Archive for the ‘Setanta’ Category

ESPN has bought the rights previously held by Setanta to the new UEFA Europa League, which replaces the Uefa Cup from this season.

The US sports broadcaster, which also won the right to screen live English Premiership matches when Setanta went into administration in June, will share rights to the UEFA Europa League with Channel Five.

ESPN will broadcast the first Europa League matches later this month, as part of a three year deal with UEFA. The final will take place in May next year.

48 clubs will take part in the group stage, with matches broadcast from 17th September on Wednesdays and Thursdays throughout the season. Amongst the sides involved are current Uefa Cup holders Shakhtar Donetsk, Roma, Lazio, Valencia, Ajax, PSV, Benfica and Sporting Lisbon, as well as British clubs including Celtic, Everton and Fulham.

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Communications regulator Ofcom today said that BSkyB should cap the cost of its premium sport and movie channels and make it available to more broadcasters to increase consumer choice.

In its latest consultation on the pay-TV market, Ofcom said that offering Sky’s premium content to other retailers on a wholesale basis was the best way of ensuring fair and effective competition.

The regulator also outlined plans to investigate Sky’s television rights agreement with the FA Premier League. It is concerned that new platforms for watching league games, such as the internet, will be cut off to consumers without cheaper access to content.

Ofcom said that its proposals should not have a disproportionate impact on Sky’s profits, since the prices put forward in its latest consultation would still allow the company to reap a reasonable return.

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Irish Pay-TV broadcaster Setanta went into administration yesterday evening after several days of rescue talks to secure funding fell through. Around 200 staff will be made redundant as a result.

Accountancy firm Deloitte has been confirmed as the administrator for the business’s UK division. Setanta is still engaged in talks to try and secure the future of its Irish and north American operations, which are believed to make a modest profit, Deloitte has said.

Neville Kahn, one of the joint administrators, said: “After a huge effort by the Setanta board, management team and its backers, it has not been possible to save the GB business, which will be wound down in due course.”

Setanta Sports News, a joint venture with Virgin Media which is produced by ITN and employs about 60 additional staff, was the first channel to stop broadcasting at 6pm yesterday evening. Setanta Sports 1 and 2, which are wholly owned by the broadcaster, went off air shortly afterwards.

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The pay-TV broadcaster Setanta must pay the next instalment of the £30 million it owes the Premier League by the end of today, or risk losing its games for next season.

The League has been taking fresh bids for Setanta’s 46 live matches for the 2009/10 season since Monday, and will sell the company’s rights to the highest bidder if Setanta cannot pay its bill. The deadline for new bids is set for 22nd June.

Setanta has been struggling to make its payments to the sports bodies which issue television rights. It is thought that the Irish firm still owes in the region of £20 million, but after renegotiating its payment schedule, a figure closer to £10 million should secure its tights to the 46 live Premier League matches.

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Cash-strapped broadcaster Setanta has paid part of its £35 million instalment to the English Premier League, which was due in full tomorrow. The rest of the payment will be made in further instalments over a number of weeks, it is understood.

The broadcaster paid £10 million last Friday and is due to pay another £10 million at the end of the week. The final £15 million sum has been deferred until later in the summer, although the Premier League earlier indicated it would not accept late payments.

Although the Premier League appears to have renegotiated its terms with Setanta, it has reserved the right to drop the final year of Setanta’s three year deal, which begins at the start of the 2009-10 season.

According to industry sources, the Premier League is still considering auctioning off Setanta’s television rights before Friday to other bidders, if Setanta fails to raise sufficient funds. The Irish broadcaster currently holds the rights to screen 46 games next season and 23 games for each of the following three seasons under a separate deal. However, with just 2 months to go before the 2009-10 season kicks off, Setanta’s future still remains in doubt.

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Senior executives at Setanta are today locked in talks to wrangle over the final details of a deal that could see the Irish broadcaster’s two founders, Michael O’Rourke and Leonard Ryan, and an unnamed international backer take a majority stake in the ailing company.

Both founders are hoping that a decision can be reached and approved by the board so that an official announcement can be made by the end of today.

