EM.Sport active, eyeing Bundesliga rights

EM.Sport Media has bought a five-percent stake in Premiere Star, a marketing and distribution platform launched by German pay-TV operator Premiere.

Premiere held a 90 percent stake in the company, which was launched 1 Sept. Credit institute HypoVereinsbank held 10 percent.

At the same time, Leo Kirch, the former German media mogul whose media empire collapsed in April 2002, has bought into EM.Sport, taking in 11.5 percent of the company's shares. It was a trade with EM.Sport receiving 25.1 percent of Kirch's shares in Swiss company Highlight Communications.

With the deal, EM.Sport and Premiere announced a bigger collaboration. Plazamedia, the EM.Sport Media production subsidiary, extended its service provision contract with Premiere until the end of 2013. The agreement covers transmission services for Premiere's sports programmes and HDTV offers, as well as production services for live broadcasts of the Bundesliga, Champions League and Formula 1.

EM.Sport plans to focus in future on its sports business, which it considers more lucrative, and is looking to sell its children's and youth entertainment branch.

Ties with Kirch and Highlight also could keep EM.Sport poised for new Bundesliga rights, which will be allocated by the end of the year. SPORTFIVE already has jumped into the tender of Bundesliga rights.

EM.Sport CEO Werner Klatten said the company was interested in the free-to-air Bundesliga rights, but not the pay-TV rights.

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