France

Football
Europe

Head of Italy office set to leave, Italian operation under review
Football
Europe

TF1 appears to have done its best to undermine the coverage of most of the remaining games by the rival M6 channel.
Austria

German cable company consortium is takeover target for Liberty Global
Football
Europe

Football: New Spanish commercial channel La Sexta, which launched last week, acquired the rights to this year’s World Cup.

Football
Albania

Football: Free-to-air broadcasters HRT (Croatia), RUV (Iceland) and TV3 (Slovenia), acquired exclusive live rights to all 31 matches of Euro 2008 in deals with the Sportfive agency, which is marketing…
Football
Europe

Fernando Alonso’s strong start to the Formula One season continued to attract Spanish viewers this season.

Rugby Union
Europe

French pay-broadcaster Canal Plus will pay only a small increase in rights fees for a much greater number of matches in a new four-year deal for French rugby union’s top-tier domestic league, the Top 1…
Europe

“Wanted: Chief executive for major worldwide sports agency with very good businesses in France and Germany.  French and German nationals need not apply.”
American Football
France

American football:  US network NBC acquired the so-called “network package” of American football’s National Football League rights, the main package of 23 matches per season, paying $600m (£316m/€465m) a year ov…
Football
Europe

The French football league’s tender for the next League Cup insists upon free-to-air civerage
Football
Europe

Competition for the live rights for Italy’s Serie A football
Europe

French public-service broadcaster France Télévisions has launched a digital terrestrial channel, France 4
Handball
Europe

The rights for French handball’s top properties have been put out for tender

Football
Europe

Initial investigations into French football television-rights deals find various irregularities
Football
Europe

Eurosport also in the running
Football
Europe

£3 million per year bid for English Premier League rights, compared to £9 million per year under existing deal
Baseball
France

Commonwealth Games:  UK public-service broadcaster the BBC acquired the rights to the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in a deal with the Fastrack agency, which is selling the rights on behalf of the organisers.

Cricket
Albania

Cricket:  Indian public-service broadcaster Doordarshan was awarded the domestic rights to the upcoming India v Pakistan series by the Madras High Court, which was ruling on the case brought by Indian broadcaster Zee Telefilms.