Two licensees were ordered to pay more than £10,000 ($12,900) in fines and costs "after screening Sky Sports without a commercial agreement with Sky." Sara Jones and Karl Jones of the Old Toby Inn in Skelmersdale, Lancashire, were found guilty of ten offenses of "dishonest reception of a television transmission." The prosecution was brought by copyright protection organization F.A.C.T. (BROADBAND TV NEWS, 9/7).
Sport "helped the BBC iPlayer achieve its best-ever figures in July." The combination of the second half of the World Cup and the Wimbledon tennis championships "pushed demand up" by 19% year-on-year. Live viewing accounted for 22% of the 281 million requests made in the month, "though the proportion was even greater in June" (BROADBAND TV NEWS, 9/7).
Eurosport announced a three-year deal with World Snooker and IMG. For the first time this season, Australian viewers will be able to experience some of snooker's biggest tournaments, with the channel securing the live rights to key events, along with the digital rights. Coverage will include 17 tournaments this season (Eurosport).
Sports channel SPTV was "one of the star performers in Croatia's TV industry last year." According to Poslovni, this was "a huge turnaround for the station," which had until that point operated at a loss since its launch in '10. In '17, its revenues, which used to be around HK$4M ($509,600), grew to HK$17.4M ($2.22M), while its net profit amounted to HK$8M ($1.02M) (BROADBAND TV NEWS, 9/7).
