Setanta Sports

Infobox TV channel
name= Setanta Sports
based in= Dublin, Ireland
logofile= SetantaSports2007.jpg
logoalt= Setanta Sports logo
logosize = 155px
launch= 1990
share= 0.1% 2007 estimate
share as of=
share source=
owner= Setanta Sport Holdings Ltd
former names=
web= [http://www.setanta.com www.setanta.com]
country = Ireland
broadcast area = International
terr serv 1= Digital terrestrial (Ireland)
terr chan 1= Channel 17
terr serv 2= Digital terrestrial (UK)
terr chan 2= Channel 34
sat serv 1= Sky Digital (UK & Ireland)
sat chan 1= Channels 423 and 424
sat serv 2=Dish Network (USA)
sat chan 2= Channel 406
sat serv 3= DirecTV (USA)
sat chan 3= Channel 615
sat serv 4= Star Choice (Canada)
sat chan 4= Channel 239
sat serv 5= Bell TV (Canada)
sat chan 5= Channel 420
sat serv 6= Foxtel Digital (Australia)
sat chan 6= Channel 525
sat serv 7= Austar Digital (Australia)
sat chan 7= Channel 510
sat serv 8= UBI World TV (Australia)
sat chan 8= Channel 3
sat serv 9= Crown Satellite TV (USA)
sat chan 9= Channel 421
cable serv 1 = UPC Ireland (Ireland)
cable chan 1 = Channel 105/401
cable serv 2 = Virgin Media (UK)
cable chan 2 = Channel 518 (Setanta Sports News)
cable chan 3 = Channel 538 (Setanta Sports 1)
cable chan 4 = Channel 539 (Setanta Sports 2)
cable chan 5 = Channel 525
cable serv 5 = Shaw Cable (Canada)
cable chan 6 = Channel 154
cable serv 6 = Verizon FiOS (USA)
cable chan 7 = Channel 1009 (starting 6/30)
cable serv 8= Foxtel Digital (Australia)
cable chan 8= Channel 525
cable serv 9= Austar Digital (Australia)
cable chan 9= Channel 510
adsl serv 1 = Tiscali TV (UK)
adsl chan 1 = Channel 555 (Setanta Sports 1)
adsl chan 2 = Channel 556 (Setanta Sports 2)
adsl chan 3 = Channel 557 (Setanta Golf)

Setanta Sports (pronounced|sɛˈtantə) is a sports broadcaster based in Ireland, operating 12 channels in 24 countries. [ [http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/dec/18/mondaymediasection.sport Guardian.co.uk] ] Setanta Sports was formed in 1990 to facilitate the broadcasting of Irish sporting events to Irish expatriates. More recently the network has expanded and it now broadcasts various live sporting events aimed at international English-speaking audiences.

Setanta Ireland's CEO is Niall Cogley, former Director of Sport at RTÉ. The company's headquarters is 4th Floor, Georges Quay House, 43 Townsend Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. Joint Group CEOs Michael O'Rourke and Leonard Ryan, COO Mark O'Meara and CFO Nigel Brennan are all based in that area. The channel takes its name from the legendary Irish warrior Setanta, who reputedly played the oldest known field sport, hurling, and who was later given the name Cúchulainn as described in the ancient Irish texts of the "Annals of Ulster".

Availability

Setanta Sports offers commercial venues in several countries around the world programming of sports such as Association football, Gaelic football, hurling, golf, cricket, Australian rules football, Basketball, rugby union and rugby league, darts and boxing.Setanta Sports have paid an undisclosed sum to secure the UK rights to the Indian Premier League.

Ireland

In Ireland, Setanta Sports' channels are available on a number of different platforms. Its flagship channel Setanta Ireland is available at no extra charge on UPC Ireland's basic cable package and as a subscription service on Sky Digital. With Sky Digital subscribers receive the full array of Setanta Sports channels – Setanta Sports Ireland, Setanta Sports 1 & 2, Setanta Golf, Setanta Sports News, Liverpool FC TV, Celtic TV, Rangers TV, NASN, Racing UK and Racing World and the more recently launched Arsenal TV.

Setanta also offers a commercial service for business premises comprising Setanta Ireland, Setanta Golf, Setanta Sports 1, Setanta Sports 2, Celtic TV, Rangers TV, Arsenal TV, Liverpool FC TV, Setanta Sports News and Racing World.

United Kingdom

See Setanta UK.

