Media

Europe?s leading car-makers met last week in Rome to discuss plans to set up a motor racing competition to rival Formula One.

Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar has signed a five-year contract worth an estimated 800m rupees ($17m) with sports management company WorldTel.

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.

Pay-TV and terrestrial broadcasters will soon be battling it out to win the rights show live matches and highlights of Scottish soccer Premier League matches after current contracts run out at the end of next season.

NTL, the UK?s largest cable telecoms company which boasts 8.5m subscribers and has a 10 percent stake in English Premiership soccer clubs Newcastle United, Leicester City and Aston Villa, said earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation rose by about 32 percent to $124m for the three months to March 31 compared with the previous quarter.

Rupert Murdoch?s News Corporation is on the verge of becoming the largest global satellite network after lengthy negotiations for control of US broadcaster DirecTV were said to have entered an `advanced? stage by DirecTV?s parent company Hughes Electronics.

GG Media has stepped up its bid to broadcast horseracing in the UK in competition with the Go Racing consortium, by launching an advertising campaign.

An American radio station has dropped its online broadcasts of a local ice hockey team because of advertising concerns.

A leading sports industry advisor has told SportBusiness 2001 delegates that the sports sector success story is set to continue - despite the drop-off in advertising spend and threat of recession.

The BBC has warned sporting bodies that they threaten the future of their respective sports by increasingly favouring pay-TV companies over free-to-air broadcasters when securing television rights deals.

French media giant Vivendi may yet pull out of its bid to take control of troubled Swiss marketing giant ISL.

The English Football League has appointed Richard Masters, 34, as its new Commercial Director.

The organisers of the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester have defended their handling of the event after coming under fire for failing to promote it enough.

The Ackerley Group has completed the divestiture of the Seattle SuperSonics NBA franchise for $200 million.

The Salt Lake Organising Committee is confident that its computer network will perform well for next February's 2002 Winter Games.

South Korean Kim Un-yong has joined the race for world sport's most powerful job -- the International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidency.