MUMBAI: With a lot of live sports content at its disposal, Star India is gearing up to launch a new sports channel under the Star Sports brand on 11 March.

Christened Star Sports 2, the channel will have international football as its driver content. It will also show other sports content.

Star has the broadcast rights to football properties like English Premier League, Spanish league La Liga and Italian league Serie A for India besides FA Cup rights.

"Yes, we are launching a new sports channel on 11 March. Star Sports 2 will primarily have international football content besides other sports content," Star India COO Sanjay Gupta tells Indiantelevision.com.

The channel will be initially available on digital cable networks and will be subsequently rolled out on analog cable networks across the country.

Star is launching the new channel to avoid overlapping of cricket content with other sports content. The problem only accentuates when India cricket is on as the broadcaster has a bi-lingual feed in English and Hindi on Star Sports and Star Cricket.

It will also help the broadcaster to streamline the scheduling of its different properties.

"We have a lot of sports content, so at times we are unable to utilise this content when there are multiple events lined up simultaneously," Gupta explains.

The broadcaster has dedicated supply of cricket content throughout the year as it holds the media rights for three cricket boards, India, Australia and England, in addition to the ICC rights. Besides cricket and football, Star also boasts of rights to properties like Formula One, MotoGP, Wimbledon, Australian Open in Tennis, and PGA Tour.

News Corps, which had last year acquired ESPN?s stake in joint venture ESPN Star Sports (ESS) for $335 million, had restructured its sports broadcasting business in Asia. While the India business was brought under Star India, the rest of Asia business came under Fox Star Sports Asia under Peter Hutton.

Subsequently, the ESPN brand name was dropped across Asia except India where Star is awaiting government clearance on the ESS acquisition before taking a call on change of brand name.

"We have still not decided what we will do with ESPN. We are considering both Fox as well as Star brand name. However, a final call is yet to be taken," Gupta discloses.

MUMBAI: After exiting the Asian market post its stake sale in sports broadcasting joint venture to Rupert Murdoch?s News Corp, The Walt Disney Company owned sports network ESPN has now shut its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) operations as it seeks to concentrate on its core market, US, where it has to battle an aggressive Fox Sports Network.

ESPN has closed down ESPN Classic throughout the EMEA region and the non-UK ESPN America TV businesses.

Like in Asia, ESPN will continue to own and operate its existing digital media businesses which include multisport news and information portal ESPN.co.uk, ESPNcricinfo (cricket), ESPNFC (football), ESPNscrum (rugby), ESPNF1 (Formula 1) and broadband streaming service ESPN Player. ESPN Classic has been excluded from the proposed transaction.

The BT Group, which is launching sports channels in UK in summer, has decided to acquire ESPN?s UK and Ireland TV channels business. These primarily comprise the ESPN and ESPN America channels and their live sports rights portfolio, including the FA Cup, Clydesdale Bank Scottish Premier League, UEFA Europa League, and the German Bundesliga.

ESPN had been mulling for quite some time to exit UK ever since it lost the lucrative English Premier League (EPL) rights to BT last year. The British telecom major had last year bagged EPL rights for ?246 million.

The transaction is expected to complete on 31 July after which BT will continue to operate at least one ESPN-branded channel which is expected to form part of the BT Sport TV package that will be launched by BT this summer.

Additionally, the deal will allow BT to continue to show a host of US sports currently shown on ESPN America, including NCAA College Basketball, NCAA College Football and NASCAR. The ESPN channels will be broadcast from BT Sport?s new home in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford. Until completion, the service for current subscribers to the ESPN channels across all television platforms remains unchanged.

The deal will enable BT Sport customers to see live coverage of the FA Cup for the 2013/14 season, the Clydesdale Bank Scottish Premier League until the end of the 2016/17 season and the UEFA Europa League and German Bundesliga through to the end of the 2014/15 season.

These join the broadcast rights that BT Sport has previously announced, including 38 live Barclays Premier League matches - including 18 of the top clashes - in each of the next three seasons (beginning August 2013); 69 live Aviva Premiership Rugby matches for the next four seasons; and up to 800 hours per season of live women?s tennis, including the TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships.

