United Kingdom

After a record-breaking 2007, television audiences for the 2008 Six Nations rugby union tournament fell in all four markets of the participating countries

The TV Sports Markets monthly survey of European sports viewing in December shows Champions League second-phase matches topping the tables in six of 19 countries surveyed.

American Football and the Winter Olympics contested the top television sports viewing in the US, taking nine of the Top 10 positions in the 2002 network chart.

The European Commission has opened infringement proceedings against the Italian government over the use by the country’s broadcasters of mini-advertisements during the televising of football matches.

Broadband sports provider Sportev is to a sign a global broadband deal for the World Rally Championship with International Sportsworld Communicators.

The European Commission and the Premier League are both gearing up for a particularly tough battle over the selling of English league’s domestic television rights.

The BBC has acquired the rights for the prestigious World Motorcycling Championship.

The value of the Premier League’s television rights could be boosted as a result of the European Commission’s investigation into the league’s media-rights policy.

February 11-March 12: Team Marketing, Uefa’s Champions League sales agent, launched a tender on February 11 for the next three year period from 2009-10 to 2011-12.

Kirch shadow falls on Champions League rights Speculation that German media entrepreneur Leo Kirch may be planning a merger between German rights group EM

Motorsport: German pay-broadcaster Premiere extended its deal for live Formula One rights by one year, until the end of the 2007 season.

Football: Pay-operator Setanta Sports agreed a four-year extension deal with the Scottish Premier League.

Last month witnessed an extraordinary couple of weeks in the UK sports-rights industry

The climax of the football season in Europe attracted big audiences for free-to-air broadcasters across the continent.

Minority sports remain worried that the scrapping of the BBC’s Grandstand sports programme will make it even harder to win free-to-air television coverage.

Cricket: UK pay-broadcaster Setanta acquired the exclusive rights for the India Premier League, the domestic Twenty20 competition set up by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, in a five-year deal…