Germany

The decision to move the Australian and Malaysian Formula One grands prix to later timeslots for the benefit of European television audiences has paid off.

ARD and ZDF went unchallenged in extending their deal for handball’s European Championships this month, with commercial rival RTL deciding to concentrate instead on bidding for the World Championships in 2011.

Basketball: Eurosport Deutschland acquired live rights for nine selected playoff matches from Germany’s top league, the Basketball Bundesliga, in a deal with the league and rights-holder Sportdigital.tv.

Football: The Sportsman Media Group, which is distributing the rights for the German Bundesliga in 16 markets across Southern Europe and Asia, has agreed deals in 13 territories

The IBU said that it was “an easy decision” to turn down an increase in rights fee in order to remain with its long-term partner, the EBU.

WPP is to wind up German-based sports rights agency Global Sportnet, following the departure of agency founder Thomas Martens, who resigned late last year.

Athletics: The Organización de Telecomunicaciones Iberoamericanas, the Latin American broadcasting union, acquired the rights for the 2009 World Championship for member broadcasters in Argentina (cable …

Asian Games: Hong Kong pay-broadcaster I-Cable Communications acquired the exclusive television and internet rights for the 2010 Asian Games, in Guangzhou, in a deal worth an estimated $1m (€780,000).

New domestic deals for two of Europe’s top five football leagues accounted for two of the three biggest television rights contracts signed in 2008.

Athletics: UK public-service broad-caster the BBC extended its deal for domestic athletics events for a further six years, from 2009 to 2014

Football: The Deutsche Fussball Liga (DFL), representing the top two tiers of German football, Bundesliga 1 and Bundesliga 2, agreed a number of media rights deals covering the four-year period from 2009-10…

Uefa has paid out an estimated €5 million ($6.4 million) to broadcasters in compensation for the signal blackouts during the Germany-Turkey semi-final in this summer’s Euro 2008 championship.

The German football league exploited interest from ESPN to secure a significant last-minute increase in rights fee from pay-television platform Premiere

Football: Greek public-service broadcaster ERT, commercial broadcaster Mega and triple-play operator On Telecoms acquired packages of Champions League rights for the three-year period from 2009-10 to 2011-12.

Despite the most exciting Formula One season in recent memory, with the driver’s and constructor’s championships going down to the wire, television audiences fell in a number of major European markets.

Football: Bulgarian free-to-air broadcaster TV2 acquired the rights for Bulgaria’s domestic top-tier A league in a five-year deal, from 2009-10 to 2013-14, worth a reported €30m (£23m). Fo

The FIA could struggle to find a promoter for the World Rally Championship series on the terms laid out in its recent tender.

The Deutsche Fussball Liga has generated about €30 million (£23.5 million) through last week’s sale of three territory-based packages of international Bundesliga rights.