Finance & Law
ORF to close linear sports channel
Austrian public-service broadcaster ORF has announced plans to shut its ORF Sport + linear television channel as part of a wider range of measures designed to save around €300m ($319.7m) by 2026.
Viaplay to demand compensation as TV2 largely defeated in Premier League clips case
Norwegian commercial broadcaster TV2 will face a claim for compensation after the Oslo District Court ruled that its use of clips from Premier League matches infringed upon pay-TV operator Viaplay’s r…
Beleaguered Diamond Sports Group skips $140m debt interest payment
Diamond Sports Group, which runs Regional Sports Network (RSN) Bally Sports and is owned by telecoms conglomerate Sinclair, could face Chapter 11 bankruptcy after missing a $140m (€131.2
World Cup pushes Fifa towards $3bn in broadcast revenue in 2022
Fifa generated broadcast income of $2.96bn (€2.77bn) in 2022, fuelled by media rights deals for the World Cup in Qatar and reflective of just over half of the governing body’s total revenue for the year.
Seven hails end of ‘onerous contracts’ as content costs fall, details Super Bowl audience
Australian commercial broadcaster Seven has hailed the end of “onerous contracts” after its latest set of financial results revealed a decrease in content costs and stable revenues in the first half of its accounting year.
Serie A clubs voice support for ‘very useful option’ of domestic rights extensions
Member clubs of Serie A, the top division of Italian club football, have backed proposed legislation that would allow for the extension of existing domestic rights deals with subscription broadcaster DAZN…
Viaplay reports 83-per-cent jump in subscribers but posts quarterly loss
Viaplay Group, the international subscription streaming broadcaster, has detailed an 83-per-cent rise in its quarterly subscriber base, year-on-year, but reported an adjusted quarterly operating loss of…
TVP receives PLN2.35bn government grant to offset licence fee shortfall
Polish public-service broadcaster Telewizja Polska is to receive PLN2.35bn (€491.2m/$526.3m) in government funding after its annual grant was approved.
Kayo Sports hits 1.14m subscribers as Foxtel’s streaming customer base jumps
Australian pay-TV broadcaster Foxtel has reported its earnings for the second quarter of the 2023 fiscal year, with streaming subscribers up 25 per cent year-on-year
SEC fiscal year revenue declines four per cent
The Southeastern Conference announced that $721.8m (€672.5m) of its total revenue for the 2021-22 fiscal year was distributed among the conference's 14 universities, but the conference saw a four-per-cent decline in revenue.
NFL to face class action over Sunday Ticket prices
A U.S. judge has ruled that the National Football League must face a $6bn (€5.6bn) class action lawsuit alleging the league unlawfully limited the amount of games shown and drove up the cost of its Sunday Ticket package.
EBU sells Eurovision Services to private equity firm
Eurovision Services, the broadcast services arm of the European Broadcasting Union, has been sold to Dubag Group, the Munich-based private equity firm
Disney targets $5.5bn in cost savings, Iger ‘not considering’ ESPN spin-off
Walt Disney Company chief executive Bob Iger has said that the company is "not considering a spin-off" of its flagship sports broadcaster ESPN during the question and answer portion of Disney's first-quarter…
Sixth Street ‘enters talks’ over new DFL commercial subsidiary
US-based investment firm Sixth Street Partners is reportedly among the firms preparing a bid for a share of the Bundesliga broadcast and commercial rights business as the German Football League (DFL),…
RTL, Talpa end merger plan after regulator opposition
European media conglomerate RTL Group and Dutch commercial broadcaster Talpa Network have dropped their merger plans after the proposal failed to gain the backing of the Netherlands Authority for Consumers…
JP Morgan Chase ‘interested’ in Serie A financing deal ahead of new rights cycle
US financial services company JP Morgan Chase is reportedly interested in financing Lega Serie A’s media business, as the organising body of the top division of Italian club football met yesterday (Thursday) t…
Mediapro claims latest RFEF legal win over Copa de la Reina final
Mediapro, the broadcast production group and rights agency, has claimed another legal win over the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) following the latter’s refusal to allow coverage of the 2019 Copa d…
World Cup rights take Abema to big quarterly loss, but wider deal impact hailed
Japanese digital media company CyberAgent reported a rare quarterly loss in its 2023 Q1 financial results, caused by the costly acquisition of 2022 Fifa World Cup rights by its streaming platform Abema