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Al Jazeera is thought to be paying a three-fold increase in the new deal, covering the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons. The deal was announced just nine days after Al Jazeera completed its takeover of rival broadcaster ART’s entire sports rights portfolio.

For the full story see the latest issue of TV Sports Markets.

The consortium consists of Denmark’s TV2, Norway’s TV2 and Sweden’s TV4, the same broadcasters that had the rights for the 2007 and 2009 World Championships. The deal is the first agreed for the 2011 and 2013 events by Ufa Sports, whose deal with the International Handball Federation was only officially signed last Saturday.

The deal barely got off the ground after the organisers of the financially-stricken series failed to meet a deadline for an initial advance payment, according to informed sources. IMG was brought into replace Richard Dorfman, the former director of broadcasting at A1GP.

A deal has already been agreed with Supersport in South Africa and incumbent broadcasters Sky Television in New Zealand and Fox Sports in Australia are in the final stages of negotiation.

 

Maltese pay-broadcaster Go is the only new licensee so far, with incumbent broadcasters retaining the rights in the other four countries, with Telenet/BeTV winning in Belgium, Lumiere in Cyprus, Sport1 in the Netherlands and Sport TV in Portugal.

Naspers, which owns the Multichoice pay-television platforms in South and Sub-Saharan Africa, reported pay-television revenues of R8.019 billion ($1.09 billion) for the six months to end-September, up 15 per cent on the same period the previous year. Operating profit, before amortisation and other gains and losses, was up 28 per cent to Rs2.694 billion.

Oliart also said that there will be reductions in RTVE’s acquisitions and that the broadcaster will cancel those contracts “that it can”. From next year RTVE’s sports rights budget is to be limited to 10 per cent of its overall programming budget of some €700-800 million.

The Internationale Ski Federation also received offers from the IMG and the Sportsman Media Group agencies, but these have now been discounted after two rounds of bidding.

The league is prepared to take its time in studying the market to ensure it makes the right decision. It is keen to increase its exposure in a new deal, but faces technical and political problems in doing so in addition to the difficulty of avoiding a drop in income.

The OTI, representing the region’s free-to-air broadcasters, said this week that it “did not consider the negotiations closed”. OTI general secretary, Miguel Diez de Urdanivia, told TV Sports Markets that “We are very happy to continue contributing to the Olympic Movement in our region”.

Europe is thought to generate about $315 million in rights fees in the present three-year cycle, from 2007-08 to 2009-10, with Scandinavia the biggest single contributor.

However, Conto looks as though it will end up disappointed in its attempts to get Sky’s €575 million-per-season Serie A deal with the football league, Lega Calcio, struck down.

Resurrecting plans for an in-house channel is one of a number of options being considered by the league. It is now in discussions with broadcasters and clubs and plans to release a tender for the next rights cycle towards the end of this season.

Setanta’s collapse earlier this year has left an £80 million shortfall in the FA’s books and a sizeable hole in its domestic broadcast coverage of the FA Cup.

The court’s decision, responding to a complaint by porn and football channel Conto TV, was heavily influenced by the opinion of Italy’s antitrust authority.

Last week the agency, owned by entrepreneur Riccardo Silva, was awarded the rights for the next two seasons by the football league, Lega Calcio, in the first collective deal for the rights in over a decade. Silva is paying €90.5 million for the 2010-2011 season and €91 million for 2011-2012.

The event in Rome was watched by almost 1.5 billion cumulative viewers, spread across 1,804 hours of coverage. The championships topped 50 million cumulative viewers in five countries, led by Italy (605 million) and followed by Germany (271 million), France (254 million), Spain (174 million) and the UK (87 million).

TF1 ad revenue for the nine months to September was €967m, down 19 per cent on the same period in 2008. TF1 channel programming costs fell from €749m last year to €664m, of which €54m was due to savings on sports rights costs relating to TF1’s coverage of Euro 2008 and €31m due to “optimisation of the programming schedule and cuts in programme costs”.