Football Broadcasting, Broadcast Rights and the Media
FA Cup Deal Agreed With ESPN - 13/12/2009
The FA has agreed a four year television deal with ESPN to broadcast FA Cup ties as the Walt Disney owned broadcaster strengthens its position in the British market...
It All Kicks Off Over Sale of Rights to China - 15/11/2009
The sale of rights to broadcast Premiership football in China, potentially the largest market for the world's most successful football league, is forcing league bosses to paper over widening splits between its big and small clubs...
176,000 Log On To Watch Oldham vs Leeds - 13/11/2009
The FA Cup First Round tie between Oldham Athletic and Leeds United, streamed exclusively live on TheFA.com achieved an audience 176,000...
Internet Screening Does Not Set A Precedent - 11/10/2009
As it turned out fans were able to watch highlights of England's defeat by Ukraine on BBC1 last night, but the contract signed by the terrestial broadcaster preventing them from announcing this in advance...
BBC Overpaid For FA Cup Matches - 11/10/2009
The money of licence fee payers was at risk of being wasted when the BBC paid more than £1m to broadcast FA Cup matches on Radio 5Live...
Web Broadcast of England Match Angers Fans - 07/10/2009
Saturday's World Cup qualifier between England and Ukraine will be shown live only on the internet, angering many fans...
Conference Takes TV Hit - 22/09/2009
Talks between the Conference and American sports broadcaster EPSN have collapsed at the last minute...
Old Firm Blast TV Deal - 20/07/2009
Celtic and Rangers are unhappy with a television deal with Sky-ESPN approved by two-thirds of the Scottish Premier clubs...
Conference TV Rights For Sale - 28/06/2009
The Blue Square Premiership is confident about selling its television rights after the collapse of its five year £12m deal with Setanta...
Ofcom Threatens Action Against Sky - 28/06/2009
BSkyB's status in the pay-television market has come under threat after Ofcom outlined plans to force it to offer premium channels, including live football, to operators on rival platfoms...
Sky Comfortable With ESPN - 24/06/2009
ESPN is owned by Disney whose market value beats BSkyB's parent News Corp by $42 billion to $26 billion dollars. Yet analysts are saying that ESPN could be an easier opponent in the Premiership live television rights stakes than might appear to be the case at first glance...
ESPN Deal Saves Premiership's Bacon - 23/06/2009
ESPN, part of Walt Disney, has bought both the packages of live games forcibly relinquished by Setanta...
The Big Losers From Setanta Collapse - 21/06/2009
The Scottish Premiership, English non-league clubs and possibly the FA stand to lose the most from the prospective collapse of Setanta...
'Big Brother' Firm Endemol Cools On Setanta Deal - 15/06/2009
Production company Endemol has been considering taking a share in troubled sports broadcaster Setanta but earlier plans to be an equal partner in Setanta with Access Industries have been scaled down...
Setanta May Be Saved - 14/06/2009
Access Industries, a company run by billionaire businessman Len Blavatnik, will pay £20m for a 51 per cent stake in Setanta to help it to avoid administration...
Spanish Football Broadcast Rights Settled For Next Three Years - 12/06/2009
After three years of court cases, confusion and chaos the television broadcast rights to La Liga and the Copa del Rey (the Spanish FA Cup) have been finally settled...
Setanta Close To Collapse - 06/06/2009
Research group Enders Analysis estimates that Setanta's annual losses in its UK business amount to about £100m...
Setanta's Situation Gets Worse - 31/05/2009
Second force Premiership television provider Setanta is seeing its financial situation deteriorate and the ultimate outcome may be less money for the Premiership...
Setanta Fighting to Survive - 04/05/2009
Sports broadcaster Setanta is fighting for its life as a new management team holds urgent talks to raise cash and slash the amount it pays for sports rights...
Setanta Looks For Funds - 12/04/2009
Pay-television company Setanta has held a fresh round of talks with private equity firms in a bid to raise up to £100m following its failure to retain both of its Premiership rights packages beyond 2010...
Easter Day Matches Kick Off Row - 11/04/2009
A row has broken out between leading religious figures and the Premiership over the staging of fixtures on Easter Day with strong letters of complaint being sent to the Premier League and Setanta...
Football Levy Called For in Germany - 19/03/2009
Bayern Munich general manager Uli Hoeness has suggested each household in Germany pay an extra two euros a month to put German league football back on terrestial television...
TV Companies Want to Cut Cost of FA Contract - 09/03/2009
Following significant falls in revenue and profits, ITV is seeking to renegotiate its contract with the Football Association...
Premiership Money Bonanza - 08/02/2009
Forecasts that the Premiership bubble would burst in the credit crunch increasingly look premature, if not misplaced altogether...
Sky Seals TV Deal - 05/02/2009
Sky has paid more than £1bn to secure its position as the main Premiership broadcaster...
