Italy

Newly signed deals in Spain and Germany confirm that the Uefa Champions League is heading for a major drop in television rights fees in four of Europe’s five major markets.

Champions League television viewing rose by eight per cent across Europe’s top six football television markets this season.

Uefa is set to take a 38-per-cent drop in the value of its Champions League rights in Italy.

Tim asked MP Web to broker deal between rights-holders, agencies, 3G operators

Channel struggling to attract external investment and facing an aggressive opponent in Sky

Limited competition and lack of a powerful, willing pay-TV operator leads to hefty falls in rights fees in big Euro markets

Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi won twice over in this year’s Champions League.

Italian state broadcaster threats to renege on agreed contribution to Euro 2004 cost

Lega Basket, said that it was “very disappointed” that state broadcaster Rai had dropped its planned coverage of two key games from the climax to the domestic season.

Uefa has been negotiating a deal for the Champions League rights with Mediaset for more than eight months.

Sports rights-holders and agencies this week backed claims that there is next to no competition among Italian broadcasters for rights.

The Italian league appears to be ploughing a surprisingly lonely furrow in setting up its own channel.

Commercial broadcasters in several European countries are planning an onslaught on many of the top sports rights.

Lega Calcio, is adamant that its planned pay-television channel is not simply a ploy to pressure Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Italia into increasing rights fees for the smaller clubs.

The changes introduced to Formula 1 this season to make the races more exciting are having a mixed effect on last year’s falling television audiences.

Satellite pay-television operator BSkyB renewed four important golf deals: (1) exclusive live rights for two Ryder Cups (in 2006 and 2008) with European Tour Productions; (2) live rights for 34 events…

The immediate effect of the merger of Telepiù and Stream is likely to be a re-run of last summer’s mutiny by small football clubs.

Juventus and AC Milan, last week won their legal battle to prevent mobile phone operator Tim showing near-live goals from their home matches on the company’s mobile-phone services.