Monday, 7th January 2008

HEADLINE NEWS

French Handball Rights Tender to Begin in February

The LNH, French handball's top-tier men’s league, is to launch a broadcast rights tender for the next four seasons at the end of February. The league’s present three-year deal with Eurosport, the cable and satellite sports broadcaster, expires at the end of the 2007-08 season, and the LNH has begun an initial consultation stage ahead of the tender. The LNH claims that the consultation stage will allow it ‘to better focus on the needs, capacities and expectations of the different broadcasters, especially concerning the division of different lots, the production process or even the length of contracts.’ Rights to the top-tier league and the league cup competition are expected to be awarded by the LNH in April. Sportcal, 4th Jan 2008


SPORTS SHORTS

* The DFL, the German Football League, has still not received a bank guarantee from Leo Kirch to support a six-year, €3-billion ($4.41-billion) deal to produce and distribute coverage of the Bundesliga, according to German media reports. The DFL might have to delay negotiations with interested broadcasters as a result. Handelsblatt, the German financial newspaper, reports that Kirch has yet to obtain the bank guarantee and that Commerzbank, the German bank with which he has held talks, is continuing to assess whether to provide it. The DFL has set a deadline of the end of January to receive the guarantee, and without it, would not be able to proceed with the domestic broadcast rights tender for 2009-10 onwards. Sportcal, 4th Jan 2008

* A request by the French Football Federation to bring forward the final of the Coupe de France, French soccer’s top knockout clubs competition, has been rejected by France Télévisions, the French public-service broadcaster which holds rights to the tournament. France Télévisions has vowed that the final of the Coupe de France ‘will not be tarnished’ after Raymond Domenech, the French international manager, requested that the match be brought forward by a few days to allow France's national team more time to prepare for the European Championships. The final is scheduled for May 24. France Télévisions shares the broadcast rights for the Coupe de France with Eurosport, the cable and satellite broadcaster, in a joint deal worth around €14 million ($20.6 million) a season until 2009-10. Sportcal, 4th Jan 2008

* The climax of tennis’ Australian Open is to be shown live on a big screen in Shanghai this year. Tennis Australia is expecting some one million spectators to watch the action at Century Square shopping mall from January 25 to 27. TA chief executive Steve Wood said: ‘There is just so much interest in our event in Asia, we thought the time was right for such a venture.’ There will also be live coverage of the matches on big screens in Melbourne and Sydney. The Australian Open starts at Melbourne Park on January 14. Sportcal, 4th Jan 2008

* Sportfive is reported to be close to signing a €25-million ($37-million) four-year extension to its marketing rights contract with German club Hertha Berlin. The agency’s present deal is due to expire in 2014. The extension would be worth about €25 million according to the reports, with €15 million being used to service the club’s debts and €10 million being made available immediately for the club to spend on player transfers. In addition to being the worldwide distributor of Hertha’s marketing rights, Sportfive has also been responsible in recent seasons for the global distribution of television rights for the team’s home matches in the Uefa Cup, European soccer’s second-tier clubs competition. Sportcal, Football Insider, 4th Jan 2008

* Indian telecoms regulator TRAI's final recommendations on IPTV to the government have confirmed that cable operators and telcos can launch television services without requiring new licences. Internet service providers (ISPs) with a net worth of over Rs 1 billion (US$25 million) will also be able to offer IPTV without needing a new licence to do so. But TRAI has decided not to recommend an increase the foreign direct investment (FDI) limit of cable operators from the current 49%. The regulator had been considering upping the limit to the 74% that telecoms operators operate under. Rapid TV News, 4th Jan 2008


MORE NEWS

Elsewhere/Rights: Uefa 'Wants to Nearly Double UK Champions League TV Revenues'

Uefa, European soccer’s governing body, is reported to be targeting £150 million ($296 million) a year from the UK market in a new tender for the rights for the Champions League, the top-tier European clubs competition, due to be issued shortly. The target nearly doubles the £87 million a year that Uefa receives under the present contract with commercial broadcaster ITV and pay-television’s British Sky Broadcasting. The present contract covers the seasons 2006-07 until 2008-09.

Uefa, and its rights marketing agency Team Marketing, are certain to want to encourage the BBC, the UK’s public-service broadcaster, to enter the bidding, to help to force up the price of the rights. The BBC has previously insisted that it can find ‘creative’ solutions to its prohibition on carrying advertising, to enable it to resolve the fact that Champions League programming comes with broadcast sponsorship obligations to the competition’s sponsors already attached.

Meanwhile, ITV will not have a presenting base in Austria and Switzerland for this summer’s Euro 2008 European Championships, in a bid to save money following England’s failure to qualify for the competition, and a consequent drop in advertising revenue expectations. However, the BBC, which shares the rights with ITV, plans to base its operation in the game venues in the host countries, according to the Daily Mail newspaper. Sportcal, 4th Jan 2008

China/Broadcaster: Government Slams on Online AV Brakes

China might be barely six months away from the Olympic Games but it is still ultra-sensitive about online activity. The People's Republic of China has set up another tough layer of online censorship. While not wholly forbidding the carriage of on-line programming, it has ruled that such content can only come from state-approved players.

The fresh rules emerged from two powerful Chinese players, one of which was SARFT, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, which had previously been seen as something of a liberating force. The second signatory to the clampdown is China's Ministry of Information.

As yet it is unclear how the new regulations will affect incoming sites which supply streamed video content, but it doesn't look good. However, the new laws would seem to apply only to sites with servers inside mainland China, so international sites such as YouTube could bypass the new censorship. Some observers have suggested that the laws could only be policed until the Beijing Olympic Games have finished later this year. Rapid TV News, 4th Jan 2008

Philippines/General: 88 Athletes to be Sent to Asean Para Games
A 110-member delegation, including 88 differently-abled athletes, will carry the country’s colors in the 4th Asean Para Games slated January 17 to 27 in Nakhon Ratchasima in Thailand, to compete in archery, athletics, badminton, boccia, chess, fencing, judo, powerlifting, shooting, swimming, table tennis and wheelchair basketball.

The team, made up of partial and total visually impaired campaigners, orthopedically handicapped (am-putees, polio victims or spinal cord injured), intellectually disabled and those with cerebral palsy, will strut their wares against their counterparts in 12 of 14 events on tap,” Philippine Sports Association for the Differently Abled president Mike Barredo announced Friday during the SCOOP weekly session at the Kamayan Restaurant-Padre Faura.The Philippine participation is realized due to the P12-million earmarked by the PSC as well as contributions from the private sector like PLDT-Smart, Centrum, Nike and some other corporate godfathers who are sponsoring a sport each. The Manila Times Internet Edition, 5th Jan 2008

Elsewhere/General: CBS Sports Picks CSTV

College Sports Television Networks is no longer in a league of its own. The CBS Corp.-owned sports media company has been absorbed into the parent company's CBS Sports division. CSTV, which CBS acquired in 2005, will now be overseen by Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports, and Tony Petitti, exec VP and executive producer, CBS Sports, who will have day-to-day management responsibilities.
CBS and CSTV make for a natural operational fit given the latter brand's focus on collegiate athletics for cable TV and online. CBS already has some of NCAA's sporting events in house between the Division I Men's Basketball Championship and SEC football. The Hollywood Reporter, 4th Jan 2008