland website is one of at least eight around the globe which will be embedding our video player, complete with an integrated on-screen payment procedure. Hopefully, it will be possible for people to 'book ahead' a couple of days before the match starts, so keep a lookout on the home page from January 5.
 

We now know just how big the 'Quipu Crowd' needs to be for us to break even. And if we are rewarded with more, we might even be able to pay ourselves! If the new year is to be a good one for QuipuTV, and for Associate-level cricket fans everywhere, we will come home with a useful 'cashflow cushion' to enable us to cover the forthcoming World T20 Qualifiers in Dubai in March.
 

We have already secured the live streaming rights. All we need is your support this coming week. Enjoy watching England being defeated by the Associate XI. And have a happy new year!