Premiere shares fall as Bundesliga............

Satdude

Premiere shares fall as Bundesliga............

Shares in pay-TV company Premiere fell more than 8 percent on Thursday after a newspaper report indicated that its chances of broadcasting German top-league soccer were fading.

At 0920 GMT, Premiere's shares were down 7.0 percent at 10.51 euros, having earlier hit an all-time low of 10.33 euros.

The Financial Times Deutschland newspaper said Deutsche Telekom, Germany's leading telecoms operator, which owns the rights to broadcast Bundesliga soccer matches over the Internet, was considering giving up a claim that it could use those rights for broadcasting matches also via cable and satellite-TV, in return for the right to become the Bundesliga's brand-name sponsor.

"The big loser will be Premiere, which teamed up with Deutsche Telekom supplying broadcasting knowhow, because it would end the likelihood of using Deutsche Telekom's rights to broadcast football games over cable and satellite," Steubing analyst Heino Ruland said in a note.

Premiere declined to comment.

Deutsche Telekom announced last month that it would share its Internet rights with Premiere for broadcasting the games.

The soccer league has said, however, that they could not show the games over cable and satellite networks using Internet technology.

A member of Premiere's executive board said on Tuesday that Telekom and the German soccer league had been in close contact in recent weeks to try to find a compromise in the dispute over the rights.

The report comes as a row over TV and Internet rights for the top German league soccer matches is escalating.

On Tuesday, a newspaper quoted the head of Unity Media, which holds the live TV rights, as saying it would also show the games online.

Premiere shares have lost two-thirds of their value since their stock exchange listing in April 2005. Most of the loss came after it lost the Bundesliga rights in December to Arena, owned by Unity Media.

Regards Satdude.

BarMoo

Try and understand this because I can't stop laughing.

Premiere came down the cable in my street and had the footy - now some smart-ass cable company (that serves 5million household in Germany) has the LIVE football rights.

This company owns the subsiduary that provides cable in my area (you know the one that delivers Premiere) - but what they won't be doing - is sending any footy down their own cables in my area?

Their recommendation - is - can you believe it (cable by satellite!) Doh!

How effed-up is that, I ask you?

Have Fun, Moo.

Channel Hopper

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...&refer=germany

There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"