ITN and Setanta in Premier League Partnership
Friday, September 14th, 2007Give ‘em the boot
ITN has been given the go ahead to be the sole producer for Setanta’s forthcoming sports news channel which will initially be broadcast on the Virgin Media platform. The channel, set up to replace and rival Sky Sports News which, as pretty much everyone now knows, least of all cable customers, went walkies from the Virgin platform back in March.
The 24-hour Setanta Sports News channel, will be jointly owned by Setanta Sports and Virgin Media, will launch on Virgin Media’s cable TV network later this year, and is expected to launch on other platforms early in the New Year.
Mark Wood, ITN chief executive, said: “This new channel will set the sports news agenda in Britain with exclusive news, ground-breaking interviews and programmes which will be must-see television for sports fans everywhere.”
ITN produces content for a number of British channels including ITV, a controlling share of which is owned by Sky. Awarding ITN the rights to produce content for a rival sports show is a logical, but still pretty cheeky move on Setanta and Virgin’s part.
Setanta and Virgin realise that Sky is the leader in the pay TV world and so have decided to form a mutually beneficial alliance in order to see if the market force of Sky’s ‘Death Star’ really can be resisted; earlier this year, Setanta announced that its flagship service the Setanta Sports Pack would be made free to all Virgin Size: XL TV customers.
Virgin Media’s hotly anticipated channel Virgin 1 has also recently dropped out of development hyperspace and is due to touchdown on cable, Freeview and Sky soon.
