Financial difficulties and closure

Reports on 7 June 2009 suggested that Setanta could be forced into administration that week,^[10] after failing to make payments due on TV rights. Because of late payment and renegotiation over fees by Setanta to football clubs, several British football clubs were put into financial difficulties as money promised had been spent in annual budgets. On 4 June 2009, the Scottish Premier League announced they would be paying the sums that some of the clubs were owed to avoid causing them financial problems.^[11]

On 19 June 2009, Setanta Sports failed to pay the latest instalment of £30 million (€35 million) it owed the English Premier League. The Premier League had to sell the rights to the 46 live matches Setanta had for the 2009/10 season. A Premier League spokesman said, "It is with considerable regret that we announce that Setanta has been unable to meet their obligations. As such the existing licence agreement between us has been terminated with immediate effect."^{[12][13][14][15]}

On 21 June 2009, BT Vision stopped selling Setanta Sports channels to customers.^[16]

On 22 June 2009, it was reported by RTÉ News that the original Setanta Sports channel, Setanta Ireland, might be bought out by an existing consortium who already hold interests in Setanta Sport Holdings Ltd., the Irish arm of Setanta Sports. Setanta Sports Ireland and Setanta Sports North America were the only brands which made a profit in 2008.^[17] The same day, Setanta lost all their SPL TV rights because they were unable to pay the £3m (€3.5m) owed to the league.^[18] Following this, it was announced that ESPN UK had bought the rights to show the 46 Premier League games bought by Setanta for the 2009/10 season.^[19]

Setanta GB went into administration 23 June 2009, following failure to make payments to a number of sporting organisations. 430 jobs, 200 of which were in Ireland, were expected to be lost as a result of its going into administration. The administration was handled by Deloitte.^[20] At 18:00 that day, most of its channels ceased operations within Great Britain.^[21]

According to the final report published by Setanta's administrator Deloitte, released in July 2010, the broadcaster had outstanding bank loans of £261m STG and unsecured debt of £288m STG.^[22] Deloitte said that unsecured lenders received just 2p for every pound that they have claimed back from the defunct operator.

Arsenal TV continued until August 2009 while Arsenal explored alternative options.^[23] Liverpool FC assumed responsibility for LFC TV and decided to continue broadcasting as normal.^[24]

Criticism

Just as when Sky Sports, in the 1990s, first obtained the exclusive rights to screen live coverage of the England national football team's away qualifying matches for the World Cup, so Setanta attracted similar criticism as a result of it having obtained the same contract. Whereas Sky often sold on a highlights package to a terrestrial broadcaster (BBC), Setanta indicated that the sums offered by terrestrial broadcasters, reported to be £100,000 to £200,000, were five to ten times lower than their perceived market value; Setanta paid £5 million to screen England's away qualifier with Croatia on 10 September 2008 and believed a sensible highlights package should attract a fee of £1 million.^[25] Thus, no highlights package was agreed, and Setanta themselves showed highlights of both England and Scotland qualifiers free-to-air after the live games had concluded. This was announced at 18:00 on the day the matches took place, and received 220,000 viewers.^[26] Setanta then accepted "a low, six-figure deal" with ITV to show delayed "extended highlights" a few days later.^[26]

Setanta's GB subscriber numbers were lower than those of Sky Sports, and the number of households watching the match live was estimated at around 1.5 million. Because of the availability of Setanta on both digital satellite and digital terrestrial television, the theoretical possible subscriber base surpassed that of Sky Sports (not available via DTT at the time) but fans who were unwilling to subscribe could not see the match live. British Prime Minister at the time Gordon Brown indicated he felt it "unfortunate" more fans could not see the match live for free.

Cancellation issues

Setanta GB also received significant criticism of its cancellation policy, with the issue investigated by the BBC's Watchdog programme and Radio 5 Live.^[27] While customers were able to subscribe either on-line or over the telephone, many customers found it "nigh-on impossible to cancel" the service, with the only means of a cancellation being to inform the company in writing.^[28]

Because of the amount of negative feedback received, Setanta GB eventually changed this to allow for cancellations to be done through email. Furthermore, while customers were originally entered into a 30-day notice period once their cancellation letter was received, this was increased to 60 days without any information being sent to customers; again, because of the negative feedback, this was quickly reduced back to 30 days.^[28] These customer service issues were compounded by the fact that customers had to phone a premium rate number should they have any issues to resolve, with calls costing at least 10 pence per minute.^[29]