If the proposed deal is to go ahead, the board must come to a consensus ahead of a £30 million payment to the English Premier League due on Monday. The broadcaster has already defaulted on a £3 million payment to the Scottish Premier League.

According to the Irish Times, O’Rourke and Ryan have secured an international backer that could help them secure Setanta’s future by putting in an offer for a majority stake in the business. If accepted, other shareholders would have their holdings in the pay TV operator diluted. A deal would also secure about 450 jobs at the broadcaster.

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The beleaguered pay-TV broadcaster may have a few weeks longer before it is forced to go into administration, after board members held emergency talks last night to discuss a last-ditch financial package put together by the joint founders, Michael O’Rourke and Leonard Ryan.

The Irish broadcaster’s financial troubles came to a head last week when it defaulted on a £3 million payment to the Scottish Premier League.

However, Setanta is no longer accepting subscriptions, with a “page not found” message on its website’s subscriptions page, indicating that the company still plans to wind up its business. Callers to the Setanta subscription telephone line also received a message saying that the service was unavailable.

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Football clubs across the country will be breathing a sigh of relief as Sky retains its Premier League broadcasting rights for 2010 to 2013.

The Premier League announced yesterday that it had awarded four of the six available rights packages to the subscription-only satellite broadcaster. There will be a second round of bidding for the remaining two packages. It is believed that Sky, which has both supported and benefited greatly from the Premier League over the last 17 years, has secured the first pick on matches and will air 92 of them each year. The broadcaster refused to disclose any figures, but it is thought that the rights cost something in the region of £1.31 billion - the sum Sky invested under the current deal. The two packages in the current deal not owned by BSkyB belong to Ireland-based Setanta, which paid £392m for both bundles of 26 matches.

Last week the BBC paid £173 million to show Premier League highlights on Match of the Day for the next three years. This is slightly more than the current sum, but takes into account extra internet rights.

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Setanta Sports have today launched Setanta Replay; a new catch-up service providing on-demand access to all the major sporting fixtures, including games from the Barclays Premier League, the FA Cup, England friendlies at home, and World Cup qualifiers, at no additional cost to Virgin customers on the Size: XL TV pack.

Size: M and Size: L customers who have signed up for the optional £7 a month TV Choice on Demand pack can also get in on the action.

All Virgin customer need to do to start using the Setanta Replay service, is select either ‘Home’ or ‘On Demand’, then ‘TV Choice on Demand’, then ‘Channels’ and finally ‘Setanta Replay.’

“We’re always looking at new ways of bringing compelling sports content to our customers, across TV, on demand and online,” said Virgin Media CEO of content Malcolm Wall.

“Setanta Replay is a great way to watch the game when you want, how you want and, by continuing to add such great content, we’ll further drive uptake of on demand and keep changing the way people watch TV.”

If you aren’t fussed about watching the games live, then Setanta Replay offers a great low-cost solution to enjoying top quality Premiership entertainment at your leisure.

The truly chocolate mad football fans will however, settle for nothing less than the full deal - signing up to both Sky Sports and Setanta, both of which are available on satellite and cable.

The BBC may have to battle against pay TV channels to hold onto live coverage of the Winter Olympics in 2014 and beyond, as a collective bid from European public service broadcasters was turned down by the International Olympic committee.

Members of the European Broadcasting Union, which bids collectively and then sells the rights on to PSBs across the continent, have shown the games on free television for the last fifty years. But now that right has been taken away from them, as the IOC seeks to raise more money from separate deals in individual countries. So far pay-TV stations owned by Rupert Murdoch have won the rights to broadcast the games in Italy and Turkey.

The EBU has traditionally won the bidding because its 75 members broadcast to the largest television audience. It paid £298 million to show the Olympics in Beijing this year and £90 million for the 2006 games in Turin. The union successfully bid for broadcasting rights in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and the 2012 London Games.

An EBU spokeswoman said its bid for the 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and the 2016 Olympics, which as yet has no location, had been rejected by the IOC because the organisation had not offered enough money.
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