TV Sports Markets Newslines
A round-up of the major headlines and TV rights news from TV Sports Markets and the world of televised sport. TV Sport Markets is the highly acclaimed industry reference tool for the main players in the broadcast and sport industry worldwide.
- UK commercial broadcaster ITV is to offer high-definition versions of its ITV2, 3 and 4 digital channels as pay-television services from October, the first step in a five-year strategy to reduce its dependence on advertising revenues. The move was announced yesterday as the broadcaster reported a significantly improved performance for the first six months of 2010, helped in part by strong audiences for sports events, including the Fifa World Cup and cricket’s Indian Premier League.
- Formula One secured rights-fee increases in Romania and Poland in two new rights deals, covering the 2011 to 2013 seasons.
- US sports broadcaster ESPN said that viewers spent 4.9 billion minutes watching the Fifa World Cup finals across all of its digital media platforms – ESPN.com, ESPN3.com, ESPN Mobile Web, ESPN Mobile Apps and ESPN Mobile TV.
- Formula One Management, the rights-holder of the F1 motor racing championship, has secured two key television rights deals in Eastern Europe for the next three seasons. It has signed with commercial broadcaster Polsat in Poland and with pay-television operator RCS-RDS in Romania.
- Indian sports broadcaster Neo is set to agree a cable distribution deal that will see its channels carried on Sony’s OneAlliance distribution platform.
- Italy’s top football division, Lega Serie A, has opened private negotiations with three broadcasters for the live and highlights rights to the Italian Super Cup for the next two seasons, 2010-2011 and 2011-12, after failing to elicit bids in its auction of the rights by the July 26 deadline.