FA Says: F@+* Off UK TV Viewers

[slipperydave]

Setanta joins Premiership action

Irish pay-TV firm Setanta has broken BSkyB's monopoly of live Premier League football matches, winning the rights to show 46 matches per season from 2007.

But BSkyB has been given 92 live matches, including the "A" package of games on late Sunday afternoons.

The broadcasters will show the matches on a subscription basis during the three seasons from August 2007.

The TV rights auction generated £1.7bn ($3.1bn) for the Premier League, with BSkyB paying £1.3bn and Setanta £392m.

Cash for clubs

The Premier League is earning 65% more from the deal than the exclusive one it signed with BSkyB three years ago, but said this was because the rights are now more valuable.

"For the first time these are platform-neutral rights available for exploitation on wider technology," said chief executive Peter Scudamore.

"We think the increase is because these rights are available to be simulcast on broadband or other platforms. They are no longer just television rights."

The deal means BSkyB is paying about £4.8m per game and Setanta £2.8m.

It will also mean even more TV money for the 20 Premier League clubs.

Legal threat

The Premier League divided the live TV rights into six packages of 23 matches, which were auctioned in two batches.

BSkyB was able to bid for all the packages, but could only be awarded five of them.


BSKYB PREMIERSHIP PACKAGES
Package A: 23 matches shown at 1600 on Sunday
Package B: 23 matches shown at 1330 on Sunday
Package E: 23 matches shown at 1245 on Saturday
Package F: seven to 13 matches on midweek evenings/bank holidays, 10 to 16 at 1245 on Saturday and 1600 on Sunday

The European Commission had threatened the Premier League with legal action if it did not ensure that rival broadcasters were given a slice of live TV matches.

BSkyB has ended up with 92 live matches a season, which it will show as part of its Sky Sports package.

This figure is down from the 138 matches it has in its current deal, 88 of which are available on Sky Sports, the rest on a pay-per-view basis.

BSkyB owns the current packages of live matches after agreeing a £1.024bn deal with the Premier League in 2003.

The satellite broadcaster has held the live rights to Premiership football in England since 1992, a position which has helped it become Britain's leading pay-TV service.


SETANTA PREMIERSHIP PACKAGES
Package C: minimum of 12 matches at 2000 on Monday, the rest either at 1330 on Sunday or 1715 on Saturday or other times
Package D: minimum of 18 matches at 1715 on Saturday, the rest either at 1330 on Sunday, 2000 on Monday or other times

Setanta is 40% owned by private equity group Benchmark Capital and is carried by the Sky satellite pay-TV platform.

It said it would try to carry its matches on as many platforms as possible, and did not rule out Freeview digital TV , which has a top-up pay service.

Cable TV operator NTL is thought to have been among the other bidders for the new set of rights.

Other Premiership rights, including mobile rights, television highlights packages and overseas rights, will be determined separately.

Source (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4975632.stm)

[gunnersfan]

someone break this down :p

[AmplifiedtoRock]

Well this will surely make it difficult for UK viewers to watch the Premiership. It seems to me though that Sky will be doing away with Prem Plus and make all of their matches available with the regular Sky Sports subscription. I reckon you'll just have to pay more for Setanta.

This could also effect Premiership viewers in North America and around the world, though that isn't clear yet.

[gunnersfan]

Well this will surely make it difficult for UK viewers to watch the Premiership. It seems to me though that Sky will be doing away with Prem Plus and make all of their matches available with the regular Sky Sports subscription. I reckon you'll just have to pay more for Setanta.

This could also effect Premiership viewers in North America and around the world, though that isn't clear yet.

wtf!! english people cant watch some english premier league smatches!! some irish channel gets it???

[slipperydave]

Setanta is a subscription (and also Pay-Per-View in certain areas) channel, that does broadcast on the Sky platform. They're also hoping to get onto Freeview (UK's free-to-air digital TV system), though OFCOM (Office of Communications) has recently announced that they will allow companies/channels to charge for the content that they provide (on Freeview), which makes a mockery of the term "Freeview".

Wanna watch live Premiership football in the UK without paying an arm and a leg and/or using torrents/shit quality streams? Get a (cheap) foreign satellite subscription and get it for next to nothing...fuck Sky/NTL/Setanta.

Saying that, as long as i've got Gary, Mark and Alan on MOTD, I'll be happy

[Nelly]

This season(last as well?) Setanta have the rights for the SPL.From what I can see.........they are absolute shit.Presentation,number of cameras available,presenters-commentators-summerisers........have all been very poor.

Plus side is the freeview........there are loads of code generators that allow games on freeview to be watched without paying.:)

[slipperydave]

This season(last as well?) Setanta have the rights for the SPL.

and they've just recently signed another deal for the next 2 or 3 years for about £53million. You do, as they say, get what you pay for;)

[Fenianbhoy]

Well ive been running the setanta package on my sky for free for about 4 months now , i used the red button, faked i was wanting to subscribe thro direct debit bashed in a few numbers and low & behold its been running ever since (touch Wood) but as Nelly says there camera work or lack of them is shocking its 2 times worse than channel five when they started & as for there commentry dont get me started.

But Setanta does have live German & Italian & French matches so looks like they've got a great foothold now in the whole European market. its great news for everyone that skys monopoly on the english premiership has been breached. unless your a shareholder ;).

Anyway folks hit ebay & buy a Dbox freefootball is there if you buy the hardware.

[gunnersfan]

i hate this, never again will we see live epl on terestrial tv :(

[jr!]

What a fucking disaster!!
I really do wonder what this will mean for us international viewers.
So...let me get this right....you CANNOT watch the EPL live on Saturday afternoons in the UK??

That's so atiquated to me as a North American.
Every game that my local hockey or baseball team plays is televised it doesn't hurt revenue....

Unless I'm really missing something here....

[tringo99]

This is a very sad decision. People should not have to pay for every game they want to watch. and if I remember correctly Setanta prices are very high.

[Dirtycheat]

it is a rip off, and they tried to disguise it as trying to make sky not the only EPL football broadcaster. it is disgusting.

[darrenj]

UK residents have never been able to watch Saturday 3pm kick-off games on TV either through Sky or Pay Per View.

The only way legally to watch these games is too attend

[chauchey]

what a shaft. the national sport not being made available to the nation. sad.

[slipperydave]

UK residents have never been able to watch Saturday 3pm kick-off games on TV either through Sky or Pay Per View.

The only way legally to watch these games is too attend

that's true to a point. it's illegal for UK (maybe just even English) broadcasters to show games that kick-off at 3pm on Saturdays, with the exception of the FA Cup and England matches.

it is, however, legal to receive games via foreign satellite systems and watch them. I've also started to notice that some pubs are showing these matches too. I recently spoke to the landlord of a pub and asked how he managed to do this, to which his response was along the lines of "the Saudi Arabian broadcaster brought the rights from Sky, but the contract didn't mention that they couldn't re-broadcast the games back the UK". Consequently, he's dumped his £600 a month Sky subscription and is paying double that amount for 1 year! And the commentary is in English, though not the Sky commentators.

there was a post about this, along with links to the legal papers, before the majority of the post were purged.

[Yusuf]

FA has beens aying that for years. Money matters indeed.