Setanta's acquisition of rights to some matches of England's highest-profile domestic sporting competition, the Premier League, with effect from the 2007-08 season, indicated its ambition to challenge Sky Sports, which has been the dominant pay-TV sports broadcaster in the UK since pay-TV was introduced in the UK in the 1980s.

Setanta Sports is available on several platforms in the UK. Setanta Sports 1 is available via Digital Terrestrial Television and BT Vision, and ten channels are available via Virgin Media. [ [http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/dtv/sports_channels.html Virgin Central] ] Racing World and Setanta Ireland are currently not carried by Virgin Media and NASN is not available as part of the XL pack. Three channels (Setanta Sports 1, Setanta Sports 2 and Setanta Golf) are available via Setanta by Broadband. Those same three channels are available on Tiscali TV and Setanta Ireland is available only via Sky Digital and NTL cable in Ireland. Some programming is restricted for rights reasons.

Setanta had hoped to have a high-definition channel launched by August 2008, in time for the new Premier League season. However, as yet, no HD channel from Setanta is forthcoming. [ [http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/broadcasting/a81234/setanta-sky-spar-over-high-def-channel.html http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/broadcasting/a81234/setanta-sky-spar-over-high-def-channel.html] . "Digital Spy", Thursday 6 December 2007.]

North America

Setanta Sports North America, currently available in the United States [ [http://na.setanta.com/portal/systemcontent/page?open&systemtitle=faqs#when_canada "Setanta Sports North America FAQs"] , retrieved 19 February 2007.] and Canada, is split into four parts, and services are provided on the Dish Network, Star Choice, DirecTV, Bell TV and GlobeCast World TV.

Setanta Sports North America carries most of the world's top rugby competitions, including the 2007 Rugby World Cup, Six Nations, Tri Nations, Super 14, British & Irish Lions matches, Currie Cup, Heineken Cup, Guinness Premiership, Magners League and EDF Energy Cup, all in union, plus live broadcasts of the Australian NRL and European Super League in league. The network also carries the Australian Football League, the principal competition in Australian rules football.

Canada

On 10 August 2007, a Canadian version of Setanta Sports was launched. Currently the service is available to Shaw, Rogers, EastLink, Bell TV, Star Choice, and SaskTel. Setanta offered a free viewing of the station from 10 August 2007.

Australia

On 1 November 2007, Setanta Sports Australia, the Australian version of Setanta Sports, was launched into homes across Australia. The channel was initially made available in commercial venues such as pubs and clubs in November 2005.

Currently the channel is available on all the major pay-TV home platforms in Australia (Foxtel, Austar, UBI World TV) and also to direct satellite customers. Setanta Sports Australia is available to homes via [http://www.setanta.tv broadband] and commercially to clubs, pubs and businesses via direct satellite (Optus D2) or Austar.

Setanta Sports Australia offers a wide range of international sport including association football, rugby union, boxing, GAA, darts and cricket. Current Setanta Sports Australia sporting right holdings include the FA Cup, England National Football Team, World Cup 2010 Qualifiers, Scottish Premier League, Six Nations Championship and England national rugby union team.

Known costs

* English Premier League rights – £392m over three years [ [http://www.footballeconomy.com/stats/stats_tv_04.htm English Premier League TV Broadcast Rights - 2007-2010] "Football Economy".]
* Scottish Premier League rights – £13.625m per year [ [http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/sport.cfm?id=633762006 Record TV deal could result in Monday night matches for SPL] . "The Scotsman", 28 April 2006] .]
*PGA Tour – £103m [http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article681826.ece Broadcaster is seeking £200m for TV soccer] . "The Sunday Times", 1 July 2006.]
*FA Cup – £150m [ [http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/mar/30/ITV.football1 ITV to pay 275m for FA Cup | Media | MediaGuardian] . "Media Guardian", 30 March 2007] .] over four years [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6509141.stm ITV scores in FA Cup rights fight] . "BBC News", 30 March 2007.]

Security concerns

Concerns have been raised over the security and viability of Setanta's digital terrestrial channel provided by Top Up TV because the encryption system was switched from the MediaGuard encryption system (which was cracked in continental Europe in 2004) to the Nagravision encryption system according to the conditional access manufacturer Kudelski. Like Mediaguard, the different versions of Nagravision are insecure and have also been compromised according to media industry studies, external appraisals [http://www.tech-faq.com/nagravision.shtml] and numerous discussion websites. The key-based encryption systems, like Nagravison, are fundamentally insecure because the keys and control words necessary to decrypt the television signal are themselves broadcast by the service provider. It is therefore very much easier for hackers to intercept the keys and reverse engineer the smartcards needed to hack the system. It also blacked out coverage during most of the 2006 Carling Cup.

