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Last week MTV acquired rights for the International Ice Hockey Federation World Championships, from 2012 to 2017, outbidding public broadcaster YLE, the incumbent. Earlier this year it renewed its deal for the rights to the Fédération Internationale de Ski World Cup events until 2016 in a deal with the Infront Sports & Media agency.

Barry Hearn, new chairman of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, is negotiating a new deal with the BBC from 2012. The BBC currently pays £4 million a year for the Grand Prix, UK Championship, the Masters and the World Championship but is reportedly no longer interested in covering the Grand Prix.

The proposals revolve around the centralisation of second and third-party television rights – the rights of federations to sell matches back into visiting teams’ home markets and worldwide rights outside the two participating team’s countries – for qualifying matches.

Sportfive, IMG, Dentsu and Infront all made new bids early this week after making presentations at Uefa’s Nyon headquarters two weeks ago. Asia would appear to be the only prize left on the table, although even here some territories may yet be carved out. A direct broadcast deal is thought to be close in Malaysia, for example.

Yahoo is paying less than half the fee paid by Virgin Media in the present deal, in a further example of the falling value of the league’s ancillary new-media rights packages. Earlier this month ESPN won the mobile clip rights, also for a significantly-reduced fee.

DNK helped broker the deal after struggling to find a replacement broadcaster once commercial channel Antenna pulled out one year into a three-year deal just before Christmas. Asset has inherited DNK’s contract with Formula One Management, paying the same fee and running for the same period, up to the end of the 2012 season.

Incumbent rights-holder, national telecoms provider Belgacom, said in November it would probably not bid for the rights when its contract expires at the end of next season. The league told TV Sports Markets last year it was considering launching an in-house channel in response to the lack of competition in the market.

He joins Peter Kenyon, former chief executive of Premier League clubs Manchester United and Chelsea, who was appointed to head CAA’s international operations in November.

Virgin showed the clips free on its website and sold advertising spots around them. The rights helped drive traffic to the website and raise the profile of its triple-play offering but the company is not thought to have made a profit on the deal.

A regional administrative court in Lazio yesterday overturned a January ruling by the country’s antitrust authority, l’Autoritá Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato, which had cleared the league to sell the live digital satellite rights for Serie A exclusively to Sky.

In a speech at television industry conference MIP TV, Darroch called said legislation passed last week by the UK government to tackle piracy “should make a big difference”. But he said the legislation was only required because “not all ISPs (Internet Service Providers) were prepared to play ball” in tackling the problem without government intervention.

The federation said that research conducted last year into national team Test and one-day matches, which are already listed, showed that media-rights revenue for the events was at least 36-per-cent lower than it would have been if they had not been listed.

Aruna is asking for a minimum guarantee and a revenue share from ticket sales from cinema chains. At other venues, including stadiums and sports arenas, it plans to sell sponsorship to add to revenues.

Rai has the live rights to only 25 matches, including all of Italy’s games, whereas Sky has live rights to all 64 matches. Rai will also show highlights of all matches, 30 minutes after the final whistle.

The HD channel, currently available in around three million homes, drew an average audience of 324,000. This year’s three-day Aintree festival, of which the Grand National is the highlight, was the first UK horseracing event broadcast in HD.

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The TV Sports Markets team

Research conducted by Google when considering a bid for the league’s rights for the period 2007-08 to 2009-10 – discovered when the league was given access to internal Google documents last year – has become an important part of the league’s claim for copyright infringement against Google and its user-generated internet video service, YouTube.

Revenues for the year were €907 million, with broadcast income at €681 million and sponsorship €204 million. Champions League broadcast revenues for 2008-09 were €621 million, €580 million of which came from Europe and €40 million from overseas. Revenue from sponsors and suppliers totalled €187.5 million.