Things are looking bleak for Irish pay TV operator Setanta: PE firm Doughty Hanson, which owns 20 percent of the company, and Goldman Sachs, which owns five percent, have both written off their investments in the company entirely after it lost half its live football TV rights to BSkyB (NYSE: BSY), reports Telegraph.co.uk. Setanta, which currently has two of the six live English Premier League (EPL) rights packages, will have just one for the 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons after Sky upped its bid to a record £1.62 billion to capture five out of six. And now Setanta is conducting a review of its assets that could see it lose its other live TV rights such as boxing and rugby. This will all be music to the ears of BSkyB, which is increasingly unchallenged in the pay-TV sports market.
Is this good news for the online-savvy sports fan? The digital offering for sports in the UK leaves much to be desired and some would argue that a decrease in competition to BSkyB will do nothing to improve it. Sky may have opened access to its Sky Player VOD portal to non TV-subscribers, but a monthly subscription is still needed to watch (Setanta also simulcasts its channels online for a monthly fee). While you can watch highlights of EPL and Championship matches via the Perform-Virgin Media e-player, there’s currently nowhere to watch live matches on a pay per view basis — which is exactly what German pay-TV operator Premiere will do from next season onwards. Sky is promising a good deal of new media investment this year, including a move into IPTV, possibly as part of the BBC’s Canvas project, but whether there will be an improved or expanded, digital-only sports service remains to be seen.
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