ITALIAN ACTION ON TV: The Italian government has
adopted a decree which limits pay-TV organizations from
individually owning no more than 60% of broadcast rights to
the country's Serie A football matches. The Italian
government also voted to limit the length of TV contracts
for Serie A matches to a maximum of three years. News Corp.
had been bidding to acquire all TV rights for the football
championships between '99 and '05 (FINANCIAL TIMES, 2/1).
OTHER NOTES: The Knicks-Nets preseason game on Fox
Sports NY scored a 3.28 cable rating, making it the highest
rated Nets FSNY game, beating last year's Nets-Bulls April
29 playoff game rating of 3.02 (FSNY)....Bob Costas will
narrate amateur filmmaker Bob Ray's one-hour documentary
called, "The Cub Fan." The film is "nearing a completion"
of an agreement for an April showing on Chicago's WTTW-PBS
(CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, 1/31)....EW's L.S. Klepp gives David
Halberstam's biography on Michael Jordan, "Playing For
Keeps," an "A-," and calls it a "solid and compelling book,
even if it doesn't offer any major surprises about its hero"
(ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, 2/5 issue).
