Setanta

[wheels]

How long before the greedy bastards go bust?

 

That is all

[bridge too far]

Not soon enough IMO.

 

International matches (cricket, football, whatever) should HAVE to be broadcast on free to view channels.

[stevegrant]

It'll be a couple of years yet, I'd have thought.

 

While they're still apparently about 400k subscribers short of breaking even this year, they've got enough cash coming in from their links to Virgin Media and BT Vision to keep themselves afloat for a while.

 

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them try to wangle their way out of the England contract though, particularly if the Croatia game (quite clearly the biggest game in the group stage) fails to draw the required audiences.

 

Apparently they averaged about 1m viewers (not including pubs) on Saturday, although arguably that low figure was due to the poor quality of opposition, the day of the week (easy enough to watch it down the pub and combine it with a night out) and the pretty-much inevitability of a tedious but comfortable victory.

 

Tonight is quite possibly make-or-break time for Setanta's international football coverage.

[Master Bates]

Not soon enough IMO.

 

International matches (cricket, football, whatever) should HAVE to be broadcast on free to view channels.

 

Agreed

[View From The Top]

It'll be a couple of years yet, I'd have thought.

 

While they're still apparently about 400k subscribers short of breaking even this year, they've got enough cash coming in from their links to Virgin Media and BT Vision to keep themselves afloat for a while.

 

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them try to wangle their way out of the England contract though, particularly if the Croatia game (quite clearly the biggest game in the group stage) fails to draw the required audiences.

 

Apparently they averaged about 1m viewers (not including pubs) on Saturday, although arguably that low figure was due to the poor quality of opposition, the day of the week (easy enough to watch it down the pub and combine it with a night out) and the pretty-much inevitability of a tedious but comfortable victory.

 

Tonight is quite possibly make-or-break time for Setanta's international football coverage.

 

Hopefully break.

[CabbageFace]

Why is the picture quality so rubbish?

[Dicko]

How long before the greedy bastards go bust?

 

That is all

 

I pay my £12.99 month.

 

Obviously, I primarily subscribe for the Racing Channel, so the footy is a bonus.

 

I think their coverage is actually pretty good

[Baj]

I get all the setanta stuff for £5 a month, it's a bargain.

[Hatch]

I get it because it gives me more stuff to bet on

[stevegrant]

Why is the picture quality so rubbish?

For foreign broadcasts like the Andorra game (I'd expect the Croatia game to be the same, if not worse), they're entirely in the hands of the host broadcaster as to the quality of the picture.

 

I also expect Setanta have tried to get away with as little bandwidth on the digital spectrum as possible, given that it costs them a fortune.

[RoswellSaint]

But we need them stateside as Setanta USA broadcasts the CCC. Only way we get to see Saints play.

[the stain]

Why is the picture quality so rubbish?

 

Whay can't I do anything about the aspect ratio? Everything is really tall and thin.

[fish fingers]

I have Setanta and am happy with what i get for my £10 a month. Good quality conference coverage and Friday night German league matches. bargain.

[toofarnorth]

I get all the setanta stuff for £5 a month, it's a bargain.

 

Not compared to the nothing you had to pay when all that Sport was on Skysports.

[Saint Keith]

i think a lot of people are missing the point about the covergae of tonights game. it has got nothing at all to do with our FA. they are not their rights to sell. for all away games, the rights are for the host country to sell. sky, bbc, itv, channel 5 could all have bid for the rights to tonights game, but either chose not to, or wouldnt pay the money the croatia FA were demanding. they have then tried to get highlights on the cheap, thus undermining the exclusivity Setanta have paid for

[CabbageFace]

Not compared to the nothing you had to pay when all that Sport was on Skysports.

 

Free sky, where do i sign up?

[bridge too far]

i think a lot of people are missing the point about the covergae of tonights game. it has got nothing at all to do with our FA. they are not their rights to sell. for all away games, the rights are for the host country to sell. sky, bbc, itv, channel 5 could all have bid for the rights to tonights game, but either chose not to, or wouldnt pay the money the croatia FA were demanding. they have then tried to get highlights on the cheap, thus undermining the exclusivity Setanta have paid for

 

Was that also the case with Andorra then? (And presumably every other national FA whose team we will being playing away)?

