Just How Much Trouble Are Setanta In?

Paul Bestall — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 23:24:28 +0000

More news seems to be filtering through over the continued rumours that Setanta Sports are in financial difficulty here in the UK and are desperately trying to find some finance to help them through after they only won one of the six Premier League Packages for the next deal that starts in 2010. A desperate attempt at going to the Premier League, OFCOM and the European Commission arguing that bidding less for the Monday night packages than Sky and therefore not winning them is unfair. No really.

Yet here in UK, you’ve got take these stories with a pinch of salt, due to the massive media influence that Sky have, sharing an owner with two of the UK’s biggest Newspapers, The Sun and The Times. It wouldn’t take much co-ordination to orchestrate a collective campaign to create worrying speculation over Sky’s rival, yet it’s a story that has dogged them for a while and not just from Sky’s media bedfellows.

With a major investment in British football, with deals for both the English and Scottish Premierships, England matches and the F.A. Cup, Setanta is a major investor in the sport but is now apparently trying to re-negotiate it’s deal with the Scottish Premiership down from £125 million to £100 million. It’s also said to be in talks with the PGA to do the same with its American golf coverage.

Personally, I think it’s done a pretty good job for a new player in the game, though its roster of analysts and presenters could do with an overhaul. Steve McManaman is an unusual choice as the main pundit, Craig Burley a poor commentator. Yes, I have to pay £13 a month more for football, but I love football and not just from England.It gives me German, French, Portuguese, Scottish and Dutch football every week, its preseason friendly coverage is fantastic in its depth and breadth but it is a distant third for quality behind Sky and the undisputed kings, the BBC. I like watching football from all over Europe and Setanta gives me a choice I never had previously apart from the awful Eurogoals on dreadfully inept Eurosport.

One memorial episode featured no commentary for 25 minutes until the noise of someone rushing through the door, slamming it shut and breathing heavily for two minutes before beginning to speak will live long in the mind. Every week the commentator clearly hadn’t seen the footage and was flying by the seat of their pants. It never started on time, it was either early or late but never at the advertised time.It was easily the most infuriating football show on television.

The argument that Setanta feels unfairly done to though just doesn’t hold water. It misread the market and believed that with the last deal, the TV rights market had peaked. They were wrong and under bid by 20% of the deal they went with in 2007, Sky bid more and won it. They didn’t want the Saturday evening game rights as they consistently get the lowest figures of all football shown here in the UK on digital TV. Setanta went for them and won.

They made a massive error of judgement and already under subscribed by the 500,000 viewers it needs to reach it’s break even figure of 1.9 million subscribers, now faces a real prospect of people leaving their service. If Setanta do fail, the Premier League would lose around £159 million in revenue over a 3 year period, which would see each Premier League club lose around 2.7 million per season. It would be doubtful that the BBC or even ITV wouldn’t find the money from somewhere to come up with a suitable replacement.The FA on the other hand have a fallback position with ITV who will have to pay an extra £20 million for the England games if Setanta can’t show them. The FA Cup coverage is another matter.

My only experience of Setanta abroad is when I holidayed in the States and watched Sky’s coverage with Setanta logo on. So would we really miss them that much apart from James Richardson, Rebecca Lowe and Special One TV?

Berbatov To Man United: British Newspapers Follow The Sun’s Lead

The Gaffer — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 08:53:37 +0000

The biggest news of the past 24 hours is that Manchester United has reportedly tabled an official £20 million bid for Tottenham striker Dimitar Berbatov. Problem is there’s no evidence of an actual bid being made and all we have to go on is a quote from his agent in The Sun newspaper. What is the “money quote” from the agent that “confirms” that the “bid” has happened?

“I cannot make any comment until there is official confirmation from Tottenham or United.”

While the story may be true, it could also be the agent trying to start a price war to raise Berbatov’s price.

What makes the whole affair ludicrous is now the other British tabloids are picking up on the story and regurgitating the news, and all they have to go on is an article from The Sun. Meanwhile, The Daily Mail even had the cheek to call the story an exclusive.

Here’s a breakdown of how the story broke and how the other news organizations rewrote The Sun’s material without one of them crediting The Sun:

Headline: United’s £20m Berbatov Bid
Newspaper: The Sun
Day/time article appeared in RSS feed: Friday, 8:53pm ET
Number of attributed sources: One
Source: Emil Dantchev, Berbatov’s agent
Number of direct quotes: One (from agent)
Quote from agent: “I cannot make any comment until there is official confirmation from Tottenham or United.”
Article length: 266 words

Headline: Ferguson Turns His Attention To Berbatov
Newspaper: The Independent
Day/time article appeared in RSS feed: Friday, 9:03pm ET
Source: “There are reports” (i.e. The Sun)
Number of direct quotes: Zero
Article length: 965 words (although only 121 words are about the Berba “bid”)

Headline: United Bid For Berbatov
Newspaper: The Guardian
Day/time article appeared in RSS feed: Friday, 10pm ET
Source: “According to reports” (i.e. The Sun)
Number of direct quotes: Zero
Article length: 135 words

Headline: Exclusive: Get Berbatov: Fergie Puts 20m On Table For Spurs Ace
Newspaper: The Daily Mail
Day/time article appeared in RSS feed: Friday, 11:17pm ET
Source: None mentioned in reference to “bid”
Number of direct quotes: Zero
Article length: 628 words (with only 454 about the Berba “bid”)

At 2:48am ET on Saturday, BBC Sport mentioned 20 words about the story and appropriately placed it in their Saturday Gossip Column

Headline: Spurs Striker Dimitar Berbatov Subject Of Bid From Manchester United
Newspaper: The Daily Telegraph
Day/time article appeared in RSS feed: Saturday, 4:06am ET
Source: “According to reports” (i.e. The Sun)
Number of direct quotes: One (the same quote from The Sun)
Article length: 317 words

To me, this is all about selling newspapers. All of these tabloid and broadsheet newspapers want the eyeballs on their website so they can sell more advertising space. And those print newspapers who were able to squeeze the news into their fish wrappers last night will sell more copies today with the headline about Berbatov. As of press time, the only respectable English newspaper that hasn’t written about the story is The Times. That either may be by choice, if they determine the story is to be utter tosh, or they may be trying to write their own version of the story with new facts and quotes. Then again, they may have fallen asleep at the wheel.

And all of this comes from one news story in The Sun which features plenty of hearsay and one innocuous quote.

The British press are quick to criticize football clubs and stars, but isn’t it time that they raise their journalistic standards and refrain from lazy journalism?

EPL Talk » The Sun

Just How Much Trouble Are Setanta In?

Berbatov To Man United: British Newspapers Follow The Sun’s Lead