Media

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is to establish its own TV broadcasting organisation for future Olympic Games.

English soccer club Leeds United is in talks with Australia's Brisbane Strikers to build closer links with the country that produced star forwards Mark Viduka and Harry Kewell.

NBC has sold ? just under 70 percent of its available commercial air time? for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, according to NBC Olympics chief operating officer Randy Falco.

Italian Serie A soccer club Juventus has signed a new shirt sponsorship deal with the country?s broadband ISP FastNet for next season, replacing broadcaster Telepiu, whose deal was worth #5.5m ($7.79m) a year.

Rainbow Media Holdings, the subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation and NBC, has promoted Andrea Greenberg to president, Rainbow Sports Networks.

UK terrestrial broadcaster ITV attracted a peak of 7.8 million viewers for Saturday?s English FA Cup soccer final, with an average of 6.8 million over the entire match.

Athens 2004 Olympic Games organisers (ATHOC) said on Monday Greek state broadcaster ERT had signed a sponsorship deal for the Games worth 5.7bn drachmas ($14.6m).

Spain?s Sogecable added 96,000 subscriptions to its digital channel Canal Satellite in the first quarter of 2001 to take its total to 1,148,072, an improvement of 30.7 percent over the last 12 months.

Gobarkingmad, the greyhound racing service owned by UK-based online betting and leisure group Gaming Internet, is to get an additional cash injection of #8m to #12m ($11m to $17m) through an institutional placing and an offer to help fund this month?s launch of its website and next month?s launch of its digital television channel.

The battle to gain media coverage of horseracing events in the UK moved closer to being resolved today after the Go Racing consortium, which is made up of BSkyB, Channel 4 and Arena Leisure, signed up the remaining racecourses it needed to finalise its horseracing media rights deal.

Interactive television services, which were used by 14.9million households at the end of 2000, will grow annually by 59 per cent in the next five years, according to a new report.

Analysts with investment bank Merrill Lynch believe that the ITV Sports Channel, which has taken over OnDigital?s sports programming, will also be carried by satellite platform BSkyB and cable outlets because the ?channel is not viable otherwise.?

The European Commission has cleared German media giant Bertelsmann?s acquisition of a majority stake in RTL group, Europe?s largest commercial broadcaster, without conditions.

NTL, the UK?s largest cable telecommunications company which has a ten per cent stake in UK Premiership soccer clubs Newcastle United, Leicester City and Aston Villa, said it had raised its bond sale to #700m ($990m) from #350m ($500m) in a bid to keep the business running until next year.

Goal celebration antics cost Malaysia's self-styled soccer 'Superman' 2,000 ringgit ($526) after a sponsor complained his display hid its company logo during a TV broadcast, local newspapers reported on Friday.

GG-Media, the consortium bidding for media rights to UK horseracing, has agreed terms with ten courses for payments worth #25 million ($US35.5m) over five years.