Italy

Rupert Murdoch’s two Italian pay-television businesses – the Sky Italia satellite platform and the Fox Sports premium channel – reinforced their football portfolios this week as rival operator Mediaset inched closer to a deal to sell a stake in its Mediaset Premium platform to Qatari broadcaster beIN Sports.

Mike Kiernan, Analyst for SportBusiness Intelligence, looks at television audiences in the major European markets and America for the 2014 Fifa World Cup

UK pay-television broadcaster BSkyB is set to confirm deals to acquire sister companies Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia in Germany and Italy from media company 21st Century Fox tomorrow (Friday) morning.

Agcom, Italy’s communications regulator, has approved sublicensing deals between pay-television broadcaster Sky Italia and Mediaset Premium’s parent company RTI for coverage of domestic football’s top-tier Serie A.

Lega Serie A, Italy’s top football league, will enter into private negotiations with companies seeking to secure the two domestic media rights packages that it has failed to sell in two formal tender procedures.

Italian pay-television operator Sky Italia has acquired the rights to the qualification matches of all European national teams for Uefa Euro 2016 and the 2018 Fifa World Cup.

The MP & Silva agency has brokered a deal for mobile services provider MLJ to develop Italian Serie A football club Inter Milan’s digital products and services in Japan.

Last week’s Serie A rights-sharing deal between Italian pay-television operators Mediaset Premium and Sky Italia does not appear to presage a wider truce between the two companies, including a sharing of Uefa Champions League rights.

Lega Serie A has issued a new tender for two packages of media rights to football’s top division in Italy that remained unsold following the original sales process.

Pan-European sports broadcaster Eurosport is considering taking legal action following the award of domestic rights for Serie A, the top division of football in Italy, on Friday.

Italian Serie A football clubs have voted to approve the award of the next three-year cycle of media rights, from 2015-16 to 2017-18, with pay-television broadcaster Sky Italia and Mediaset Premium’s parent company RTI securing the main packages.

A vote by Serie A clubs on the award of packages of domestic rights for the next cycle of Italian football’s top tier has been postponed by two days, until tomorrow (Wednesday).

Relaunched Italian sports broadcaster Sportitalia will not just focus on football, according to director Michele Criscitiello.

Italian pay-television operator Sky Italia has challenged a report in yesterday’s Gazzetta dello Sport which said that rival pay-television platform Mediaset Premium could be awarded satellite rights to Serie A despite having been outbid by Sky.

The 20 clubs of Italy’s Serie A are trying to pick the best possible combination of bids from a rights auction marked by an extraordinary degree of tactical bidding that has thrown the process into confusion.

There were mixed results for broadcasters of the 2013-14 Uefa Champions League in Europe's big five markets, as Mike Kiernan, analyst for SportBusiness Intelligence explains