ESPN Thread

Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

It's much quicker if you use your remote control to change the channel.
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

How is sky these days - does it still lose picture if it rains ?
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

Nope? Mine has never done that. Had no problems at all tbh.
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

When I used to live with my parents any time it rained heavy the picture would either crackle and break up or be lost due to the interference.
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

I've had that once or twice when it's been REALLY bad rain but other than that no problems really. Other than Sky+ saying recordings have clashed when they havent and things not playing every now and then.
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

Yeah V+ does the 'program clash' crap every so often as well. Or it just refuses to record a series like playr on bravo or tv burp because behinds the scenes the next episode probably isn't linked to the last so it's as if its a different program.
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon


Yeah, believe me Virgin is terrible compared to Sky, my mate has it and he hates it. The box is annoyingly slow with anything you try to do

The only downfall with Sky is you have next to nothing on Demand like Virgin which is awesome on that front

Oh and the fact that the "HD service" only has 1 channel and that's only on half a day :LOL:
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

i've never had any problems with Setanta, and the commentators for the Premier League matches (Burley and Champion) are better than Sky, ITV and the BBC.

Plus one thing i noticed is whenever a team is making a substitution, the Setanta commentators always know who is going off beforehand whereas on Sky they usually try to guess and are often wrong. They also know the added time quicker than Sky as well.


Setanta Sports News is utter shite though.
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

I know it does, I said that as I had forgotten how bad it was changing channels!
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

You lot say "get the football back on Sky" but there's no way I could ever afford any of the Sky packages, the price is astronomical compared to Setanta. Good for you that you guys can afford it but think about those of us who can't. We had Sky years and years ago but it was £30 a month for the whole package, even that was on the edge of what we could afford. Now you're looking at over £50 a month if you want it HD. And the fact that Sky now charge you to take the adverts away from the movie channels says it all to me.

If Setanta goes then I won't be able to watch any of the Premier League games live next season, although saying that now that they're down to one Premier League package I may as well cancel it anyway. It's not fair though, I thought there were monopoly laws but obviously they don't apply if you're Murdoch. He's got enough money to bribe every member of parliament every day for the rest of his life.

myp2p = the way to fight the fat capitalist pigs
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

It's like the ITV Digital fiasco all over again.

I cancelled Shitanta a few weeks ago just before the end of the season thank god, took 2 hours on the phone to get it cancelled though!
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

The bad thing is that its been said that up to 4 Scottish Clubs could fold if its not paid. They said they expect to lose at least 1

It would be a shame to lose clubs because of this but surely the consequences of the ITV Digital fiasco should have been a lesson to all clubs in the UK.

On the monopoly issue; for Premier League fans, subscribing to Sky and Setanta is more expensive than when Sky had the rights to all the Premiership games themselves. Sky didn't drop their prices, even though they were showing fewer PL games and perhaps the competition commission should have made them do so. Football fans having to pay more to see the same amount of football is where the competition laws fell down.

I think Setanta also missed a trick by not showing Pay-per-View England games. But then again England games should never have been sold to a foreign broadcaster in the first place.
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

Setanta loses Premier TV rights

Setanta will lose its two packages of games for 2009/10 season

Troubled pay-TV sports broadcaster Setanta has failed to pay the latest chunk of the £30m it owes the English Premier League - losing the rights.

A potential rescue deal, led by a US investor who had proposed buying 51% of Setanta, had fallen through.

The league will now put the rights to the 46 live matches for the 2009/2010 season out to auction, after Setanta missed Friday's payment deadline.

Offers to buy the rights need to be made by Monday.

The Board of Setanta said it would "consider its options over the weekend".

"In the meantime, Setanta's sports channels continue on air," it added.

'Regret'

The Premier League said it had been working with Setanta "for some time to help them continue as the broadcaster" .


SETANTA'S SPORTS DEALS
English Premier League
Scottish Premier League
Blue Square Premier
IPL cricket
US PGA Tour golf
Guinness Premiership rugby union (from 2010)
Magners rugby
Boxing






The Premier League, in agreement with Setanta, stipulated that certain contractual requirements had to be met on or before Friday "to allow the preparations for the 2009/10 season to continue unaffected".

The league added: "It is with considerable regret that we announce that Setanta has been unable to meet their obligations. As such the existing licence agreement between us has been terminated with immediate effect."

The Premier League will now go ahead and auction the 46 UK live matches for the 2009/10 season.

'Issues'

Late last week, Access Industries, controlled by the US investor Len Blavatnik, tabled a £20m bid for a 51% share in Setanta.

It had been hoped Access could lead a consortium of investors to provide fresh funding for Setanta.

US investor Len Blavatnik


However Access has now said it was unable to proceed with a deal with Setanta.

There had been concerns over how much tax Access could be liable for if it acquired Setanta.

"Access believed that this proposal could potentially have secured the future of the broadcaster for its customers, employees and for football, provided certain conditions required to put the business on a long-term viable footing were met," it said.

"Regrettably, despite intensive efforts on all sides over the past few days, and despite significant progress in a number of areas, there remain a number of issues which we have been unable to resolve within the time available.

"We are disappointed not to have been able to make this deal happen. Access remains committed to sports programming and will continue to explore opportunities in this area."

One of those which may be interested in acquiring Setanta's 46 games is Disney-owned sports channel ESPN.

