Setanta Sports 1 & 2

Infobox TV channel
name = Setanta Sports 1, Setanta Sports 2
logofile = Sslogo05.png logoalt = Setanta Sports logo
logosize = 250px
launch = 2004
share = 0.2% (SS1)
0.0% (SS2)
share as of = March 2008
share source = [http://www.barb.co.uk/viewingsummary/monthreports.cfm?report=monthgmulti BARB]
owner = Setanta Sports
country = Ireland
sister names = Setanta Golf
former names =
web = [http://www.setanta.com www.setanta.com]
terr serv 1 = Top Up TV/BT Vision
terr chan 1 = Channel 34 (SS1)
(VIEWING CARD REQUIRED)
sat serv 1 = Sky Digital
sat chan 1 = Channel 423 (SS1)
Channel 424 (SS2)
cable serv 1 = Virgin Media
cable chan 1 = Channel 538 (SS1)
Channel 539 (SS2)
cable serv 2 = UPC Ireland
cable chan 2 = Channel 406 (SS1)
Channel 409 (SS2)
adsl serv 1 = Tiscali TV
adsl chan 1 = Channel 555 (SS1)
Channel 556 (SS2)
slogan = Setanta is Sport / The new home of Boxing|

Setanta Sports 1 & 2 are the two main Channels for Setanta Sports in the Republic of Ireland and United Kingdom, carrying coverage of association football (including the English Premier League, Scottish Premier League, top-flight European leagues and UEFA Cup), boxing, mixed martial arts, golf, motorsport, coverage of the Gaelic Athletic Association and international cricket.

Broadcast Rights

Club Football

Exclusively live league football from:
* England
* Scotland
* Germany
* Netherlands
* France
* Ireland
* Brazil First choice, third choice and fourth choice of each round of the male and female FA Cups, including joint live coverage of the Final. Plus exclusive live rights to the Community Shields, both male and female.

National Football

* England home friendlies
* All england competitive away internationals
* Most competetive away internationals from Wales, Scotland, Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
* All of Englands home U21, female and 'B' internationals, plus all away games to which the rights are not owned otherwise in the UK.

Rugby Union

Exclusively live action from:
* the Magners League
* the French Top 14

* Exclusive rights to the highlights of the RBS Six Nations.

Rugby League

* National Rugby League
* State of Origin.

Golf

Exclusive live rights to the US PGA Tour (excluding all major championships).

Other Sports

* British Touring Car Championship
* Superleague Formula
* Australian Rules Football
* League of Legends Darts

Other

Setanta Sports signed former Sky Sports' commentator Ian Crocker who joined their broadcasters for the 2006/07 season, focusing mainly on covering SPL matches, and for the 2007/08 season they are moving on to the cover both the English Premiership and the SPL.

Setanta is the sponsor of the Setanta Sports Cup, an annual soccer tournament featuring teams from the Football League of Ireland and Irish Football League. The top 4 teams from each league are drawn into a 4 team group with 2 teams from each league. In the group stages, each team plays each other 2 times (home and away) and the top 2 qualify for the semi-final. The semi-finals are played at Windsor Park, Belfast and Turners Cross, Cork. The Final is played at Tolka Park, Dublin. It also sponsors the Conference League Cup, called the "Setanta Shield".

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. [ [http://www.brandrepublic.com/MediaBulletin/News/646366/Setanta-sports-channel-faces-piracy-challenge/ Setanta sports channel faces piracy challenge] Brand Republic News] 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 What is Nagravision? ] ] 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.

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 [ [http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,3604,1188713,00.html Murdoch's Italian pay-TV venture is on cours] 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 Wir] (March , 2004)] ] [http://www.kudelski.com/pressreleases/get_pdf.php?id=1113556992_64] 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.

Availability

Setanta Sports 1 is available on all major UK digital television platforms.

* On digital terrestrial television, Setanta Sports 1 is available as a standalone subscription channel, available to viewers with a compatible "Freeview" receiver. These include set-top boxes with a card slot, and IDTVs with a CAM. The channel broadcasts between 12:00 and 03:00;
* BT Vision offer the version of Setanta Sports 1 carried on DTT as part of the BT Vision Sport package, which combines the channel with a broadband on-demand highlights service;
* The entire Setanta Sports family of channels is available via satellite on Sky;
* Setanta Sports is available free to Virgin Media subscribers on the cable company's premium subscription package (XL), and to other subscribers for a monthly fee.
* Setanta is reportedly in talks with Tiscali TV regarding carriage of the service. [ [http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/broadcastnowarticle.aspx?intStoryID=170552] ]

In June 2007, Setanta Sports 1 broadcast some programming without encryption on DTT, allowing Freeview viewers the opportunity to sample programming. The channel is not, however, a "Freeview channel". [http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=593973]

Talent

The following is a list of some of the current on-air staff employed by Setanta Sports:

Football

Presenters

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

Pundits

*Scott Booth
*Craig Burley
*Terry Butcher
*Steve McManaman
*Les Ferdinand
*Tim Sherwood
*Emmanuel Petit
*Neil Warnock

*For Setanta's newly aquired broadcasting rights of the England team, it has been announced that Harry Redknapp and former England manager Terry Venables have joined the punditry team. [ [http://www.setanta.com/en/UK/Footer/Press-Releases/Setanta-signs-up-Redknapp-and-Venables/] Setanta Sign up Redknapp and Venables]

Commentators

*Ian Crocker
*Jon Champion
*Jock Brown
*Jim Proudfoot
*Archie Macpherson
*Brian Etherson
*David McKinney
*Ken McRobb
*Steve Bower

Co-Commentators

*Scott Booth
*Craig Burley
*Mark Hateley
*Paul Parker
*Chris Waddle (England games only)

Reporters

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

Rugby Union

Presenters

*Rhodri Williams

Boxing

Presenters

*Paul Dempsey

Pundits

*Steve Bunce
*Barry McGuigan

Commentators

*John Rawling
*Duke McKenzie
*Steve Bunce

ee also

*Setanta Sports

References

External links

* [http://www.setanta.com/ Setanta Sports]