Media

Germany's Kirch Gruppe has dismissed reports it had an agreement to purchase the rights to Bundesliga soccer.

International Sportsworld Communicators (ISC), owners of the commercial rights to the FIA World Rally Championship, has been acquired by a consortium led by David Richards, the chairman of motorsports company, Prodrive.

Sky Sports has launched its new look sports news and information service to subscribers to its UK digital service ? Skysports.comTV.

On the day that News Corps and Vivendi have proposed a joint shareholding of their digital businesses, European media big-hitters Bertelsmann, Groupe Bruxelles Lambert and Pearson (PTV) have agreed to merge CLT-UFA, Europe's leading commercial television and radio broadcaster, with Pearson Television, the independent television production company.

Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) has decided upon a new European broadcast strategy for the 2000 FedEx Championships Series season.

Manchester United?s club television channel ? MUTV ? has been launched in Scandinavia, giving fans in Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland the ability to subscribe to the digital broadcast.

To ability to insert personalised advertisements into web broadcasts of sport has taken a step closer after Philips Digital Networks and Symah Vision announced they were collaborating to develop a cutting edge technology.

The European Union and its member states could be treated as a single country and only host two grands prix a year in the future, according to International Automobile Federation (FIA) president Max Mosley.

Italian Serie A soccer club AS Roma, which aims to float on the stock market this month, is in talks on a commercial alliance with Italian and foreign telecoms groups, director general Fabrizio Lucchesi has said.

Animal rights supporters have called on media and sponsors to boycott the Grand National tomorrow ? the UK?s biggest horse racing event.

ESPN International has agreed a deal with the French Tennis Federation to continue its distribution deal for Roland Garros.

A new European football portal, onefootball.com, has been launched offering news, merchandise, travel packages and online betting. The site is due to launch on 19 April and will be in competition with eurosoccer.com, the new multilingual European league site developed by Purple Interactive, which announced its formation exclusively on sportbusiness.com.

Virtual imaging specialists Symah Vision has signed an exclusive agreement with BBC Sports for use of the cutting edge technology in its programming.

Colin Hutchinson, managing director of cosmopolitan English Premier League club Chelsea, has said that UEFA and FIFA could face a breakaway of leading clubs if they persuaded the European Union to change its stance on the Bosman Ruling.

The chief executive of the English Football League, John McKeown, has left his post ? after just three months.

The Volvo Ocean Race has signed major television deals on both sides of the Atlantic for next year?s event.