SportBusiness.com

ITV: 'We must renegotiate rights deal'

The heads of UK media companies Granada and Carlton Communications, which own the majority of commercial broadcaster ITV, have held emergency talks with the English Nationwide Football League over a renegotiation of their TV rights deal.

Granada's chairman Charles Allen and Gerry Murphy, chief executive officer of Carlton, met with the league to begin renegotiations on the $448million (EUR506.4m) rights deal.
The deal has been the centre of much speculation in recent months with the loss-making pay-TV platform ITV Digital, through its subsidiary the ITV Sport Channel, unable to maintain its payment installments for the existing contract.

The move is the first public admission by one of ITV's shareholders that the 72 Football League clubs must accept a massive cut in income or lose the $259.3m (EUR293.1m) still owing from the three-year contract.

Steve Morrison, the chief executive of Granada, has warned that the ITV Sport Channel will be closed down if they do not renegotiate the league's TV deal.

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