[Saint Keith]

Was that also the case with Andorra then? (And presumably every other national FA whose team we will being playing away)?

 

Yes

[Gingeletiss]

Been told, that they are part owned by Sky (25%)....don't know how true this is. If true, then it's a bloody disgrace.

[Baj]

Been told, that they are part owned by Sky (25%)....don't know how true this is. If true, then it's a bloody disgrace.

Given that Sky had to sell shares in ITV, I would doubt it

[Baj]

Not compared to the nothing you had to pay when all that Sport was on Skysports.

Yeah, cos sky sports has always been free.

[Master Bates]

Yeah, cos sky sports has always been free.

 

Yeah

 

Sky Sports 1

Sky Sports 2

Sky Sports 3

[Baj]

Yeah

 

Sky Sports 1

Sky Sports 2

Sky Sports 3

 

Crikey, best cancel my sports package then if its supposed to be free!

[toofarnorth]

Yeah, cos sky sports has always been free.

 

Oops my mistake. Meant no extra. Just a query actually can you get Setanta without Sky or Virgin media?

[Baj]

Oops my mistake. Meant no extra. Just a query actually can you get Setanta without Sky or Virgin media?

Yes, on freeview I believe.

[Master Bates]

Yes, on freeview I believe.

 

Wish that was free

[stevegrant]

Yes, on freeview I believe.

And BT Vision.

 

sky, bbc, itv, channel 5 could all have bid for the rights to tonights game, but either chose not to, or wouldnt pay the money the croatia FA were demanding. they have then tried to get highlights on the cheap, thus undermining the exclusivity Setanta have paid for

There has always been an arrangement since Sky bought the rights to most of the England away games in recent memory whereby one of the terrestrial broadcasters would pay Sky to use the footage to broadcast a highlights package later that night, and the cost for that was apparently a fairly moderate 6-figure sum (according to the Independent, if I remember rightly).

 

Setanta asking for £1m is either particularly greedy knowing that they've vastly overpaid for the live rights (£5m), or they have simply overestimated the price Sky were charging in the past.

 

Setanta still have exclusive live coverage of the game. No other British broadcaster has that.

[Saint Keith]

And BT Vision.

 

 

There has always been an arrangement since Sky bought the rights to most of the England away games in recent memory whereby one of the terrestrial broadcasters would pay Sky to use the footage to broadcast a highlights package later that night, and the cost for that was apparently a fairly moderate 6-figure sum (according to the Independent, if I remember rightly).

 

Setanta asking for £1m is either particularly greedy knowing that they've vastly overpaid for the live rights (£5m), or they have simply overestimated the price Sky were charging in the past.

 

Setanta still have exclusive live coverage of the game. No other British broadcaster has that.

 

it was only ever a gentlemans agreement, nothing more formal than that, and came in after the italy game in 97, when, ironiclly, there was an outcry over the then new broadcaster, a certain Sky TV, having exclusive live rights and bbc and itv not being prepared to pay for highlights. it came about after the then sports minister tony banks banged some heads together, but it was only ever an informal arrangement. setanta are only doing what Sky were doing 10-15 years ago, paying vastly over the odds in a land grab of exclusive rights, in a bid to drive subscriber numbers

[toofarnorth]

it was only ever a gentlemans agreement, nothing more formal than that, and came in after the italy game in 97, when, ironiclly, there was an outcry over the then new broadcaster, a certain Sky TV, having exclusive live rights and bbc and itv not being prepared to pay for highlights. it came about after the then sports minister tony banks banged some heads together, but it was only ever an informal arrangement. setanta are only doing what Sky were doing 10-15 years ago, PAYING VASTLY OVER THE ODDS IN A LAND GRAB of exclusive rights, in a bid to drive subscriber numbers

 

And we know how well that worked out for ITV digital. ITV digital could have been a decent supplier of some of skys services if it hadn't tried to compete too agressively with it.

