TF1

Mike Kiernan, analyst for SportBusiness Intelligence, reviews the most-watched events of 2014 in France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Pay-television broadcaster Canal Plus has acquired rights in France for the 2015 Rugby World Cup in a sublicensing deal with commercial broadcaster TF1, according to French newspaper Le Figaro.

French commercial broadcaster TF1 has confirmed a rights deal for the 2015 men’s World Handball Championships, while public-service broadcaster France Télévisions has struck an agreement to show the women’s World Championships later this year.

French commercial broadcaster TF1 has agreed a deal for rights to the 2015 men’s World Handball Championships, according to L’Equipe.

French commercial broadcaster TF1 has issued a tender to pay-television operators for the sublicensing of a rights package to the 2015 Rugby World Cup, according to L’Equipe.

François Pellissier, the director of sports at French commercial broadcaster TF1, has said that its Sunday morning Téléfoot programme will only be able to show clips of goals from the previous weekend of action from January 1.

Jacques Lambert, the head of the local organising committee for the Uefa Euro 2016, is hopeful more games from the national team football tournament in France will end up being shown on free-to-air television in the country.

Francois Pellissier has been named as the new head of sports-rights acquisitions at French commercial broadcaster TF1.

French commercial broadcaster TF1 will register a loss of at least €30m ($41m) on its coverage of football’s 2014 Fifa World Cup despite impressive audience ratings, according to French newspaper Les Echos.

Media and entertainment company Discovery Communications has completed its acquisition of a controlling interest in pan-regional sports broadcaster Eurosport.

Uefa enjoyed differing levels of success in the sales of its club competition rights in France and Southeast Asia last month. The outcome points to a cooling of the French market but suggests there is still margin for substantial growth in several major Asian territories.

The European Commission has cleared a deal for US media and entertainment company Discovery Communications to acquire a controlling stake in pan-regional sports broadcaster Eurosport.

Last Friday’s French football league rights auction put a large hole in the theory that Al Jazeera-owned pay-television broadcaster beIN Sports is an unstoppable force bent on dominating the local market

More exclusivity for Eurosport in new domestic French Open deal

French pay-television broadcaster beIN Sports is close to agreeing a sublicensing deal with commercial broadcaster TF1 for rights to the 2014 Fifa World Cup national football team tournament, according to weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche.

Eurosport generated a significant rise in operating profit despite a fall in revenue in 2013, according to French media company TF1, the pan-regional sports broadcaster’s parent company.