Australia: Fox Sports loses TV rights to Italian Serie A

The pay-TV group Fox Sports Australia has lost the rights to broadcast Serie A, the Italian first division, the channel announced on the 22/10/2013. The sports channel, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. had announced it had acquired the broadcasting rights from 2013-2015, on the 27/09/2013.

"At the time of the announcement, Fox Sports thought it had an agreement with the distributor of these rights, but three days later, the agency told Fox Sports that there was a problem", said the Australian channel in a statement. "Our representatives were in Europe last week continuing to work out a deal, but in the end the problems couldn't be resolved and the agency retained the rights."

"It appears that due to an error, the agency sold the broadcasting rights to Serie A in Australia twice: the first time as part of a multi-country agreement with another distributor, and then a second time to Fox Sports Australia", added the channel.

The international distribution rights to the Italian Serie A have been held by the marketing and media rights agency MP & Silva for the period 2012-2015 since…