Fans ask for more from MRTV-4

MRTV-4 held an official signing ceremony for its contract to broadcast the Myanmar National League (MNL) season at Sedona Hotel on January 26, but so far fans are unimpressed with the coverage shown since the start of the season.

After watching a match between Hantharwady United FC and Chin United FC at Aung San stadium on January 21, Ko Zayar Gyi from Hinthada township told The Myanmar Times he could see a vast difference between watching the game live and on TV because of the way it was being broadcast.

“MRTV-4 shows games so slowly and without much action. But when I watched the game at the stadium, I realised it was much faster.

This poses questions for promotion of the MNL as the Myanmar Football Federation (MFF) seeks to make the league professional.

“Most fans watch the games on TV and if they see a slow uninteresting game, how can they become interested in the MNL,” said Ko Zayar Gyi.

“With foreign football broadcasts you can see the players in a wider range of shots, whereas MRTV-4 just shows the one overview of the match.” He said.

Ko Wei Phyo Kyaw, an MNL fan from Mingalar Taung Nyunt township agreed, saying that MRTV-4 lags behind the standards seen in Singapore and Thailand, something he felt was due to the difficulties of achieving much profit from the league.

“Broadcasts of highly profitable football leagues like the [English] premier league do this best. But for the not-as-yet-profitable MNL it will struggle as it tries to become professional. Besides, how will MRTV-4 make money since it is a free channel,” he said.

MRTV-4 paid the MFF K500 million for broadcasting the 2012 season, and K100 million extra for each additional year of the three year contract. Aside from MRTV-4, the MFF receives a quarter of its advertising revenue from Myanmar Brewery, the MNL’s chief sponsor.

Despite the lack of profitability, Ko Pyae Phyo Han, executive manager of the MRTV-4 team considers it more of an investment in developing Myanmar football.

“Myanmar fans want to see winning football after watching the national team compete in the Southeast Asian Games. That’s why as a media company we want to contribute to the development of football in Myanmar. As we are also citizens, we are looking at cooperation more than securing broadcasting rights.”

He said that broadcasting is an important aspect of football promotion.

“In La Liga, for example, no matter how well Messi plays, the broadcaster is not able to make his performances look as good on screen, whereas with the English Premier League, although their players may not be as good as Messi or other La Liga stars, the fans can see how much better they are made to look on screen. That’s why the EPL is famous,” Ko Pyae Phyo said.

Another problem is in its ability to show matches live. In the contract, MRTV-4 agreed with the MFF to show three matches a week and a total of eighty matches over the whole season. However, MRTV-4 has struggled to meet the terms of its contract due to a lack of technical and manpower capacity.

The media company was forced to ask the MFF for a four-month leeway in broadcasting live matches outside of Yangon, such as Bahtoo stadium in Mandalay, Monywa in Sagaing Region and Nay Pyi Taw. Instead, Ko Pyae Phyo Han said the channel will show delayed matches each week from other provinces.

“To shoot live needs at least eight cameras and more than 40 staff. At present we are running the whole program with around 45 staff so we cannot run from stadiums outside Yangon.

“We are training more staff and have ordered more cameras specially designed for football. After four months the training should be done and then we can broadcast live matches in other states and regions,” he said.

“Even though MRTV-4 lacks many things,” said Ko Wei Phyo Kyaw, “I want to request only one thing: for them to show the important match of the week live. If they want to help promote the MNL, they must broadcast live the games Myanmar fans really want to watch.”