French footie rights
February 8, 2008
The French soccer association has announced the award of live football rights from Ligue 1 to Canal+ and Orange for four years starting this summer. The broadcasters will pay a total of E668 million per season between 2008 and 2012, up slightly on the current E653 million. Canal+ has won the rights to all Sunday matches while Orange has bought the Saturday matches as well as the rights for mobile TV.
Canal+ has also acquired the rights to all three packages that allow individual games to be shown on a pay-per-view basis on its Kiosque PPV service. There has been speculation recently Orange will make its games the centrepiece of a new DTH service.