'Bad news'

ESPN would not comment directly on the new situation but said it continued "to be interested in rights where they are available and where they make business sense".

Meanwhile James Pickles, editor of industry newsletter TV Sports Markets, said that until Thursday there were expectations that Setanta would pull though.

"It's bad news for everyone - no one is a winner," he said, adding: "It's a disaster for rights holders."

He said it was bad news for Sky because having a competitor such as Setanta was beneficial to it from an EU regulatory perspective, which prevents one broadcaster owning all Premier League rights.

However Sky would be legally free to bid for one of Setanta's two packages of 23 games.

There is uncertainty over what will happen to the 23-game deal that Setanta has already won for the three seasons starting in 2010-11.

But analysts expect that if those rights were up for offer again, a tender process would be resolved quickly.

FA chief executive Ian Watmore said: "We are understandably very disappointed with the news that Setanta and the FAPL were unable to reach agreement".

"We have worked well with Setanta's management and potential new investors in the last week, and had reached a solution in principle that would have allowed them to meet their contractual requirements with the FA and strengthen our strategic partnership."

"We now await developments, but remain confident of the attractiveness of our broadcast rights going forward."

Subscriber targets

Last week Setanta reopened its website to new subscribers - having closed it for several days.

Setanta is running at an estimated loss of £100m a year, after missing subscriber targets.

The broadcaster has 1.2 million subscribers, 700,000 short of the 1.9million that industry experts believe they need to break even.

Attention will now shift onto Setanta's other contracts - such as those with the FA for England and FA Cup matches, the Scottish Premier League (SPL), and the Blue Square Premier, the top division of English non-league football.

It recently missed a £3m payment due to the SPL - part of a four-year deal worth £54m over four years from 2006 to 2010.

Following Friday's news, Lex Gold, executive chairman of the SPL said: "We are still locked in discussions with Setanta."

"Understandably, these discussions are complex and must remain confidential at this stage. We expect these to conclude early next week."

Setanta also owns rights to the PGA golf tour, as well as cricket and rugby union deals.
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

Rang them to cancel because they've got no Premier League games now and the geordie woman on the end of the phone said "nothing is confirmed yet you know". I said to her, love, if the Premier League have announced they're selling the packages to someone else, I think you're flogging a dead horse.

She said it has to be done through email, so I've sent one off. I get the feeling they're not going to let any of us go easily (and I can't just cancel the Direct Debit because I've read that's against the rules of the contract, they have to do it, otherwise it will affect your credit rating)...
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

How come you're getting it through the off season anyway? There's nothing bloody on it is there?
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

I was waiting for the start of the season wasn't I? You can't cancel it for three months and then get it back. Not without a lot of arsing about anyway.

There is golf on at the weekends but I always, without fail, forget that it's on, so there's no point any more.
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

It's whole selling point was that it was no subscription you could just cancel whenever you wanted. Last time I cancelled so I wasn't paying £35 quid for nothing while there was nothing on.
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

Setanta will definitely go tits up now

Who will pay £10 a month for the stuff they have left to show? Not only that they had 1.2 million subscribers and needed 1.8 or something to break even so they have no chance of getting up to 1.8 without football
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

Yup football is what sells - even despite shoddy customer service, without that they are snookered. Having heard what they were like from various friends and relatives, I'm surprised they got 1.2m subscribers. Any company that wants to affect my credit rating by being twats can sod right off.
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

You haven't taken into account the Irish Sports it shows as well coupled with Gaelic Football as well as Hurling, naturally with Irish Communities all over Britain they'll be hoping Setanta can continue to show these games as Sky nor ESPN took an interest in showing these games outside of Ireland.

As I type this I'm watching Tipperary play Clare on Setanta 2 and my father would love for Setanta to show this as we recently got rid of our "Irish" Skybox where we recieved RTE, RTE 2 in place of BBC1, BBC2 ITV etc.
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

Haha I'd love to walk into Setanta HQ and say 'Don't worry lads, I know you've lost the football but at least you've still got the hurling!'.

Somehow I don't think I'd last long :LOL:
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

They are doomed but I want them to survive.

Which other channel will support french ligue 1 or Bundesliga football? I first signed up with setanta years ago when they just had european football and SPL. They shouldnt of bothered with the EPL!

Trying to compete with sky was never gonna work.

If they go bust maybe Eurosport might be able to show live Ligue 1 again. Not only that but European leagues like the Bundesliga, Portuguese Liga, Eredivisie and etc might be easily accessible to people who haven't got Sky. Like matches shown on channel five and 4 again.

Channel 5 and Channel 4 have got no interest in European football dude. Sky wont show them leagues either so unless Eurosport pick up the coverage we are not gonna see any european games. :(
 
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Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

Any news on what will happen to the UFC rights?
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

BBC and ITV should buy Setanta's package between them to keep the cost low (if they can) and then share the games.

UFC, I'd bet sky pick it up if setanta lose it.
 
Re: Sh*tanta might be going bust soon

Any news on what will happen to the UFC rights?

Bravo will go for it 100% but dont expect any of the events to be shown live. Sky possibly I think, US shows shown live on Sky Sports, some maybe on SBO but not all. European shows all on Sky Box Office.

Another option is shared rights with Bravo getting the US shows on delayed coverage and Sky showing all the European events on PPV.
 
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