Article Taxonomy: Television and Broadcasting

Articles concerning television and broadcasting issues in football.

Football Conference Takes TV Hit as ESPN Pull-out

by

Talks between the Conference and American sports broadcaster EPSN have collapsed at the last minute. The Walt Disney network abandoned talks last week hours before contracts were due to be signed. It is understood that ESPN became concerned about the full production costs of the 25 matches they had planned to show. ESPN said in a statement that ‘we decided it did not make business sense for us to show the league on the channel at this time.’ It is unlikely that the decision will jeopardise the renewal of Blue Square’s sponsorship of the league.

Sky Comfortable With ESPN

by

ESPN is owned by Disney whose market value beats BSkyB’s parent News Corp by $42 billion to $26 billion dollars. Yet analysts are saying that ESPN could be an easier opponent in the Premiership live television rights stakes than might appear to be the case at first glance. The game could even turn out to be a friendly.

ESPN Deal Saves Premiership’s Bacon

by

ESPN, part of Walt Disney, has bought both the packages of live games forcibly relinquished by Setanta. It has acquired both the two packages for next season and the one package that runs for three years from 2010. ESPN intends to retail them through the Sky platform and hopefully also through Virgin Media and BT.

The Big Losers From Setanta Collapse

by

The Scottish Premiership, English non-league clubs and possibly the FA stand to lose the most from the prospective collapse of Setanta. The Scottish Premiership may be able to negotiate another deal. But Scottish Television had been hit by the downturn in advertising revenue like all ITV companies and would not be able to offer a fraction of the amount provided by the Setanta deal which has nearly five years to run. Setanta were prepared to pay over the odds for Scottish top flight football as part of their effort to build up the business.

Is Setanta Saved?

by

Access Industries, a company run by billionaire businessman Len Blavatnik, will pay £20m for a 51 per cent stake in Setanta to help it to avoid administration. Setanta run into financial trouble when it lost half its Premiership live games from 2010-11, leading to fears of a mass exodus of subscribers from the already loss-making company. The crisis revived memories of the collapse of ITV Digital in 2002, when the operator went under owing Football League clubs £180m with serious financial consequences for some of them.

Spanish Television Football Broadcast Rights Finally Settled

by

While most of the Spanish sports media concentrated on the double transfers of Kaká and Ronaldo to Real Madrid, another important football-related event occurred last week in the Spanish capital. After three years of court cases, confusion and chaos the broadcast rights to La Liga and the Copa del Rey (the Spanish FA Cup) were finally settled.

Setanta Close To Collapse

by

Sports broadcaster Setanta is close to collapse. Research group Enders Analysis estimates that Setanta’s annual losses in its UK business amount to about £100m. Accountancy firm Deloitte is on standby to put the company into administration. Setanta has 1.2 million customers, well short of the 1.9m it needs to break even. The broadcaster has until Monday to pay the Scottish Premier League £3m as part of its £31m a year deal. The Premiership is awaiting a £35m payment on June 15th.

Setanta’s Situation Gets Worse

by

Second force Premiership television provider Setanta is seeing its financial situation deteriorate and the ultimate outcome may be less money for the Premiership, although its slots could always be bought out by a third party. Shareholders in the company have failed to stump up enough cash to keep it going. It even asked BSkyB for a £50m advance payment on a deal that would have seen Sky wholesale Setanta to its own subscribers.

Setanta Fighting to Survive

by

Sports broadcaster Setanta is fighting for its life as a new management team holds urgent talks to raise cash and slash the amount it pays for sports rights. The company, which has 1.2m customers and broadcasts Premiership and England international football, faces an uncertain future unless it can raise up to £100m this month from shareholders including private equity firms Doughty Hanson and Balderton Capital. Accountants at Deloitte could be appointed as administrators if negotiations fail.

Setanta Looks For Funds

by

Pay-television company Setanta has held a fresh round of talks with private equity firms in a bid to raise up to £100m following its failure to retain both of its Premiership rights packages beyond 2010. Analysts think that the attempted fundraising may be greeted with some scepticism as it comes amid question over how the TV company will reach even break-even on its subscriber model. In February Setanta won the auction for only one of the six available live broadcast packages for Premiership football the season after next.