[stevegrant]

it was only ever a gentlemans agreement, nothing more formal than that, and came in after the italy game in 97, when, ironiclly, there was an outcry over the then new broadcaster, a certain Sky TV, having exclusive live rights and bbc and itv not being prepared to pay for highlights. it came about after the then sports minister tony banks banged some heads together, but it was only ever an informal arrangement. setanta are only doing what Sky were doing 10-15 years ago, paying vastly over the odds in a land grab of exclusive rights, in a bid to drive subscriber numbers

Don't get me wrong, I can see where Setanta are coming from with it, but given that they've already got a pretty dreadful reputation (see thousands upon thousands of complaints regarding the near-impossible feat of cancelling your "contract" - even though the adverts said there was no contract - for evidence) you'd have thought they'd want to keep as many people as possible onside.

 

Also, don't forget that the way the England team are performing at the moment isn't lending itself too well to the task of gaining much support. If fewer people are watching and the unthinkable happens (i.e. we win tonight), nobody's going to get to see any highlights because Setanta over-valued them in the buyers' opinions, and as such people won't have as much of an appreciation of the performance. Had they been able to watch highlights and seen a decent performance, they might be persuaded to subscribe to Setanta so they can watch the whole game in future. Slightly speculative marketing, but given that they've put most of their eggs into this basket this season, it's a strategy I think they've possibly missed the boat on.

[stevegrant]

And we know how well that worked out for ITV digital. ITV digital could have been a decent supplier of some of skys services if it hadn't tried to compete too agressively with it.

ITV Digital's collapse was a combination of a number of factors:

 

1. Paying WAY over the odds for the Football League rights - even now, Sky pay about a third of the amount ITV Digital bid back then!

2. Poor quality programming - they tried to do everything on the cheap, including lowering the signal strength to save as much money as possible, but all it did was drive customers away.

3. A massive overestimation of the demand for lower league coverage. Sky have it just about right, IMO, with two CCC games every week plus occasional games from Leagues 1 and 2. ITV Digital tried showing a game from what is now League 2 at least once a week. On occasions, the viewing figures for some of the games didn't even register on the ratings aggregators because they were so poor.

[scott_saints]

Good band though.

[pedg]

Why is the picture quality so rubbish?

 

Even without the having to deal with foreign input the setanta signal is generally fairly bad. They appear to encode it for the lowest bandwidth they have across all their distribution methods (probably freeview) so everyone has to suffer pixelation and the other attributes of over compression.

[bungle]

lol@all of you.

 

Setanta won't go bust. Sure they might be running at a loss in this country, but they are a global company and they don't just rely on one country. As has been mentioned they have a US wing, and they are long established in Ireland, to name just a couple.

 

I pay my £11 a month, and I have to say it's great value. I like their football coverage, it is simple but effective. I don't need, nor want, all the pointless gadgets sky involve, nor do I enjoy Richard Keys bumming all the big name players. It's a load of crap. Hope Setanta get more stuff in the future.

[simo]

As i cant have a dish put up at my place setanta is all i can have so it will do for me at the mo!

[stevegrant]

lol@all of you.

 

Setanta won't go bust. Sure they might be running at a loss in this country, but they are a global company and they don't just rely on one country. As has been mentioned they have a US wing, and they are long established in Ireland, to name just a couple.

But if the UK arm of Setanta is losing too much money, I'd imagine they'd just cut the UK bit adrift or cancel its contracts here. They're looking at losing at least £50m this year due to low subscriber numbers. I don't claim to know how big the company is worldwide, but I'd suspect any company's directors would want to get rid of a part of their company that was expected to be profit-making but ended up making that sort of a loss. If they go off the air in this country, as far as the UK population is concerned they've disappeared.

 

I pay my £11 a month, and I have to say it's great value. I like their football coverage, it is simple but effective. I don't need, nor want, all the pointless gadgets sky involve, nor do I enjoy Richard Keys bumming all the big name players. It's a load of crap. Hope Setanta get more stuff in the future.

I pay £12.99 a month (which went up from £9.99 a month about two months ago without them even telling me - technically illegal, as far as I'm aware) and don't feel as if I'm getting anywhere near value for money. While I generally enjoy their football coverage because it doesn't have arse-licking presenters and pundits, the actual picture quality of the broadcasts is terrible. Given that I'm paying £47 for the full package on Sky (although I really should cancel the Sky Movies part as I hardly ever use it), an extra £13 a month is just too much for the quality of the product they're offering.