BT Retail chief executive of television Marc Watson said, "We are delighted to have reached agreement with ESPN for the acquisition of their UK channels business and that we have been able to add some exciting new sports rights to the ones we already have.

"The FA Cup, Scottish Premier League and Europa League rights will allow us to offer customers of BT Sport even more quality live football, including our first games from the Scottish top flight and our first European competition rights. There will also be the best of US sports available courtesy of this deal, which will further broaden the appeal of BT Sport."

ESPN - Europe, Middle East and Africa MD Ross Hair said, "We could not be more proud of the TV channels built and nurtured by our talented team over the past four years. The value of that hard work is reflected in this deal with BT and the continuation of ESPN on television screens across the UK and Ireland. The same passion, commitment and innovation will be at the heart of how we develop our strong digital media business into the future."

MUMBAI: The Walt Disney Company?s net profit for the first quarter ended 29 December fell six per cent to $1.38 billion from $1.46 billion in the same quarter of preceding fiscal due to increase in programming costs at ESPN and decline in studio entertainment revenues.

Disney?s revenues grew five per cent to $11.3 billion, up from $10.7 billion in the corresponding quarter.

?After delivering another record year of growth in 2012, we?re off to a solid start in Fiscal 2013,? said The Walt Disney Chairman and CEO Robert A. Iger. ?Our ongoing success is driven by our long-term strategy, the strength of our brands and businesses, and our high quality family entertainment."

Media Networks revenues for the quarter increased 7 per cent to $5.1 billion and segment operating income increased 2 per cent to $1.2 billion.

Operating income at Cable Networks decreased $15 million to $952 million for the quarter due to a decrease at ESPN, partially offset by growth at the domestic Disney Channels, ABC Family and A&E Television Networks (AETN).

The decrease at ESPN was driven by higher programming and production costs, partially offset by higher affiliate revenue.

Operating income at Broadcasting increased $36 million to $262 million driven by increased advertising revenues at the ABC Television Network and owned television stations and higher program sales, partially offset by higher primetime network programming costs.

Parks and Resorts revenues for the quarter increased 7 per cent to $3.4 billion and segment operating income increased 4 per cent to $577 million. Results for the quarter were driven by an increase at our domestic operations, partially offset by a decrease at our international operations.

Studio Entertainment revenues decreased 5 per cent to $1.5 billion and segment operating income decreased 43 per cent to $234 million.

Lower operating income for the quarter was driven by decreases in home entertainment and theatrical distribution, partially offset by an increase in television and subscription video on demand (TV/SVOD) distribution.

Consumer Products revenues increased 7 per cent to $1.0 billion and segment operating income increased 11 per cent to $346 million. Higher operating income was due to increases at Merchandise Licensing and at our retail business.

Interactive revenues for the quarter increased 4 per cent to $291 million and segment operating results improved from a loss of $28 million to income of $9 million. Higher operating results were driven by lower acquisition accounting impacts at our social games business which were adverse in the prior-year quarter and growth at our Japan mobile business from a new licensing agreement for Disney branded mobile phones and content.

MUMBAI: Rupert Murdoch-controlled News Corp?s payout to ESPN for the 50 per cent stake buy in ESPN Star Sports (ESS) is $220 million, net of cash.

In November 2012, News Corp said it acquired the stake of ESPN in ESS for approximately $335 million. So this implies that ESS had a cash balance of $115 million at the time of buying out ESPN?s stake in the company.

ESPN, the American sports television network, said Wednesday in its first quarter financial results that it has gained $219 million from the sale of its 50 per cent interest in ESS, its Asian sports joint venture with rival News Corp.

ESPN last year sold its stake in the JV for $335 million thereby valuing ESS at $770 million. ESS, which is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of News Corp, has been renamed as Fox Star Sports Asia.

Except in India, the ESPN brand name has also been dropped across Asia and all the channels have been renamed Fox Sports in markets where it had a presence.

"EPS for the current quarter includes a gain on the sale of our 50 per cent interest in ESPN STAR Sports of $219 million," The Walt Disney Company said in its October-December first quarter results.

The gain from sale of equity interest in ESS helped ESPN to partially offset lower operating results during the quarter.