It has been confirmed that troubled broadcaster Setanta Sports has now gone into administration, with the loss of all jobs in the UK and Ireland.
It is going to stop broadcasting shortly to customers in the UK, and will immediately cease taking payments for subscriptions. It will however continue to broadcast elsewhere.
Unable to pay the money it owed for its broadcast rights, it lost its bundles of games for both the English Premier League and the Scotish Premier League. It hoped that a rescue package could be reached, but talks broke down and this couldn’t be accomplished.
On Monday ESPN bought the rights to broadcast the 46 English Premiership matches that Setanta were due to show, and its package of 23 matches for the next 3 years. They are going to be shown on one of ESPN’s channels via Sky.
Troubled Irish broadcaster, Setanta Sports, have lost the rights to broadcast the 46 premiership games this season due to failure to pay the fees to the English Premier League.
It all looked like Setanta might be saved by a US invester, but this deal has since fallen through. The idea was for the invester to purchase 51% share of Setanta, but this now won’t happen.
The matches will be auctioned next week to make sure they do get broadcasted. They have however started to accept subscribers again, for how long this will carry on is unknown but currently they are short on requirements of subscribers to break even.
Troubled broadcaster, Setenta Sports has started accepting subscribers to its service again (as has BT) after agreeing a rescue package with American businessman Len Blavatnik.
Blavatnik has agreed to pay £20 million to fill the funding gap that Setanta currently has, this is in exchange for a 51% share in the company.
While the deal has yet to be finalised, the company has started to accept new subscriptions which indicates that it feels that it is out of trouble now.
I have just completed work on a new and improved news system for on TV now. This will enable me to update you more with the developments of the site, as well as any interesting news from the world of TV.
If you are interested in writing for the site, please contact me – tv@ontvnow.co.uk.
You can keep up to date with the news by subscribing to our new RSS feed at http://www.ontvnow.co.uk/blog/rss/
More updates will follow shortly.
The BBC have announced that they plan to bring the iPlayer system to both Android devices and the iPad later this week. The free catchup TV service is already popular and accessible from any internet connected computer, the Nintendo Wii and the Playstation 3. The new apps promise to bring “a simple and intuitive design” to the mobile devices, a system designed to work with the touch screens.
Sky Player has been rebranded today, now known as Sky Go it enables users to watch their Sky programs on a multitude of devices including Computers, Xbox 360's and iPhone/iPads.
Sky Go is the merge of Sky Player and Sky Mobile TV, this service will be free to all Sky Subscribers using your existing account details. You will be able to register 2 devices to use this service, currently there appears to be no way to add any further devices for households with lots of mobile devices.
This service is limited to being in the UK, you won't be able to stream the content while abroad.
For users who aren't a Sky subscriber, you can pay to use the service for £15 per month.
Sky Player has to announce that Sky1 is now available to all customers as part of the entertainment pack. This means you can now watch top shows such as Lost Season 6, 24:Day 8, Bones, Pineapple Dance Studio and many more live and on demand.
Sky1 is in addition to the 27 live channels already available on Sky Player and over the coming months we will be adding even more channels to make your choice even greater.
To get Sky, [url=http://skytv.at/timigoe?CTY=3&CID=47]visit their site[/url].
BT Vision are planning to bring 3D content to their ondemand Vision Service. The company has agreed rights to bring 3D films to the service for the next 12 months.
Access to each film will be from about £6, however to watch and enjoy the content to its full potential a new 3D Television will be required. This will massively limit the number of users who take up this service especially due to the requirement of BT Broadband as well.
Do you have a 3D TV Yet? And if you do, do you have any 3D content?
Virgin Media have announced some details about a new TV service they are bringing to the UK later this year, their new ‘Connected TV Service’ will allow users to store up to 500 Hours of content, in normal, high def and even 3d formats. As well as being able to store the content users will have access to Virgin Media’s on demand service via this new service.
Current on demand services need access to the internet (via ethernet) however due to Virgin Media’s position they are able to bypass this stage and hook directly into the cable network with an inbuild modem. This would allow users to be able to use the service without worrying about other members of a house using up all the internet connectivity.
More details of the product will be announced soon, expect it to be a cabled area only service.
Just a quick update about today’s Playstation update. It will brings the Lovefilm subscription service to the Playstation XMB,
This service will allow Lovefilm subscribers to stream their content directly to their Playstation console and not wait for DVD’s to be posted out. This will run along side the postal service. As well as being able to browse there will be categories for Top Film and Pick of the Week.
Lovefilm is in talks to bring this service to the Xbox 360 and Nintendo console as well but currently it is launching it today on the Playstation 3.