Investment group comes to rescue of Setanta
Irish sports channel Setanta, which broadcasts live Premiership and Championship football matches, looks like they have found a saviour in Access Industries. “Access believes that this proposal would secure the future of the broadcaster for customers, football and employees,” a statement by the company read on Saturday.
The sports channel has been looking for an investor to the tune of £50 million as the new football season is starting in August and bills are due for rights to broadcast. The offer submitted by Access Industries is for a majority share and there are a “number of pre-conditions” attached, but they did not go into them.
Until the start of the 2010/11 football season, Setanta own the rights to show 46 live Premiership football games. However early on this year they failed to retain their two packages of football and only have the rights to show 23 games from August 2010.
The board of the sports channel has been locked in emergency talks all week regarding their shortfall of money. It seemed that they failed to get enough subscribers to cover the cost of the footballing packages.
It seems again that Setanta’s main rivals BSkyB, who will be showing 115 live games next year, have come out on top, and continue to lead the way in live football for UK residents.
thanks to theguardian.co.uk for the quotes.
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