TV Bidding War Is On - 04/01/2009
Just before Christmas officials from the FA Premier League sent out invitations to brodacasters to tender for the television rights for the three seasons starting in August 2010...
Gap Between Championship And Lower Leagues To Widen - 23/11/2008
The Championship will get a big boost next season from a new television contract, but the gap between it and the lower divisions of the Football League will widen...
Pay-TV Football Boom in Africa - 08/12/2008
GTV is pan-African pay-TV company which is building its offer around football, although it also has news and entertainment channels...
Setanta Seeks New Supremo As TV Rights Battle Looms - 09/11/2008
Setanta Sports is searching for a new chief executive of its British operations after the broadcaster fell foul of football fans for failing to sell highlights of England's win over Croatia to ITV...
BT's Vision - 19/10/2008
BT admit that it will be 'challenging' if not impossible to hit its target of having 2-3m BT vision customers by 2011 by organic growth alone but it would be easier to reach the target if BT Vision can offer its customers the live football available on BSkyB's channels...
Minor Set Back For Sky TV - 05/10/2008
Decisions by the media regulator Ofcom on live television rights represent a setback for Sky, but not the major blow they could have been...
Bidders Line Up for Premiership TV Auction - 14/09/2008
Negotiations on the next Premiership television package are due to start in the first three months of 2009 and already potential bidders are lining up...
England TV Highlights Mix-up - 14/09/2008
Pay television company Setanta took the unusual step last week of suspending its encryption technology so that fans could watch highlights of England's World Cup qualifying match against Croatia...
Bundesliga Faces Television Rights Battle - 30/07/2008
The Bundesliga, the German government and pay-TV company Premiere are locked in a three-way batle over the Bundesliga's exclusive TV rights for the future...
Setanta Cut Back On Non-League Games - 16/06/2008
Setanta Sports are cutting back on coverage of the Blue Square Premier by almost a third...
Television Cash Boost For Clubs - 18/05/2008
Television income has boosted payments to Premiership clubs by about £300m. Payments for the season ranged from £29.1m for relegated Derby County to...
BSkyB Increases Hold On Champions League Games - 23/03/2008
BSkyB is competing with the BBC and ITV to receive the largest remnants of European Champions League coverage in the UK after it secured the majority of the games in a £240m three year deal...
Berlusconi and Murdoch in Italian Soccer Battle - 22/03/2008
The Murdoch media group has begun a broadcasting rights battle that could bring it into conflict with its main Italian rival Mediaset, owned by the family of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi...
New Broadcast Deal For Fizzy Pop Leagues - 11/11/2007
The BBC will screen live Coca-Cola Championship matches for the first time as part of a deal that will double the Football League's income from broadcast rights...
England Problems Could Hit ITV - 21/10/2007
Despite their commercial success with the Rugby World Cup, ITV may lose out if England fail to qualify for the European championships...
Non-League Teams Hope For TV Boost - 22/07/2007
Non-league teams at the top of the pyramid are hoping for an income boost from the new television deal with Setanta...
Virgin and Setanta Team Up To Challenge Sky - 22/07/2007
Setanta have announced a deal for Virgin Media to carry content from six of its channels, including 46 live English Premiership games, on its cable network...
ITV and Setanta Win TV Deal - 30/03/2007
The BBC's and Sky's eight year grip on the rights for FA Cup and England home matches has been ended by a joint bid by ITV and Setanta that is worth £106m more a year...
70,000 Internet Viewers for Sevilla vs Steaua Bucharest - 17/02/2007
The UEFA Cup match between Steaua Bucharest and Seville on Thursday 15th February marked the first time in Spain an entire football match could be followed totally live and free through Internet, mobile telephone and television...
Premiership Doubles Foreign Media Deals - 21/01/2007
The increasing number of foreign players, managers and even owners in English football has helped the Premier League secure a string of international television deals...
FA Hopes To Net £400m In TV Rights Auction - 14/01/2007
An auction for television rights to FA Cup and England home football internationals will kick off next month, amid expectations that the winning bid will easily exceed the existing £80m a year deal...
Viewers Like Uncertainty - 31/12/2006
Imperial College London and media buying group Initiative Sport Futures have examined the way television viewers react to each minute of 248 Premiership matches...
BT Move Into Television Market - 12/12/2006
There could be even more competition for contracts to show football on television in the future with a new service from BT Vision...
Last Minute TV Deal For Italian Soccer - 13/09/2006
Italy's football season has opened after a last-minute broadcasting agreement was reached between Lega Calcio, the organisation that manages the top two leagues, and broadcasters Sky Italia and Sportitalia...
Conference Signs TV Deal - 29/08/2006
The Conference, effectively the fifth division in English football, has signed a television contract with new market entrant Setanta Sports...
Setanta Needs Cash To Finance TV Deal - 02/07/2006
Irish pay-TV broadcaster Setanta Sports needs a £200m injection of funds to help pay for the acquisition of live rights to the English Premiership...
