Premiere has new strategy for Bundesliga bidding

German cable and satellite broadcaster Premiere will try a different tactic when the German Football League releases its tender at the end of the year.

At the last auction, cable consortium, Unity Media, won the rights for seasons running from 2006- 2009. At that time, Premiere insisted that the free-to-air highlights be delayed so it would be restricted for pay television.

The company later recovered the rights for the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 seasons when it agreed to a EUR 100 million a year, sublicensing deal with Arena, which is Unity Media's pay television channel.

For the 2009-2010 season, Premiere says it will try a different way of bidding to gain rights to German football's top-tier, Bundesliga.

The company still wants highlights to be shown later on German free-to-air television.

At present, a little over an hour after the matches conclude, a highlights programme called Sportschau airs on ARD, a German public-service broadcasting station.

Carsten Schmidt, who is a Premiere board member and is responsible for sports and new business told Dow Jones Newswires that "in contrast to last time, we will not bid provocatively any more."

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.