The Mirror Group has teamed up with Rangers Football Club to create Rangers Television, a venture company that will focus on developing Rangers’ media opportunities outside the existing Scottish European League television arrangements.
Rangers Television, which is based at Ibrox, will provide matchday television at Ibrox, organise a beam-back screening of important away fixtures and produce Rangers Radio – a new local Glasgow match-day radio service. The operation will be run by Mirror Group’s cable television channel, Live TV.
The new company will also be involved in relaunching the Rangers website and developing e-commerce opportunities. Talks are currently underway with a number of broadcasters about the development of a Rangers Club TV Show. There are also plans to exploit webcasting and internet radio.
The news of this deal comes on the back of a flurry of interest in football clubs from media companies. The catalyst to this was BSkyB’s £623 million takeover offer to Manchester United. This accepted deal has subsequently been referred to the Monopolies & Mergers Commission (MMC) which, in turn, made public the specific issues it would consider when investigating the takeover; this is a rarely-used procedure by the MMC (see MMC Outlines Issues Of Concern Over BSkyB Bid).
Cable company NTL has also recently bought a stake in Newcastle United (see Update: NTL/Newcastle United Deal) and Carlton Communications showed some initial interest in Arsenal, although these talks have since been discontinued (see Carlton Calls Off Arsenal Takeover Talks).
Mirror Group’s chief executive, David Montgomery, said: “Rangers Television will harness all of the media skills within Mirror Group and we are delighted that we have joined forces with Rangers to help develop one of Europe’s top football clubs”.
Rangers chairman David Murray, added: “This link-up with Mirror Group means we can begin the process of creating a global media brand for Rangers. Mirror Group’s editorial strength, combined with their advertising sales know-how and television and online expertise makes them an ideal partner to develop with.”
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