Setanta package to be carried on ntl

Sport On Television New channelThe four established Irish television channels, RTÉ One, Network 2, TV3 and TG4, are set to face increased competition from August when Setanta Sports launch Ireland's first dedicated sports channel. It will be only the fifth channel to be launched in the history of the State.

All 340,000 ntl customers will receive the channel as part of their normal package.

The station will broadcast live coverage of the English and Scottish soccer Premier Leagues, as well as exclusive coverage of rugby's Celtic League.

The English Premiership matches will be shown on Saturdays at 3 p.m.

The channel will be available from August, initially at weekends, to coincide with the beginning of the soccer and rugby seasons. But from January, Setanta Sports will begin broadcasting daily. Setanta say that they have no plans to make the sports channel a pay-per-view or subscription package.

"The idea is that it (the sports channel) is going on the basic ntl package," said Setanta's Brendan Murphy. "There are no current plans to make this a pay channel. This is a commercial arrangement between Setanta Sports and ntl, which is confidential. But customers are not paying extra.

"More events will be announced before the channel goes full-time at the end of the year."

Setanta were able to afford the rights for the matches following a successful bid, in association with RTÉ, for the specific Saturday slot at 3 p.m. In previous years, the Premier League sold the rights as a Britain and Ireland package. The Republic of Ireland was not recognised as a sovereign state with regard to television rights, and while far-flung countries such as South Africa could offer football fans Premiership matches on a Saturday afternoon, the Republic of Ireland could not.

This year the Premier League made a distinction between Britain and Ireland and the tender was offered to bidders in the Republic for the first time.

The chief executive of Setanta Sports and former head of Television Sport in RTÉ, Niall Cogley, said: "RTÉ and Setanta bid together for the Premiership and now we will be able to show the pick of the matches on a Saturday afternoon.

"Last time in the tender process, the Premier League took no account of Ireland's position; this time they did. RTÉ will also have half of the matches, but they are committed to other events such as the Six Nations rugby, so obviously there will be weekends when they won't broadcast Premiership football. We've a minimum of 15 matches each."

In all, 30 matches will be broadcast (15 each), with Setanta showing Scottish football when they don't have an English Premiership match.

"This new channel is a significant step in the Irish broadcast market place," Cogley said. "In a relatively short time Setanta has acquired the rights to top-class sports programming, which has a direct relevance and appeal to a wide audience in Ireland."

Setanta will obviously draw in some of those viewers who do not subscribe to Sky Sports, and the deal will also mean that no fewer than 25 live Celtic League and Celtic Cup matches will be broadcast in Ireland. That deal will last for three years.

They are unwilling to speculate on what other sporting events will be added to the package in January in order to extend it to a daily service. But the options are obvious by looking at what RTÉ currently broadcast. Many top golf tournaments, as well as current flavour-of-the-month events such as the French Open and Wimbledon tennis are not shown by the State broadcaster.

"It is a little bit early to speculate on what properties we might show an interest in the future," added Cogley. "And in many instances we haven't even spoken to the federations yet. But what we do want to do is to evolve into something bigger and better. There is quite a lot out there."

The carrier, ntl, believe that the sports-specific addition to their overall package will make it a stronger product with the customer. They currently have 16 channels in their package and see Setanta's input as offering more premium content.

In addition to the Irish channels, they provide BBC1 and BBC2, UTV, Channel 4, E4, MTV, TMF, Sky One, Sky News, Nickelodeon, Discovery and CNBC.

Setanta Broadcasting is one of four Setanta companies and is a significant force in acquiring international media rights. It is also the world's largest closed-circuit broadcaster.