News

GSP TV officials are understood to have been taken by surprise by RCS’s Spanish league deal, in which the cable operator outbid offers from a number of sports channels, including the present incumbent Boom, Telesport, SportKlub and Pro TV’s Sports.ro.

The fight will be shown live on a pay-per-view basis on the Perform Group agency’s www.omnisport.tv website. The fight will be the biggest-ever UK-focused event shown on the site, which also carries exclusive coverage of Italian Serie A football.

The new deals will cover the three-year period from 2009-10 to 2011-12.

 

Broadcasters now have until Friday lunchtime to register their interest. The Lega was obliged by the new Melandri Law to conduct an official tender process.

Its rights are presently held by pay-broadcaster Sky Italia.

TV2 Sport has agreed a new three-year, NKr20 million (€2.3 million/$3 million) deal running from 2009-10 to 2011-12.

It is paying about Nkr1 million a year in rights fees and the rest in production costs, the same as Sport N, owned by pan-regional media conglomerate Modern Times Group, are paying at present.

The growth rate will slow further to 10 per cent in the next five years and seven per cent from now until 2018. The 26.6 million new subscribers in the region is forecast to drop to below 24 million next year, with an average of 15-20 million new additions each year thereafter.

The deal, starting next season, covers the rights in Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. There is presently no coverage in these territories at present. Hong-Kong based broadcaster Goal TV had pan-regional rights previously.

143,000 viewers watched Australian driver Mark Weber make a podium finish according to OzTam ratings, roughly twice the channel’s previous best audience.

One was launched on March 26 and is available to more than 62 per cent of the 7.2 million Australian television households who have access to digital television, according to Network Ten chief executive Grant Blackley.

ITV’s audience peaked at 9.5 million during the second half, when Liverpool went ahead 4-3.

ITV’s previous highest audience this season was the 7.2 million that watched Inter Milan-Manchester United back in February.

It is understood that the talks are now on hold until chief executive Richard Scudamore returns from holiday. The absence of any awards thus far suggests that there were no knock-out first round offers.