In separate interviews,Thursday, both Premiere CEO Georg Kofler and cable backed football channel arena’s CEO Dejan Jocic said they would try to gain exclusivity in broadcasting the German Bundesliga the country’s premier football league.
Despite last months co-operation agreement between the two Pay-TV operators in which Premiere gained the right to market the arena offer to its satellite subscribers, and arena in return received an 16.7% stake in Premiere, both CEOs categorically deny they will be making joint bids.
“The chance that wil happen is zero, possibly less than zero”, said Jocic.
Bidding and negotiations for the various rights for the 2009 season onwards are expected to start late this year.
Both parties are not just interested in the live pay-TV rights, which Premiere lost to arena in 2005 (for 2006-2009), but will also bid for the IPTV as well as Mobile rights, both are currently held by Deutsche Telekom.