unicornnews: Setanta is no more

Another big media story this week is, of course, the demise of sports broadcaster Setanta which, while a long time coming, is still one of the highest profile media firms to collapse since the recent advertising recession began.

The sports TV firm went into administration after rescue talks with possible new investors faltered yesterday. Most people in both investment and media circles had already given up on the broadcaster after it was confirmed at the start of the week that it had lost its rights to English Premier League football games after defaulting on payments.

The impact of the move into administration was immediate in the UK. The two main Setanta channels went off air immediately, while its sports news channel, a joint venture with Virgin Media actually operated by ITN, was switched off at 6pm. The firm’s 200 UK staff will be made redundant, while the future of the 60 staffers at ITN that worked on the sports news service is unknown; the news firm said it was consulting affected staff and hoped to redeploy as many of them as it could elsewhere in the company.

Deloitte have come in as administrators. A spokesman for them told reporters: “We can confirm that no further monthly subscriptions or direct debits will be accepted from customers of the UK business”. The firm’s Irish and North American services were still running last night, seemingly because they both make a slight profit and Deloitte are more confident they can find a buyer for them.

Earlier this week the English Premier League announced it had reached a deal with Disney-owned US sports broadcaster ESPN to take over Setanta’s football contracts. Reports suggest ESPN has agreed to match the financial commitments previously made by Setanta (minus what Setanta had already paid) meaning that the League and the clubs it represents shouldn’t be hit by a loss of telly revenues, as had been feared. Other sports organisations with lucrative TV rights deals with the broadcaster may not, however, be so lucky.

Posted Wednesday June 24 2009 by Chris Cooke

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