13 media houses bid for TV rights

Football Association of Malawi (FAM) says it is evaluating 13 media houses’ bids for combined football matches television rights.

FAM in February invited television rights bids from interested media houses for national football team matches, Chifundo Charity Shield, TNM Super League, Airtel Top 8, Carlsberg Cup, Fisd Challenge Cup and the yet-to-be-introduced Malawi annual football awards.

The association’s general secretary Alfred Gunda said the evaluation was at an advanced stage.

“So far, so good. We expect that at the end to the evaluation process, the media house that will be picked will deliver,” he said.

FAM commercial and marketing director Limbani Matola said a team comprising experts from Media Council of Malawi, marketing, auditing, television broadcast, FAM and Sulom representatives are evaluating the bids.

“We want the process to be as professional as possible. That’s why we have involved experts from various stakeholders so that at the end the day, the media house that is picked does not disappoint us. Although we have FAM and Sulom representatives in the evaluation team, the rest of the members are independent,” he said.

However, the 2018 season is set to kick off next week before the successful media house is announced, according to Matola.

He said: “Unfortunately, we cannot rush. We are not in a hurry. We have a timeline set, but the 2018 season will have to start before the media house is known. We need to do this thing with due diligence to avoid mistakes made in the past.”

Matola said they are looking for a media house that has capacity and competencies to professionally produce and broadcast or distribute high quality full time football audio-visuals for television and audio for radio.

The last time Sulom tried to put TNM Super League television rights up for grabs, it picked Beta Television which pulled out due to financial problems after just beaming a few matches. The case is in court.