SETANTA very close to administration

inspector_monkfish

11:44 08Jun09 -Setanta board to meet after administration reports

LONDON, June 8 - The board of Irish sports broadcaster Setanta was due to meet on Monday, a person familiar with the situation said, following media reports the group was close to going into administration.

The viability of Setanta's business model was thrown into doubt in February this year when it failed to hold on to the rights to show its desired number of English Premier League soccer matches, a key draw for viewers.

Setanta currently holds the rights to show two English Premier League packages, or 46 live matches a season, but it lost out in the auction for the next three-year deal to BSkyB <BSY.L> and will in future show only 23 games per season against BSkyB's 115.

The failure to win the rights prompted Setanta to conduct a review of its business and attempt to renegotiate rights payments with a range of sporting bodies.

According to media reports, Setanta missed a 3 million pound ($4.77 million) payment to the Scottish Premier League last week and is facing the prospect of calling in an administrator after it failed to secure more money from its backers. Media reports said Deloitte had been lined up.
Setanta declined to comment.

Setanta, which also shows cricket and PGA Golf, has around 1.2 million customers but needs nearer 1.9 million to break even, according to analysts.

The group is a privately backed company whose shareholders include its management team and institutional investors such as Balderton Capital, Doughty Hanson and Goldman Sachs.

pfpf

Customer Service was/is atrocious, its the only reason i left. many many examples of poor CS even on this site.

you always have to feel sorry for the "little people" who lose their jobs, but companies with CS as bad as Setanta deserve to fail. unfortunately alot survive due to sheer size and have no need to improve.

misskool

are they auctioning off their tv rights then or is it not negotiated till next year? they owe quite a bit of money to the EPL and SPL and they cover some of the racing (although guessing Turf TV will take up the slack and charge more?)

cally6008

Setanta 'is on brink of collapse'


Setanta has too few of the "big" Premier League games, say observers

Setanta faces administration "within days" unless backers provide more funds to pay £30m it owes to the English Premier League, reports have suggested.
The broadcaster has already failed to pay the Scottish Premier League £3m it owes in television rights money.
Setanta, which also shows cricket, golf and rugby union, has about 1.2 million subscribers but is losing up to £100m a year, analysts say.
Deloitte is set to step in to run the firm if it goes into administration.
'Weaker' matches
The rights to show the English Premier League - and the subscribers that this pulls in - lie at the heart of Setanta's business model.
But the firm had only about 60% of the subscribers it needed to break even, said Professor Chris Brady of the BPP Business School.
"They have predicated the whole thing on getting those subscribers. The problem is they are taking on Goliath in BSkyB," he told the BBC.
Not only did Setanta have only a small percentage of televised Premier League games but they tended to be "weaker" matches, he added.
There had also been problems with customer service, Professor Brady told the BBC.
Setanta's viability was cast into doubt earlier this year when it lost the rights to show 46 live Premier League matches from 2010/2011.
In future, it will show only 23 games per season, compared with BSkyB's 115, with industry observers saying that thousands of customers would give up their subscriptions.
Falling values?
It is expected that a rival broadcaster - perhaps ESPN - would buy up its Premier League football rights.
But the worsening economy has led observers to suggest that the rights to 46 games that Setanta holds for next season, the final year of its current contract, would not be worth as much as they had been.
There are also doubts about whether the Premier League could match the £159m Setanta paid for the right to screen 23 Premier League games each season from 2010-11.
A shared deal with ITV saw them secure rights for England and FA Cup matches for £425m - and it is likely another firm would buy up these rights.
One SPL club has told BBC Scotland that income from Setanta alone accounts for 33% of their income, while another said it was 20% for his club.
"With cuts already being made for next season, the loss of revenue of 20% would undoubtedly have a knock-on effect on and off the pitch," said one a source.
It is feared that the loss of cash from Setanta could force as many as three SPL clubs into administration.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8090633.stm

Really2

misskool wrote: »

are they auctioning off their tv rights then or is it not negotiated till next year? they owe quite a bit of money to the EPL and SPL and they cover some of the racing (although guessing Turf TV will take up the slack and charge more?)

From what I hear it goes back to the owners i.e. the EPL, SPL ,FA they then resell the right to the highest bider, (Or sky as it is known:))

inspector_monkfish

does anyone get the feeling that SKY just knew this would happen eventually, and just sat back and let setanta pay up for a few extra prem matches, and other stuff, knowing full well it would all come back to them sooner or later ?

maybe didn't expect it this soon though!

Really2

inspector_monkfish wrote: »

does anyone get the feeling that SKY just knew this would happen eventually, and just sat back and let setanta pay up for a few extra prem matches, and other stuff, knowing full well it would all come back to them sooner or later ?

maybe didn't expect it this soon though!

I am sure they were not grateful of the competition but more than aware they could out gun them (what happened to European competition laws:))

Now hoping ESPN come along and start getting interested, now that would be funny.

wharty

Well although i hate to see anybody out of a job, i think the company deserves it. The customer service i recieved was rubbish and the quality of the programming was just as bad. Why couldnt they do a pay per view like when it was run by Sky as Prem Plus? As a sky subscriber and past user of Prem Plus i think this is great news, i just hope it comes back to sky. As for competition laws i think thats just rubbish, if sky can offer the customer a better deal then why shouldnt they be allowed to?

Really2

wharty wrote: »

. As for competition laws i think thats just rubbish, if sky can offer the customer a better deal then why shouldnt they be allowed to?

No competition means no better deal for the customer or the clubs.

before_hollywood

one or two people had a few problems....

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=setanta+sports+problem&meta=

Yakubu22

If they go into administration, and forfeit their PL rights for next year 'cos they cant pay up. Am i legally entitled to cancel the direct debit, a surely they are no longer able to fulfill their side of the contract?