Media

US broadcast network UPN rescheduled its September 6 edition of `WWF Smackdown? so as not to pull viewers away from the MTV Video Music Awards to air that night.

Dutch soccer team Feyenoord Rotterdam is looking at ways of offering virtual advertising to its sponsors. The move comes amid a wave of Asian interest in the sport since the signing of Japanese star Shinji Ono from Urawa.

US investment group Liberty Media has moved to calm fears that its buy-out of six German cable television companies from Deutsche Telekom had stalled by announcing that a deal has been signed worth around $4.95 billion (?5.5bn).

Rival French satellite platforms Canal Satellite and TPS have begun informal talks regarding a merger of their operations as the consolidation of the global satellite sector continues.

European sports website Sports.com is to offer real time betting odds to soccer fans via a set of updateable banners which have been created and produced by London-based interactive marketing agency Tribal DDB.
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Sportech PLC, the holding company for Littlewoods Leisure, the pools betting company it acquired in September 2000, has reported that its telephone and online sports betting customer base grew to over 208,000 registered customers in the six months to June 30.

Rivals.net, the Chrysalis-based sports network, has said goodbye to two of its management staff as part of a company restructure.

News Corp's latest financial results for the second quarter 2001 have shown that Asian joint venture ESPN Star Sports (ESS) is still $21million (?23.4m) in debt.

Goodwill Games chief executive Campbell Rose conceded that the event?s swimming format had failed.

The Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association (MLBPAA) has launched www.baseball-legends.com, a new site developed and operated by MLB Advanced Media.

CricInfo.com, the digital cricket information company, has told sportbusiness.com that it has as big a chance of renewing its internet broadcasting rights to English cricket despite competing bids from the BBC and Channel 4.
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The head of American broadcaster Turner Sports has rejected claims that less than half the expected viewers are tuning into the Goodwill Games in the US.

Canadian broadcaster CTV is to rebrand its flagship channel The Sports Network (TSN) at the request of its minority partner ESPN.

UK terrestrial broadcaster the BBC recorded the highest domestic Saturday peak-time audience for five years with 14.6 million viewers tuning in to England?s stunning 5-1 demolition of the Germans in Munich.

The BBC will broadcast highlights of CART?s first race on UK soil later this month.

Pan-European broadcaster Eurosport has secured UK television carriage for its 24-hour sports news channel Eurosportnews after signing deals with both satellite platform Sky Digital and cable network Telewest.