South-East Asia

Thailand’s national broadcast regulator, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, has defended in court its ‘must carry’ rule for all 64 matches of the 2014 Fifa World Cup football tournament to be shown on free-to-air television.

Satellite pay-television broadcaster Cable Thai Holdings, which has the Thai rights to English Premier League football, is suing technology company Apple for permitting the sale of an application that allows consumers to view games on mobile devices.

Interview with Simon Greenberg, global head of rights for News Corp, on the company’s Asian clip rights strategy.

Singapore cross-carriage ruling will drive down sports rights fees

La Liga fills the gap for RCTI in Indonesia

Thai football boom continues with big deals for Thai Premier League and Euro 2016

News Corp says it will succeed with sports clips where other media companies s have failed

The rights acquisitions behind News Corp’s BallBall app 

Filipino pay-television channel Balls TV has acquired rights for the English Premier League, the top division of football in England.

Thai pay-television broadcaster TrueVisions has retained rights for the Thai Premier League, the top division of football in Thailand, after agreeing to pay a near tenfold increase in the rights fee, according to the Bangkok Post.

Indonesian commercial broadcaster RCTI has acquired rights for the Spanish Liga, the top division of football in Spain.

Media conglomerate News Corporation has acquired exclusive mobile and internet clip rights in Japan, Vietnam and Indonesia for the top football divisions in England, Germany, Italy and France, plus several other club football competitions.

Thai media conglomerate GMM Grammy has acquired the domestic broadcast rights to the Uefa Euro 2016 football tournament.

Measat Broadcast Network Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Malaysian pay-television network Astro, has agreed a carriage deal with Telekom Malaysia subsidiary TM Net Sdn Bhd for pay-television channels Astro SuperSport HD and Astro SuperSport2 HD.

Coverage of English Premier League football in Singapore will be shared by pay-television operator SingTel and pay-television broadcaster StarHub for the first time over the next three seasons after the former’s appeal against a cross-carriage order was rejected, according to the New Paper.

Al Jazeera-owned pay-television broadcaster beIN Sport Asia has acquired the media rights to German Bundesliga football in Indonesia and the Philippines for the next two seasons.

MP & Silva and Pitch provide the content for Al Jazeera’s expansion into Asia

CAA Eleven, Uefa’s exclusive marketing agency for the sale of certain media and commercial rights relating to its national team competitions, has launched a tender for the media rights to the European qualifiers for Euro 2016 and the 2018 Fifa World Cup in Indonesia.

Malaysian pay-television operator Astro has acquired the broadcast rights in Malaysia and Brunei to the European qualifiers for the Uefa Euro 2016 and 2018 Fifa World Cup football tournaments.