By Paul Nicholson
November 26 – The UK broadcast market continues to be fertile TV sales ground for the UEFA with TEAM marketing having concluded the final parts of licensing broadcast rights for the Champions League and Europa League in the UK for the 2016-18 cycle.
Commercial terrestrial broadcaster ITV, having lost the live rights to Champions League, has salvaged some of its previous investment with highlights rights. BT Sport and News UK have been given non-live clip rights.
BT Sport has the UK rights to screen live Champions League and Europa League, secured in a £897 million three-year deal announced two weeks ago. The deal will undoubtedly lead to a power shift in the UK terrestrial and pay TV markets, with the premium Champions League rights making BT Sport the power player in the control of mid-week, primetime TV sports audiences.
Previously the live rights were shared between pay broadcaster Sky and ITV. Now ITV has come back into the picture with a UEFA Champions League highlights package that will air on Wednesday nights, and a UEFA Europa League package that will air on ITV4 on Thursday nights.
The rights to both competitions have been granted on a co-exclusive basis. The new deal keeps some of UEFA’s club competition on free terrestrial TV in the UK – an important marketing window for the league and one that will keep highlights at lease, available to a mass TV audience.
This was the first time that clip rights have been available for tender in the UK. Rupert Murdoch’s News UK and BT Sport will share the rights on a co-exclusive basis.
News UK will put the rights into the same pay subscription as its premier league clip rights, available across its digital platforms to subscribers of The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times newspapers.
BT Sport subscribers will be broadcast the clips across its mobile, tablet or laptop, app and btsport.com platforms.
No figure has been released for the value of the deals.
– It is not just UEFA club competitions that are selling. UEFA EURO 2016 broadcast deals have been struck in Norway with commercial channel TV2 and pubcaster NRK, and in Sweden with pubcaster SVT and commercial channel TV4. Both countries will have all 51 matches at the final tournament shown live. The deals cover internet and mobile platforms with the same broadcasters
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