The second-highest-rated station is likely to win the rights to become the exclusive Czech broadcaster of the prestigious Euro 2008 soccer championship, which will take place in Austria and Switzerland in summer 2008, daily newspaper Mladá fronta Dnes reported Jan. 6.

Prima outspent Czech Television (ČTV) by offering more than 100 million Kč ($4.7 million), the paper said. ČTV, which regularly broadcasts major sports events, including past Euro championships, reportedly bid 60 million Kč.

If Prima succeeds, it will become the first commercial station to broadcast a major international sports event in the Czech Republic. But it will also have a problem: too many games and not enough space to show them. The station currently operates only one channel, which would mean that many of the tournament's 31 games could not be aired live.

That's exactly why TV Nova, the country's biggest commercial station, didn't bid for the Euro 2008, Nova Director Petr Dvořák said.

But there may be method to Prima's apparent madness. The station is betting that the government will have launched digital television by the time Euro 2008 kicks off, which would mean more space for more channels, said media analyst Milan Šmíd, a communications lecturer at Charles University.

"Prima clearly speculates on receiving more space on the air after the launch of digital television," Šmíd said. "Otherwise, it would be virtually impossible to show the Euro soccer tournament on just one channel."

The Sportfive agency — which is in charge of marketing for UEFA, European soccer's governing body — declined comment on the issue, as did representatives of both Prima TV and ČTV.

ČTV spokeswoman Anna Freimanová said that negotiations about Euro 2008 broadcasting rights have not yet been finalized.

Limited space

Having just one channel each, neither Prima nor Nova showed interest in broadcasting recent major sports events such as last year's Winter Olympics and the World Cup because the number of events and matches would have ruined their regular program schedules. This will change once digital broadcasting arrives, Šmíd said.

"After receiving more space, commercial television will be increasingly demanding broadcasting rights for sports events, and so their value will significantly increase," he said.

TV Nova spokeswoman Veronika Šmítková confirmed that the channel has not applied for broadcasting rights from major sports tournaments due to limited space. She said, however, that TV Nova counts on expanding its sports broadcasting after the launch of digital television.

"We'd like to start one all-sports channel in the future," Šmítková said.

Štěpán Wolde, an executive from ArboMedia company, which sells advertising on behalf of ČTV, said sports broadcasts have good business potential.

"Major sports events are followed by many people, and they are full of emotions, which is exactly what advertisers are looking for," Wolde said.

Wolde said that the 2006 Winter Olympics and the subsequent World Cup helped increase ČTV's viewership and boosted advertising revenues by "tens of millions of crowns."

ČT2 showed most of the sports broadcasts and saw its highest ratings since 1998, according to the ATO-Mediaresearch company. In 1998, ČTV's viewership peaked thanks to the Czech hockey team's gold-medal performance at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, which was followed by nearly the entire nation.

Meanwhile, Prima's ratings fell in 2006. That led to the station's push to air sports, spokeswoman Jana Malíková said.

"Sports events appeal to masses, and that's why no commercial television can ignore them," she said.

Good calculation

The launch of digital broadcasting in the Czech Republic was originally expected to take place this May. It hit an unexpected delay in September after two civil courts canceled the allocation of the first six licenses to companies that the Radio and Television Broadcasting Council (RRTV) had shortlisted last spring.

The move was initiated by some of the failed bidders, including Nova, which complained that the RRTV changed the bidding conditions during the tender.

Both Nova and Prima failed to receive a license for any one of their four digital broadcasting projects.

The Supreme Administrative Court was scheduled to examine the civil-court rulings early this year.

Šmíd said the conversion to digital could speed up if Parliament passes an amendment to the media law this spring that would grant digital licenses to Nova and Prima in compensation for their current broadcasting licenses, which the stations lose when the Czech Republic switches entirely to digital television in 2009.