TVBE: Outside broadcasters are weathering a tough period as rates are squeezed and competition for ad-hoc non-contract business is fierce.

Broadband TV News: The Jupiler League, the main Belgian football competition, has divided the broadcast rights to the live games between cable and IPTV, with contracts going to Belgacom TV, Telenet (Flanders) and VOO (Wallonia). Until now, Belgacom TV owned exclusive rights.

The Telegraph: The new chairman of the BBC has signalled he is prepared to axe sports events and a digital television channel – but vowed to fight to save the World Service from spending cuts.

Sport Business: RAI has snapped up the exclusive Italian broadcast rights to Euro 2012, UEFA announced late last week.

Inside the Games: MP & Silva has been awarded the European broadcast distribution rights to the French Open for the next five years, replacing the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

BBC: The proportion of income that Premier League clubs spend on wages hit a record 68% in 2009-10, a report into football finances by Deloitte says.

Inside World Football: Kiev officials went firmly on the defensive as it emerged the venue for the final of next year’s Euro 2012 Championships is lagging well behind schedule.ide World Football:

Sport Business: Qatar is planning to complete construction of its first stadium for the 2022 FIFA World Cup by 2015, according to the Gulf state’s news agency.

BBC: More than half of people who applied for London 2012 Olympic Games tickets did not receive any in the ballot, BBC London has learnt.Some 1.8 million people applied for the 6.6 million public tickets available. About 55% of applicants missed out.

Broadband TV News: The BBC is to explore how the delivery of content over IP can further “enrich and add value” to its television services. Publishing its first-ever Priorities and Summary Workplan, for the period 2011/12, the BBC Executive says the current Red Button service will play a vital role in acting as a navigator [...]

BBC: Formula 1 has unveiled a record 21-race calendar for 2012, with the United States Grand Prix returning to the schedule for the first time since 2007.

Sport Business: International sports media agency Sportfive has invited interested parties to visit www.sportfive.com/olympicgames, where information about the sales process and the necessary procedures can be found. The deadline for submitting offers is scheduled for 17:00 CET on July 4, 2011. Sportfive is approaching each market on an individual basis.

Bloomberg: RTL Group SA (RTL), Europe’s biggest television broadcaster, agreed to set up a venture with Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd. (RBN) to start two English channels in India, marking its first foray into Asia as a broadcaster. The venture plans one channel based on reality shows provided mainly by RTL’s production arm, FremantleMedia, and another [...]

Sport Business: Figures from the Global Sports Media Consumption Report 2011 show that the home TV set remains the place where the vast majority of fans prefer to watch sport, with six to 10 hours consumed on average per week. However, in Europe and the USA, half of all sports fans now consume sports content [...]

Inside World Football: Sepp Blatter was today officially re-elected here as President of FIFA, extending a controversial reign that began in 1998.  The 75-year-old Swiss received 186 of the 203 votes cast at the Congress - with 17 abstentions, including England, whose attempt earlier in the day to get the election postponed proved a massive failure.

Live Production: Alfacam and Nimbus signed a multi-year agreement for the provision of HD Equipment and technical services across various sport in Asia and the Middle East. The first result of this alliance is a contract to cover almost 750 Cricket Games over the next three years in India, worth over 20.000.000 US$.

Live Production: Twelve Swedish ice hockey arenas are pumping up their crowds with a total of 72 High End Systems DML-1200s w/ Axon. The fixtures are there to loosen up the fans – to “melt the ice” so to speak – with a pre-show Intro that uses the digital lighting fixture’s features to its fullest.

Sport Business: Eurosport is set to bolster its online offerings by launching a new pan-European sports website and free iPhone app dedicated to real-time scoring.

Broadband TV News: Arqiva is to close its online video portal SeeSaw following a strategic review. In an email sent to clients SeeSaw said it would no longer take transactions for rental programmes from May 31, 2011. The online service would then be withdrawn on June 20th to allow an orderly closure of the business [...]

Sport Business: South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) president Gideon Sam has refused to rule out bidding for future Olympic Games after the country’s government declined to back a tilt at the 2020 event.

Rapid TV News: The evolution of the 3D technology in the Spanish homes will be very similar to that of HD suggested Luis Sahún, Astra Marketing Ibérica’s CEO, at Expo3D, taking place this week in Madrid.  

Broadband TV News: Test transmissions of the Sisvel 3D channel have appeared on the Astra position at 19.2 degrees East. The broadcasts use Sisvel Technology’s 3D tile format, an innovative technique for formatting stereoscopic images that integrates two 720p frames within a single 1080p.

Sport Business: Mediaset has snapped up the Spanish broadcast rights to UEFA Euro 2012, with the action set to be aired on the media giant’s Telecinco and Cuatro commercial platforms.

Sport Business: The English city of Southampton will host the start of the Clipper 2011-12 Round the World Yacht Race, organisers of the event have announced.

Rapid TV News: German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF will continue to show the international games of Germany’s national football team in future. A new contract was signed with domestic football association Deutscher Fußball-Bund (DFB) covering the seasons from 2012/13 to 2015/16.  

