Germany

Premiere dependent on money raised by flotation

Motorsport: German pay-broad-caster Premiere acquired the exclusive live rights for motor racing’s Nascar and Indycar series for the 2006 season.

·   Football: The Dentsu and Infront agencies acquired the Rest of Asia rights to the 2010 and 2014 World Cups in a deal with Fifa, football’s world governing body.  De

French football’s Ligue 1 rights the most expensive in the world

·   Football: Polish public-service broadcaster TVP and commercial broadcaster Polsat agreed a joint-deal for the 2006 World Cup with the Infront agency worth €15m (£10.3m).  TVP

Premiere, the German pay-television broadcaster, has salvaged something of its reputation following its deal with DSF.

RTL sold on the rights for one of this year’s World Cup ski-jumping events after a row with the FIS

Shock award of international media rights for German league football

Tennis: Pan-European cable and satellite broadcaster Eurosport extended its deal for coverage of the Australian Open for a further four years, from 2008 to 2011. Eurosport will also be the distribution agent for the media rights across Europe. The rights were previously held by the European Broadcasting Union, the umbrella group representing the region’s public-service broadcasters.

Sky Italia to re-launch digital multi-channel coverage this season.

Football: The German Football League awarded the rights for the Bundesliga in several three-year deals covering 2006-07 to 2008-09.

Versatel has jumped into the vanguard of an emerging movement by telecoms companies to seriously challenge broadcasters for live television rights.

France Télévisions believe that FIS must change to interest broadcasters.

Formula One Management to take over host-broadcasting from 2007 season.

Victory for three small German cable operators in Bundesliga rights battle.

• Formula One: German free-to-air sports broadcaster DSF acquired a package of Formula One rights for the 2007 season.

EBU set to get money back for Italian skiing rights.

The collapse last year of Bernie Ecclestone’s Formula 1 digital “super signal” service was thought likely to end the coverage of the sport on pay-television.