Agreed. Their 'customer care' makes Sky (who aren't particularly great in that regard themselves) look positively brilliant.

Quote If Setanta fails to come up with the money this week, the league is expected to take back its rights to the 2009/10 season and resell them to the highest bidder. ESPN, the sports channel owned by the US media giant Disney, is thought to be waiting in the wings, hopeful of picking up its 46 games at a bargain price.'" www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/ju ... ier-league

Quote If Setanta fails to come up with the money this week, the league is expected to take back its rights to the 2009/10 season and resell them to the highest bidder. ESPN, the sports channel owned by the US media giant Disney, is thought to be waiting in the wings, hopeful of picking up its 46 games at a bargain price.'" www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/ju ... ier-league

Don't quite get the idea that Setanta's existance has kept the prices down??...



Before Setanta, Sky had mostly everything a sports fan wanted....40 odd quid....

ish

With Setanta, Sky had bits I wanted - 40 odd quid...Setanta had the other bits I wanted - a further tenner...



Now with Setanta going belly up, hopefully Sky will get some of their old stuff back, and hopefully (well, big hopefully) stay 40 odd quid...

Wonder what effect that will have on Setanta US/Canada? I was planning to bin it anyway after SOO. I do like their footy coverage but hopefully those games will get picked up by other channels if Setanta goes belly up over here.

At the end of the day, Setanta as a company are bloody shocking. Just because Sky may pick up the pieces because of their collapse, doesn't mean people shouldn't cancel their direct debits with Setanta. That really is just ridiculous.

Good riddance in my opinion.

Amen to that!

Amazing what you can find on t'web if you look hard enough.

Nice avatar.

I'll second that.

Apparently Setanta have stopped taking subscribers today which in ominous.

Hopefully good riddence to bad rubbish.

section about it on working lunch apparently the website wont allow new customers to join although the compnay is refusing to admit if they are shut for business

bbc news now saying you can't subscribe by phone you just get a recorded message. i think the clock is down to hours not days

if a company goes into administration, they cannot take on any new business, however it doesnt mean that it will close down fully.

Who knows, SL on Setanta may have given them the extra viewership they needed to break even.

I expect that the downturn will mean sports getting less money from Sky and Sky charges going static/down.

I agree that all sports will get less money, but the idea that we'll not have to pay more seems a tad naive. It'll also be interesting to see how this will work with the EU's anti-trust ruling that broke the Sky monoply in the first place.

I think it could be a good thing for League. I reckon ESPN will take em over as they've got 1.2m subscribers, which aint too shabby. yes it needed 1.8 to breakeven but much of those costs are already met by ESPN.
Why will it be good for league?
Its Sky's second biggest audience grabber but it doesnt reflect that in what it pays for the game. If it goes to ESPN along with the NRL, thats all the league on one channel and I reckon quite a few will follow it. more money for the game, having two rivals bidding for it, and better times slots for League if it goes to ESPN.

Heard on the radio earlier today that Setanta have to pay Sky 100k a month for them to broadcast on their sattelite. No wonder they are having money troubles. They cant afford to pay £30m installment to the Premier League & failed to pay £3m for the rights for the Scotish football.

As others have said, if they go under its one less challenger for Sky when the rights for TV coverage come up again.

hopefully it gets sorted out positively, i need setanta for ice hockey and the nrl. espn getting involved would be excellent, they are a very well run organisation and love to air "niche" sports.

Sky don't own any satellites, the ones Sky use are own by SES Astra.

They have to pay Sky to be included on Sky's EPG and use Sky's encryption

Goodbye and good riddance Setanta - hopefully your passing will at least get the NRL back on Sky.

ok.. didnt know the correct terms!

yes it can

on a certain website which is the name of a person it has archives where you can watch previously broadcasted streams

No chance. After securing the Premier League rights, it needed 1.8m subscribers to break even. It got up to 1.2m, and that's with all the Virgin Media customers thrown in, many of whom got Setanta for free.

Yeah and I hope you lose your job too

What I find interesting is the assumption that an american station would be prepared to show live rugby league!

If it was Fox, CBS, ABC or NBC then whoopee and they could show it in the states instead of "Football".

Sadly that will not happen, or certainally not in my lifetime