Fast and Wide: Against the promotional tide that is washing 3D up the discussion agenda, a survey conducted by analyst Ovum reveals investment in 3D production and content presently to be broadcasters’ lowest technology priority.

Sport Business: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) fired the starting gun on the bidding process for the 2020 Olympic Games on Monday.

TechRadar: Microsoft looks likely to bring 3D to the Xbox 360, with the company all set to reveal its 3D plans at E3 2011.

Sports Business: Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore is hopeful goal-line technology could be introduced into the professional game in the next two years, and has admitted the lack of such systems in the sport is “an embarrassment”.

Broadband TV News: Mediaset España and Telefonica have announced a strategic agreement to launch a pilot for the first HbbTV service in Spain. Mediaset’s Telecinco is bringing in content from Telefónica’s services such as Movistar Imagenio, Movistar Videoclub and Terra TV.

Rapid TV News:  OTT video services could generate around €4 billion by 2015 in Europe and in the US. That’s what market analysis firm Idate reveals as the London Connected TV Forum closed and the analyst’s connected TV forecasts show first that the app stores, very successful on smartphones, could also become the connected TV’s [...]

Broadband TV News: Peter MacAvock, the programme manager of the EBU’s technical department, has again called for a single European hybrid standard. His comments at the Connected TV Summit in London came among increasing signs that HbbTV is making its presence felt.

Rapid TV News:  New research from SNL Kagan has revealed further proof of the strong growth prospects for IPTV, showing that VOD and TV Everywhere innovation will accelerate globally. The survey showed that over the past six years IPTV adoption increased at a CAGR of 92.4% compound annual growth rate , SNL Kagan says that [...]

Inside the Games: London 2012 has received 1.8 million requests for tickets for the Olympic men’s 100 metres final which is expected to see Jamaican superstar and reigning Olympic champion Usain Bolt face off against American rival Tyson Gay.

Broadband TV News: There are likely to be over 8 million 3DTV households in Germany – equivalent to 20% of the total – by 2015, according to Randolph Nikutta, senior project field manager, new media, Deutsche Telekom.

Rapid TV News: Spanish Mediapro’s soccer channel Gol TV, the network delivering the most celebrated international futbol, has reached a multi-year agreement with the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for the exclusive media rights to UEFA’s Youth, Women and Futsal competitions in Canada and USA.    

BBC: France has been named as the host country for the Ryder Cup in 2018, beating off favourites Spain.Le Golf National course, near Paris, was chosen ahead of other bids from Portugal, Germany and the Netherlands.

Broadband TV News: Sky has no plans to offer its dedicated 3DTV channel Sky 3D as a stand-alone service, preferring instead to provide it bundled for HD subscribers. It has also, according to John Cassy, director of Sky 3D, detected evidence that some customers are upgrading in order to receive 3D.

Inside World Football: West Ham United insisted today that they still plan to move into the Olympic Stadium after London 2012 despite being relegated from the Premier League.A spokesman for the east London team said they were “totally committed” to making the £537 million ($836 million) venue their new home after the Olympics and Paralympics, [...]

Sport Business: The 2016 International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Championship will take place in the Russian cities of St Petersburg and Moscow, the sport’s global governing body has confirmed.

Broadband TV News: Virgin Media is to bring live 3D tennis into subscribers’ homes after an agreement with Eurosport. The TF1-owned broadcaster is showing coverage of the French Open from the centre court at Roland Garros, Paris for a second year, giving Virgin the chance to show its first live 3D event. Selected matches will [...]

AVinteractive: Walkabout, the Australian bar chain, is to pilot a 65in glasses-free 3D TV at its flagship Covent Garden bar, London in time for the UEFA Champions League Final. iPONT International will install the wide-angle auto-stereoscopic (glasses-free) 3D LCD display with an iPONT 3D TV Box, a proprietary set-top box that streams real-time 3D broadcast [...]

Rapid TV News: The French professional League of Football, LFP, has launched its TV rights call for bids for the period 2012-2016. The League would like to at least command the current level of €668m each year, yet the sole main player is Canal+ after Orange withdrew from offering TV content.

Broadband TV News: Pace was the world’s number one seller of set-top boxes, in terms of unit shipments, during 2010, according to new research from IHS Screen Digest.

Broadband TV News: If the recovery of Sky Deutschland could be judged on subscriber numbers alone, then the pay-TV operator is beginning to sit up in bed. Buoyed by a series of marketing campaigns an additional 73,000 subscribers were added in the first quarter to reach 2.726 million subscribers.

BBC: Football bodies FIFA and UEFA have appealed against a European ruling that the World Cup and Euro Championships must be on free-to-air TV in the UK. In February, the European General Court said the UK could keep the events on a list of “protected” events of national sporting interest shown for free. It means [...]

SPORTELMonaco will this year take place from 10 to 13 October at the usual location of the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. In 2010, SPORTELMonaco attracted 2188 participants representing 922 companies from 68 countries.  

TVBE: A good, in-depth look at the problems faced by OB companies and others thanks to the the sale of spectrum to mobile operators.

BBC: Former Football Association chairman Lord Triesman claims four Fifa members sought “bribes” in return for backing England’s failed 2018 World Cup bid.