The judgment, which was given today, the fourth day of the trial, the High Court declared that neither Carlton nor Granada had any liability whatsoever to the Football League in connection with the broadcast rights contract between the league and ONdigital, which later changed its name to ITV Digital.
The decision is good news for the media companies, but leaves the 72 clubs that are part of the Football League potentially facing insolvency. The league faced further bad news today when it emerged that Channel 5 was the only bidder for the rights to a highlights package, and could end up getting it for free.
The case came to court after the league argued that Carlton and Granada had guaranteed the bid of their subsidiary ITV Digital for the right to screen games.
Carlton and Granada denied that any such guarantee existed and the league's commercial director, Brian Philpotts, admitted in court earlier that there were no guarantees written or otherwise from ITV. He told the court he just assumed there were.
ITV Digital signed a deal giving the Football League £315m for the rights to show matches for three years but went into administration in April. Since its collapse, BSkyB has picked up the rights at a cost of £95m for four years, but the difference between what Sky paid and what ITV Digital owed the league leaves a shortfall of £83.5m.
Carlton and Granada said they welcomed the decision.
Following the judgement, Carlton was down 1.32% to 550p and Granada was down 1.06% to 94.25p. However, the London market was depressed overall today.
If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, join the debate in the .
.jpg)
.jpg)