In the United Kingdom, advanced conditional access modules for digital televisions and personal video recorders, such as the Dragon, T-Rex and Reality CAMs, that can easily decrypt Nagravision encryptions systems are freely on sale directly from suppliers and on the UK version of eBay. In addition, cloned smartcards for set top boxes that can decrypt Nagravision are now readily available and are already being traded on certain illicit websites within the UK. This has led to growing speculation that digital terrestrial pay-TV piracy is increasing within the United Kingdom during the 2007/2008 football season due to the much greater use of these public hack cloned cards and advanced conditional access modules.

Sky's own Sky Italia service suffered heavy losses due to piracy and more than 3 million Italian homes accessed pay-TV services through hacked decoder cards for conditional access set top boxes and conditional access modules for digital televisions and personal video recorders. Sky Italia had to switch from an insecure key-based system to the secure Videoguard cryptographic algorithm encryption system. This issue has been covered by the Guardian and Financial Times newspapers and the Datamonitor commercial analysis group. [ [http://www.brandrepublic.com/MediaBulletin/News/646366/Setanta-sports-channel-faces-piracy-challenge/ Setanta sports channel faces piracy challenge - Brand Republic News - Brand Republic ] ] [ [http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,3604,1188713,00.html Murdoch's Italian pay-TV venture is on course | Media | The Guardian ] ] [ [http://www.accessmylibrary.com/comsite5/bin/pdinventory.pl?pdlanding=1&referid=2930&purchase_type=ITM&item_id=0286-20699182 Italy - Sky Italia service facing serious piracy threat. | Europe Intelligence Wire (March , 2004) ] ] [http://www.kudelski.com/pressreleases/get_pdf.php?id=1113556992_64]

Criticism

Just as when Sky, in the 1990s, first obtained the exclusive rights to screen live coverage of England's away qualifiers, so Setanta have attracted a great deal of criticism as a result of it having now obtained the same contract. However, whereas Sky often sold on a highlights package to a terrestrial broadcaster (BBC), Setanta indicated that the sums offered by terrestrial broadcasters, reported to be £100,000-£200,000, were 5-10 times lower than their perceived market value; Setanta paid £5m to screen England's away qualifier with Croatia on 10 September 2008 and believed a sensible highlights package should attract a fee of £1m. [Interview, "Victoria Derbyshire" (programme), BBC Radio Five Live, 10-11 Sep 2008] Thus, no highlights package was agreed, and Setanta themselves showed highlights of both England and Scotland qualifiers free-to-air after the live games had concluded. This was announced at 6pm on the day the matches took place, and received 220,000 viewers. [ [http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/sep/11/itv.television?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront ITV to show England-Croatia highlights after striking Setanta deal] , "The Guardian", accessed 12 Sep 2008] Setanta then accepted "a low six-figure deal" with ITV to show delayed "extended highlights" a few days later.

Setanta's subscriber numbers were lower than those of Sky Sports, and the number of households watching the match live was estimated at around 1.5m. However, due to the availability of Setanta on both digital satellite and digital terrestrial television, the possible subscriber base actually surpasses that of Sky Sports (not presently available via DTT) but fans who were unwilling to subscribe could not see the match live. Prime Minister Gordon Brown indicated he felt it "unfortunate" more fans could not see the match live (i.e. without paying a subscription fee).

Setanta has also received its share of criticism due to their cancellation policy. Whilst customer's were able to subscribe either online or over the telephone, their only means of a cancellation had to be done in writing. However due to the amount of negative feedback received Setanta has recently changed this to allow for cancellation's to be done through e-mail.Furthermore, whilst customer's were originally entered into a 30 day notice period once their cancellation letter was received this time was recently put upto 60 days without any information being sent to customers, again due to the negative feedback this was quickly reduced back down to 30 days

Advertising

Former BBC and ITV Sport presenter Des Lynam, together with actress Thaila Zucchi starred in the advertising launch of Setanta's coverage of the Premier League from August 2007. The slogan used in this advert is "Setanta Sports - £9.99 a month, no annual contract." [cite news|url=http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2136220,00.html|title=Lynam fronts Setanta campaign|accessdate=2007-07-27|date=2007-07-27|publisher=The Guardian]

