Setanta, the pay digital TV service, has to raise up to £100m from investors and restructure its existing contracts with sports rights holders in order to prevent bankruptcy, according to reports in the papers this weekend. Sir Robin Miller, the former Emap chief executive, has recently joined the group to oversee this huge task and only has a matter of weeks to deliver.
Setanta’s problems really came to light when it lost out in a bidding war for FAPL games in February this year – and lost 23 of its total of 46 live FAPL games to Sky. This created a crisis of confidence among investors who were spooked by Setanta’s apparent inability to raise sufficient funds to make a competitive bid.
This week, Setanta will meet Scottish Premier League representatives to continue negotiations over a reduction in its existing contract and a new £125m deal due to start in 2010. And the next £10m installment to the FA is due next month, with a payment of around £35m due to the Premier League immediately following the end of the season.
The key question is what does this mean for Setanta customers? Luckily for them, these problems are occurring at the end of the football season, so should the worst happen, the rights holders should have time to ensure that the live games are passed onto another broadcaster before the start of the new season.
The two key slugs of live games in question are the 60 Clydesdale Premier League (Scottish Premier League) games and the 46 FAPL live games for the 2009-2010 season. Though there is of course also a lot of other very attractive football, golf, rugby, horseracing, and boxing content.
Rights holders for all these sporting events will be developing fall –back plans should Setanta fail, as they will want to ensure at all costs that their content actually gets broadcast. So Setanta customers should get to see all Setanta’s sport next season, but it is not at all clear who they will need to subscribe to, to get it.