[Hatch]

I pay £12.99 a month (which went up from £9.99 a month about two months ago without them even telling me - technically illegal, as far as I'm aware)

 

I received a letter from them about something else, probably marketing bumph about the new season or something and tagged at the end of that was the information that the subs were going up to £12.99.

So you probably did get informed but didn;t read it.

[LGTL]

Don't forget too that before Setanta came along, Sky started putting games on their pay-per-view channel, which was an additional cost on top of the monthly subscription. So it is actually no different to then, only the PPV games are now with Setanta.

[stevegrant]

I received a letter from them about something else, probably marketing bumph about the new season or something and tagged at the end of that was the information that the subs were going up to £12.99.

So you probably did get informed but didn;t read it.

I've not received anything from them in the post since I signed up, with the exception of the waste-of-paper-and-ink welcome pack.

[pedg]

Luckily being on the virgin media VIP package it does not cost me any more than I was paying before they started broadcasting. No idea how much they are getting per virgin punter but going to be a lot less then 12.99.

[stevegrant]

Don't forget too that before Setanta came along, Sky started putting games on their pay-per-view channel, which was an additional cost on top of the monthly subscription. So it is actually no different to then, only the PPV games are now with Setanta.

The Monopolies Commission and the Competition Commission at the EU ruled that Sky couldn't bid for all of the available live TV packages because it denied the opportunity for other broadcasters to enter the market. The idea of "competition" in the marketplace is that it improves the deal for the consumer.

 

Before the current TV deal, you got a load of games with Sky Sports, and if you wanted, you could pay £50 for the Prem Plus season ticket (or less if you got in early like most people), and that would be it for the season.

 

Under the current TV deal, you get a load of games with Sky Sports, but now if you want the other games, you have to pay £12.99 per month (£155.88). So despite competition increasing, it's had the opposite to the desired effect and actually INCREASED the cost to the consumer.

[stevegrant]

Luckily being on the virgin media VIP package it does not cost me any more than I was paying before they started broadcasting. No idea how much they are getting per virgin punter but going to be a lot less then 12.99.

Yeah, they've got a mass broadcast deal with both Virgin Media and BT Vision. No idea of the figures involved, but I think an Independent article earlier in the week mentioned figures of about 2m between the two of them, but yes, it'll definitely be less than 12.99 per month.

[sperm_john]

setanta does my head in, paying for sky already, now gotta pay for something else to watch my national team

[Durleyfos]

setanta does my head in, paying for sky already, now gotta pay for something else to watch my national team

 

I refuse to pay it.

 

Better to go to the pub and watch the games.

[CabbageFace]

setanta does my head in, paying for sky already, now gotta pay for something else to watch my national team

 

They dont show Trinidad and Spermbago matches.

[Guest Hacienda]

I moved from Sky to Virgin and drove a hard bargain so I now get high speed broadband, phone and full TV package inluding skysports, movies etc for £61.

 

I only watch the English and German footy on Sentanta now and then and really wouldn't miss it if it vanished without a trace.

[Guest Hacienda]

I refuse to pay it.

 

Better to go to the pub and watch the games.

 

My local uses some foreign satellite signal so live games are usually watched using Al Jazerra.

[Dog]

Highlights of tonights games are on Setanta tonight at 10.30pm, FREE to everyone to watch. Enjoy!

[saintwarwick]

And BT Vision.

 

 

There has always been an arrangement since Sky bought the rights to most of the England away games in recent memory whereby one of the terrestrial broadcasters would pay Sky to use the footage to broadcast a highlights package later that night, and the cost for that was apparently a fairly moderate 6-figure sum (according to the Independent, if I remember rightly).

 

Setanta asking for £1m is either particularly greedy knowing that they've vastly overpaid for the live rights (£5m), or they have simply overestimated the price Sky were charging in the past.

 

Setanta still have exclusive live coverage of the game. No other British broadcaster has that.

 

I think they expected other companies to pay this £1million and have shot themselves in the foot. Any money recouped is better than none especially when you have large debts. As you say in another post it could of been to their advantage should England win by gaining more subscribers.

[Thedelldays]

they may have not have got this totally right..but what they have done is still take away viewers from sky sports, bbc, itv etc...

 

(i think)