Association with "Pro Evolution Soccer"

In late September 2008, it was announced that "Pro Evolution Soccer 2009" would have Setanta Sports branding. It is, therefore, expected that Jon Champion will keep his role as commentator from PES 2008, on the basis that he is Setanta UK's mainstream commentator. It is not thought that Mark Lawrenson will keep his role as pundit, as he is contracted to the BBC. [ [http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/a131213/setanta-on-board-for-pes-2009.html PES 2009 to be branded by Setanta] ]

Recent contracts

On 5 May 2006, [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4975632.stm BBC NEWS | Business | Setanta joins Premiership action ] ] Setanta broke Sky Sports' three-year monopoly on showing the Barclays Premier League in the UK, successfully bidding £392 million for the rights to show 46 matches per season on its subscription channels.

On 7 April 2008, Setanta Sports announced they had signed an exclusive 3-year broadcast deal with Frank Warren's Sports Network to make Setanta the new home of televised boxing with fights involving Joe Calzaghe, Enzo Maccarinelli, Kevin Mitchell, Gavin Rees, Alex Arthur and Matt Skelton exclusive to Setanta Sports subscribers. [ [http://www.setanta.com/boxing/ Setanta Boxing ] ] .

On 22 May 2008, Setanta Sports announced that they will be showing live coverage of the Vodacom Challenge Cup in South Africa, featuring Manchester United. They will be showing action from The Red Devils' games against Orlando Pirates and the Kaizer Chiefs. The tournament takes place between the 19th and 26th of July.

In June 2008, it was confirmed that Setanta had gained rights to all England home friendlies and away qualifiers until 2012. ITV have picked up home qualifers and away frendlies.

On 21 May 2008, Setanta Sports announced that they will be following up their Indian Premier League coverage with the Asia Cup featuring the international sides from the Sub-Continent going head-to-head from 26 June 2008 through to the final on 6 July 2008. [ [http://www.setanta.com/en/UK/News/Setanta-boosts-Cricket-coverage-with-Asia-Cup/ Setanta boosts Cricket coverage with Asia Cup - Setanta Sports ] ]

On 30 June 2008, [ [http://www.setanta.com/en/UK/News/Setanta-Sports-agree-Record-TV-Deal-for-SPL-Coverage/ | Setanta Sports agree Record TV Deal for SPL Coverage] ] Setanta agreed a new £125 million contract to show the Scottish Premier League until the end of the 2013-14 season.

Presenters, Pundits, Commentators & Reporters

Football

Presenters

*Rob MacLean
*Jim Delahunt
*Angus Scott
*Adrian Durham
*Rebecca Lowe [http://tvnewsroom.co.uk/blog/?p=77]
*James Richardson
*Paul Dempsey

Pundits

*Scott Booth
*Craig Burley
*Terry Butcher
*Steve McManaman
*Les Ferdinand
*Tim Sherwood
*Emmanuel Petit
*Neil Warnock
*Ray Parlour
*Pat Dolan
*Michael Robinson

Commentators

*Ian Crocker
*Jon Champion
*Jock Brown
*Jim Proudfoot
*Archie Macpherson
*Brian Etherson
*David McKinney
*Ken McRobb
*Steve Bower
*Martin Fisher
*John Roder
*Des Curran

Co-Commentators

*Scott Booth
*Craig Burley
*Mark Hateley
*Paul Parker
*Brian Kerr

Reporters

*Stuart Lovell
*Rebecca Lowe
*Alex Hayes
*Des Lynam
*Kelly Dalglish
*Darrell Currie

Rugby Union

Presenters

*Rhodri Williams

Boxing

Presenters

*Paul Dempsey
*Phil Jones

Pundits

*Steve Bunce
*Barry McGuigan

Commentators

*John Rawling
*Duke McKenzie
*Steve Bunce

Golf

Presenters

*Dominik Holyer
*Sarah Stirk

Pundits

*Ken Brown
*Ronan Rafferty
*Jay Townsend

GAA

* Michael Lyster (RTÉ)

References

External links

* [http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=527190&highlight=setanta Setanta Sports cancellation fiasco ]
* [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070731.TRUTH31/TPStory/Sports/ New channel goes big on Premier League]
* [http://www.setanta.com/ Setanta Sports]