With the 2010 World Cup drawing near, privately run video websites are formulating new and innovative ways to win soccer viewers over from a State-backed website with exclusive online broadcasting rights for the World Cup in China.

China Network Television (CNTV), the country's national Internet television service under national broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), will be the exclusive online live broadcaster for the World Cup on the mainland.

It will be 4.5 hours ahead of other video websites in broadcasting the World Cup.

Exclusive live broadcasting rights are seen as an opportunity for CNTV, a latecomer in the online video market, to make the most of the event.

"The World Cup will certainly change the online video landscape in the second quarter," said Tang Yizhi, an analyst with domestic research firm Analysys International.

"CNTV will see a big increase in page views, and its advertising and copyright granting revenues."

Faced with competition from a State-backed website, privately run sites such as pptv.com and Youku.com, are stepping up efforts to take advantage of the international sporting event to increase their presence.

Pptv.com, one of the largest peer-to-peer websites in China, said it has cooperated with CCTV to let viewers watch the TV channels online and in this way watch the World Cup live.

It expects that over eight million people will watch the World Cup at the same time, three million more viewers than the 2008 Olympics.

For most of the video websites that are only granted video-on-demand rights for the World Cup, they are banking on broadcasting related programming, produced in-house on the event rather than a live feed.

"It's not always good and necessary to satisfy all users' needs, from live broadcasting to video-on-demand, and we just have to focus on what we are good at," said Zhu Xiangyang, editor-in-chief of content of Youku.com.

The website plans to host talent shows featuring people who do well at something related to the World Cup, whether playing soccer or commenting on matches. It will also invite celebrities to share their stories about playing soccer.

Zhu added that TV still has the advantage over live broadcasting since most of the matches of the World Cup this year will take place at night and TV, with a bigger screen, is a better choice for audiences.

Internet portal Sohu.com, one of China's largest, will have a prize draw for Internet users for the chance to travel to the World Cup in South Africa.

It will also offer interviews with famous soccer stars worldwide, together with its video-on-demand service.

Chen Feng, vice-president of Ku6.com, said that there is more cooperation than competition between websites like Ku6.com and CNTV.

"CNTV is positioned differently from us," he said. "We are entertainment-oriented, providing long or short videos."

Tang from Analysys International said that there will be more competition between the State-run website and peer-to-peer websites, such as pptv.com and pps.tv, because the latter, which enable audiences to watch TV online, have a similar audience with CNTV.

(China Daily May 6, 2010)