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Nova had made a strong bid for one of the first-choice packages in the initial bidding last autumn but lost out to free-to-air broadcasters, public-service ERT and commercial channel Mega. Nova is paying just under €5 million a year for the rights, a little less than what On Telecoms had agreed to pay.

For more details see the forthcoming issue of TV Sports Markets.

The deal, announced yesterday, covers the pay-television rights across Latin America excluding Brazil and also includes the rights for Uefa's second-tier club competition, the Europa League.

At present, state broadcaster Canal 7 shows the weekly Friday night league match, which it simulcasts with pay-channel TyC Sports. But TyC recently announced that from next season, starting in August, the Friday match would be broadcast exclusively on pay-television.

The deal covers the rights in over 40 African countries.

Supersport will pay about $7.5 million a year in the deal, which runs from 2009 to 2012 and covers almost 200 days international cricket played in West Indies, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

IB Sports was initially asking for $3 million for the rights for Korea’s matches, up on the $2 million that the networks had paid for the inaugural tournament in 2006. It later reduced this to $2.5 million, but the networks refused to increase an offer of $1.3 million, citing the economic crisis and the depreciation of the Won against the dollar.

The Team Marketing agency, acting on behalf of Uefa, had not been overly optimistic about maintaining value in the Netherlands anyway – John De Mol’s aggressive entry into the market had created near-perfect competitive conditions last time. But Team’s cause was not helped by its sales process overlapping with Uefa’s tendering of Euro 2012 rights.

Sportfive pays about €2 million a year at present and negotiations are ongoing for a new four-year contract, from 2010 to 2013, covering all markets outside the six participating countries.

Excluding the write-down, ITV reported a profit of £167 million, down 41 per cent on 2007.

As part of its plan to deal with cashflow problems, caused by a four-per-cent fall in net advertising revenues – down to £1.425 billion from £1.489 billion in 2007, ITV is to have talks with the England Football Association, Uefa and Fifa about rescheduling its rights fee payments.

As with ITV, Setanta is looking to reschedule its payments as it deals with cashflow problems. It is understood that Setanta has not asked for reduction in its £150 million fee.

In the first instance, the Juzgado No.

Ebitda was €636 million, up 29.8 per cent, excluding costs linked to the merger with the TPS digital satellite platform, completed in early 2008.

Canal Plus had 10.6 million subscribers at year-end in France, its overseas departments and Africa. Fully 80 per cent subscribe to digital services, up from 71 per cent at the end of 2007.

Fueg’s role will be in the area of worldwide hospitality and sponsorship, having been actively responsible for the corporate hospitality at UEFA Euro 2008, as well as at various winter sports events.

Public-service broadcaster TVNZ, commercial channel TV3 and pay-broadcaster Sky TV had made a joint-offer for the rights but are now negotiating separately after the warning from the IRB. A deal is expected later this month, once the tournament venues and schedule has been finalised.

Overall ratings for cable viewers 4 years-old and above increased as much as 160% over last year across the three people-metered markets of Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia.

A new Ficci-KPMG report on the Indian entertainment industry forecasts that by 2013 there would be 149 million TV homes, 85 per cent of which will receive signals via cable and satellite.