talkSPORT Extends Global Rights Partnership With Premier League to 2019
From a press release to news@media.info
Posted 14 August 2014, 5.03am edt
UTV Media plc today announces that talkSPORT, the world’s biggest sports radio station, has extended its international partnership with the Premier League for an additional three years until 2019. The London-based station has been re-appointed as the Premier League’s global audio partner to the end of the 2018/19 season, continuing the existing four year agreement which was due to expire at the end of the 2015/16 season.
As with talkSPORT’s existing agreement, the extension gives talkSPORT an exclusive package of international audio rights in all languages in all territories outside the UK and Ireland to provide official live commentary of all 380 Barclays Premier League matches in any language to listeners around the world outside of the UK and Republic of Ireland.
Ahead of the 2014/15 Barclays Premier League season, talkSPORT has broadcast partners in 25 countries, including the USA, China, Malaysia, Egypt, Nigeria and United Arab Emirates. The station provides live commentary and football programming in nine languages including English, Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, Vietnamese, French and Bahasa Indonesia. As well as broadcast partnerships, talkSPORT also has tie-ups with audio streaming partners such as radio app TuneIn Radio, Chinese sports website Usportnews.com and football app OneFootball which all broadcast talkSPORT’s international commentary.
The new agreement follows talkSPORT’s highest ever listening figures in the UK, according to the latest RAJAR figures, with 3.4 million sports fans tuning in every week.
Since becoming global audio partner of the Premier League, talkSPORT.com has been redesigned to appeal to an international audience, with editorial content and live audio available in multiple languages. The website now attracts almost half (44%) of its visitors from outside the UK, according to the latest figures. Last month it also achieved a record breaking number of visitors with 4.7 million users and 32 million page views.
UTV Media plc Chief Operating Officer, Scott Taunton, said “In the two years since its appointment as the Premier League’s global audio partner, talkSPORT has established itself as a truly international sports media brand. Today’s announcement means we can extend talkSPORT into even more markets, as well as creating new opportunities for advertisers and sponsors. I’m pleased that talkSPORT’s ever growing international audience will now be able to look forward to listening to our world class live coverage of the Barclays Premier League for a further three seasons.”
Premier League Chief Executive, Richard Scudamore, said: “talkSPORT has for many years produced high quality radio commentary of Barclays Premier League matches in the UK, and successfully extended this to an international audience when they became our first global audio licensee two seasons ago.
“We are extremely pleased that we will continue this partnership and look forward to working with them as they make Barclays Premier League radio commentary available in more languages and to more countries around the world.”
talkSPORT is the world’s biggest sports radio station and is global audio partner of the Premier League. The station is an official broadcaster of the Barclays Premier League, the FA Cup, England football internationals and the Capital One Cup. talkSPORT is available on 1089/1053AM, on digital radio, on mobile and online at talkSPORT.com.