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The channel’s raison d’être is to provide additional live coverage of the big championships of Olympic sports. This weekend it will show coverage of the swimming world championships and next month it will show additional coverage of the athletics World Championships in Berlin.

Prasar Bharati’s net revenue for 2008-09 was Rs9.46 billion ($195 million), down from Rs9.58 billion in 2007-08 and around Rs 10 billion in 2005-06. Revenues from sports coverage on television arm Doordarshan accounted for less than six per cent of its overall 2008-09 revenue, a government source told the Business Standard newspaper, compared with nearly 40 per cent four years ago.

France Telecom-owned Orange had won a court appeal in May that gave it the right to offer its Orange Sport and Orange Cinema Series channels exclusively to subscribers to its internet and telephone services. Orange has a four-year deal from 2008-09 to 2011-12 for the rights for Saturday night Ligue 1 games, which are shown exclusively on its Orange Sport channel.

ESPN has picked up the rights for the same matches it has already acquired in the UK. Setanta’s rights for 33 Saturday afternoon 3pm matches are also back on the market. Setanta had agreed a three-year deal for 79 Premier League matches a season back in 2006, covering the 2007-08 to 2009-10 seasons. Between it and BSkyB, rights fees for the period amounted to a record £82 million.

The deals are a major step towards Canal 9 hitting the 60-per-cent penetration target it needs as a requirement for its biggest sports rights property - a package of 60 matches from top-tier domestic football’s SAS Ligaen.

Multichoice, which is owned by South African-based media group Naspers and runs the Supersport premium channels, added 683,000 subscribers across Africa in the year to March 2009, a 26-per-cent increase over the year to bring its total base to 3.3 million.

Favourites Al Jazeera Sport are likely to face at least two strong consortia challenges. Pay-broadcaster ART and the Abu Dhabi Sports channel are understood to have been working on a joint bid, although the recent departure of Abu Dhabi's head of sport Rik Jemison will not have helped the discussions.

IMG has already extended its deal with Chelsea TV and MP&Silva has agreed a deal in principle with Arsenal TV, with rights fees doubling in both cases. Similar increases are expected for Liverpool TV, for which bidding has already begun, and Manchester United TV, the rights for which will come on the market at the start of October.

OTE has acquired the rights for Spanish football, half of Italy's Serie A and is preparing aggressive bids for Greek Cup rights. This week it lost out to public-service broadcaster ERT for the rights to top club Olympiacos' home Champions League third-round qualifier.

For the full story, see the next issue of TV Sports Markets.

Its tender for national team matches for the 2010 to 2014 period proposes that part of the winning broadcaster's fee is related directly to the size of audience the matches attract.

These other parties include Denis Desmond, who already owns 20 per cent of Setanta Ireland, and international cable group Liberty Global. Liberty chief strategy officer Shane O'Neill told the Irish Times that “we would be interested in the Irish side of the business. We like the channel and it's liked by our customers.”

ESPN is in effect paying the entire monies left outstanding from the Setanta collapse, amounting to £90 million for the rights for 46 matches next season and about £155 million for the rights for 23 matches a season for the three years from 2010-11 to 2012-13.

Sky is paying €5.3 million over the two years, a slight increase on the €2.5 million a year that the Lega received previously. The deal covers three live games a week and will run from 2009-10 to 2010-11. Free-to-air broadcasters Rai and La7 were also thought to have had talks with the Lega.

Bids for a new three-year deal from 2010-11 to 2012-13 are due in on July 13. OTE is expected to face little competition, with pay-broadcaster Nova already happy with its sports content and with little interest from any of the free-to-air channels, including incumbent broadcaster Alpha.

Italy’s earlier matches had drawn audiences of 8.879 million (39-per-cent share) for the 1-0 defeat by Egypt and 9.397 million (39-per-cent share) for the 3-1 victory against the United States.

Al Jazeera Sport is the strong favourite, although it is likely to see strong challenges from others. ART and Abu Dhabi Sports channel are rumoured to be considering a joint-bid, while incumbent Showtime will also fight hard to keep the rights.

Rights fees are expected to more than double the $110 million Showtime pays in its present three-year deal.