League Win £4 Damages Over ITV Digital Affair - 25/06/2006
The ITV Digital affair, which saw clubs getting into financial trouble after spending money which wasn't then available, has ended with...
German Pay TV Channel Premiere Loses Bundesliga Broadcast Rights - 11/06/2006
Shares in Premiere fell to an all-time low last week after Deutsche Telekom announced it would not use its rights for showing live football via the internet to provide viewing for Premier's pay-TV subscribers...
Pub Chain To Cut Back On Sky - 27/05/2006
Waning interest in Premiership football and surging subscription costs may push brewer and pub chain Wolverhampton and Dudley to nearly halve the number of its managed pubs showing Sky Television...
TV Deal Means New Bonanza For Premiership - 07/05/2006
The new television deal running for three years from 2007-8 represents a bonanza for the Premiership, but may be less good for fans...
TV Auction Goes To Second Round - 30/04/2006
The auction of Premiership television rights is unexpectedly going to a second round on Thursday after BSkyB faced stiffer competition than expected from other broadcasters...
Sky Increases Grip On Premiership Contract - 19/04/2006
The Premiership has told ITV and the BBC that they will have to bid 6 per cent more than rival media groups for rights to show live Premiership football. This will make it even harder for the largest free-to-air broadcasters to challenge BSkyB's dominance...
Premiership TV Revenues Likely To Increase - 25/03/2006
With the long competition law dispute between the European Commission and the Premiership finally formally over, the auction for television rights has started...
Final TV Deal Leaves BSkyB In Top Spot - 21/11/2005
The Premiership and the European Commission have finally settled their long battle over the sale of television rights which at one time threatened the top league with a hefty anti-trust fine...
BT Won't Bid For Football Rights - 30/10/2005
BT has ruled out taking on BSkyB and other broadcasters bidding for live rights to Premiership football...
New Oz League Under Way - 29/10/2005
Following a government enquiry into the failure of the National Soccer League which lasted from 1977 to 2004, the Hyundai A-League has been launched in Australia...
Match Fixing Scandal In Germany - 23/10/2005
German football has been rocked by the match fixing scandal involving referee Robert Hoyzer...
Commission Close To Deal With Premiership On TV Rights - 23/10/2005
The European Commission looks like it is close to a deal with the English Premiership on the auction of tv rights. The deal could preserve football's income position but make life more difficult for fans...
Commission And Premiership Close To The Brink - 09/10/2005
EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes has warned that she will charge the Premiership with breaking EU law over its allocation of television rights 'very shortly'. If the Commission determines that competition rules have been violated, it can impose fines up to 10 per cent...
Premiership Boss Steps Up Fight Against Brussels - 26/09/2005
The FA Premiership has denounced a plan by the European Commission to limit the number of games screened by any one broadcaster to fifty per cent...
Premiership To Be Formally Charged - 18/09/2005
The Premier League will soon be formally accused of breaking European law by developing too close a relationship with BSkyB...
Football Broadcasting Rights competition hots up in Germany - 05/09/2005
German pay-TV broadcaster Premiere plans to branch into free-to-air television as part of a deal under which it has secured the German rights to show the Uefa Champions League soccer competition for the next three years...
More Bidders Chase TV Rights - 21/08/2005
Apax, the private equity house advised by former BBC director general Greg Dyke, is the latest contender to throw its hat in the ring in the race for Premiership television rights...
Brussels Steps Up Pressure On Premiership - 18/08/2005
The Premiership is coming under increasing pressure from the European Union for alleged breaches of competition (anti-trust) law. It may now face formal charges for breaking EU competittion law over its television rights deal with BSkyB...
Football League Gets 40% Boost In TV Contract - 12/06/2005
The Football League has signed a new three-year deal with Sky Sports and ITV worth about £110m, a 40 per cent increase on the present contract...
Berlusconi Targets TV Football Market In Italy - 23/01/2005
Mediaset, the media empire of Italian billionaire prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, is launching a new television product that could expand its domination of the television market by transforming the way people watch football...
Premiership Viewing Figures Fall - 12/12/2004
The television audience for Arsenal v. Chelsea today may well exceed the 3,079,000 UK viewers who watched the clash between Manchester United and Arsenal. However, the general trend is for domestic television audiences to fall...
TalkSport Wins Probe Into Beeb - 19/12/2004
The BBC's radio broadcasting rights to FA Cup matches are under investigation after rival station TalkSport complained they breached British and European competition law. Ofcom, the media and communications regulator...
Clash Looms Over Photo Rights - 31/10/2004
If a dispute over press photo rights cannot be resolved, reporters and photographers may be excluded from Premier and Football League matches...
BSkyB Outfoxes Commission - 30/05/2004
TV Deal Leaves Everyone A Winner - 24/12/2003
German TV Row To Go To Commission - 28/06/2003
French Clubs in Secret TV Deal - 10/12/2002
English Football League Loses Court Case - 04/08/2002
Murdoch Scores In Italy - 10/12/2002
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