The Justice Tribunal of the State of Rio de Janeiro has handed media group Globo a lifeline in its ongoing battle with pay-television broadcaster Turner by accepting an injunction from the commercial broadcasting group that sought the prevention of the exploitation of the PM984 media-rights decree.
Globo successfully overturned the previous decision from Rio’s 3rd Civil Court court earlier in the week not to allow an injunction against Turner broadcasting certain matches from the Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A in the coming weeks.
Turner now faces a R$1.5m (€233,000/$276,000) fine if it uses the PM984 decree to broadcast matches where a broadcast agreement has not been reach between both teams prior to kick-off.
The pay-television does have the right to appeal this latest decision.
Turner had previously announced that it would be broadcasting a number of matches, including Coritiba v Flamengo and Palmeiras v Goiás this weekend as it holds the pay-television rights to both home teams.
The introduction of PM984 had encouraged Turner to broadcast both matches on its TNT pay-television channel.
PM984 was introduced by Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro earlier this year and places sole control of a club’s media rights in the hands of the home team. Both were previously required to reach an agreement over a broadcast deal prior to the measure’s introduction.
Globo has continually shown an appetite to bring its issues with PM984 to court as the measure has repeatedly enraged the media group since its inception.
Globo is the dominant broadcaster of domestic Brazilian football, holding free-to-air and pay-per-view rights to all 20 Campeonato Série A clubs and pay-television rights of 12 Série A clubs. US broadcaster Turner holds pay-television rights to the remaining eight clubs.
Band acquires Serie C rights from DAZN
Meanwhile, Brazilian free-to-air commercial broadcaster Rede Bandeirantes has sealed a deal with OTT subscription broadcaster DAZN to broadcast a limited number of Brasileiro Série C from the 2020-21 season.
The broadcaster will air one match per matchweek on Saturday at 5pm on its Band linear television channel, starting from this coming weekend (August 15).
The deal does come with a geographical limit as Serie C matches will only be broadcast in the north and northeastern regions of the country.
DAZN holds the rights to the third-tier of Brazilian football and its agreement with Bandeirantes follows up on an OTT sublicensing deal with streaming platform MyCujoo.
In that deal, DAZN has retained match picks and will broadcast four matches exclusively per matchweek, as well as the entire second phase of the season.