Setanta close to meltdown.

[pete 2,499]

I like that format but the problem is lack of resources Pete...

 

Only Sky have the capability to show so many games and I believe they're not overly interested in the Scottish market. Setanta have reasonable amounts of equipment but after that the BBC/STV have been leasing Setanta's equipment for their coverage so we'd have to go with a combination of all four providers.

 

Unfortunately, it's doubtful how well they'd work together - look at the issues with Virgin and Sky recently.

 

There is money to be made but we need people to see the bigger picture and not �£ signs.

 

Frankie Joop van der Ende and John de Mol are big telly makers in Holland and Britain they would also be a possibility and i am sure there are many smaller video companies who could be contracted to do one game and send it via satellite back to a central source. Obviously for the lesser watched games you could use a minimum of equipment.

[Super_Ally 0]

Frankie Joop van der Ende and John de Mol are big telly makers in Holland and Britain they would also be a possibility and i am sure there are many smaller video companies who could be contracted to do one game and send it via satellite back to a central source. Obviously for the lesser watched games you could use a minimum of equipment.

 

St Mirren - Falkirk available on your t.v. via a link up with some guys mobile phone?

[Gribz 743]

I will explain how it works in Holland. Eredevisie live is run bij the Eredevisie(premier league). All games are live on the telly with with the possibility to watch whatever games you want depending on your provider. Some providers only have two channels available and therefore show chosen games. Most of the big Internet\telephone\digital tv companies have an option. I pay 15 euro's a month and the cheapest is 10(i think) euro's a month as they only have two channels. Normally there is one game on a Friday evening which is also shown on one of the commercial channels. That leaves eight games to be played over Saturday and Sunday. Normally this is 4+4 as most providers have 4 channels available. On the last game of the season all games were played at the same time. My provider made all 9 live games available and also Eredivisie live a programme that jumped from game to game. Even the second division here has a full 1.5 hour highlights show.

Surely a similar set-up could be looked at in Scotland.

 

The TV channels here have a similar agreement with The EPL, Spanish, German and Dutch leagues / TV channels.

 

On a weekend, we get 8 of the 10 EPL games on live, at least 4 Spanish, 2 german plus daily highlights, 4 Dutch games plus repeats all week and 2 SPL matches with daily repeats.

 

The SPL has to look at this type of arrangement then sit down with the SFA and SFL and revamp the system. There are millions of Scots worldwide who would gladly pay a small fee to see the games and if your getting a small subscription fee from such a high number then its easy income.

[pete 2,499]

The TV channels here have a similar agreement with The EPL, Spanish, German and Dutch leagues / TV channels.

 

On a weekend, we get 8 of the 10 EPL games on live, at least 4 Spanish, 2 german plus daily highlights, 4 Dutch games plus repeats all week and 2 SPL matches with daily repeats.

 

The SPL has to look at this type of arrangement then sit down with the SFA and SFL and revamp the system. There are millions of Scots worldwide who would gladly pay a small fee to see the games and if your getting a small subscription fee from such a high number then its easy income.

 

This is a foreign agreement Gribz i am talking about how the national system works. Foreign game rights are owned by a commercial firm here but they are also now turning from a 40 euro subscribe to offering all the big providers a 10 euro deal. People will possibly pay 10 euro's but few will pay 40 euro's.

[ascender 352]

My biggest problem with Setanta was the poor picture quality they offered for SPL games. I remember a few in really bad weather which verged on the unwatchable. Add in their amateur-ish commentating team & pundits and you have a pretty piss poor service.

 

I know it was the only way for Bears to see games if they couldn't make it (apart from the dodgy web links obviously), but I thought it was a joke that we had to pay for the service. If you set yourself up to broadcast football in this country, you're going to be compared to Sky, so unless you sort your shit out, you're going to be up against it imo.

[Zappa 0]

They're definitely in dire straights. They tried to punt their rights to over 40 EPL games for next season to BskyB for �£50m & were knocked back. The likes of BskyB & ESPN will be interested in picking up the coverage rights at knock down prices should Setanta go into administration. The major problem for us is that they're only really interested in investing any serious money in the EPL & Championship & that's a simple matter of potential subscribers. Setanta only have just over a million subscribers in total, so that shows you that they only have a few hundred thousand Scottish subscribers at best, which is a number that is of absolutely no real interest to the likes of BskyB. Ok, it's worth picking up for a bargain price, but from a business perspective it's nowhere near the sort of numbers that warrant putting significant sums of money into the Scottish game.

[Wija 0]

1.2 million customers, 85% of home are not in Scotland. It makes no sense for anyone to bid for the Scottish rights. The likes of Dundee Utd, Hibs and Hertz have royaly fcuked this up with there uppity attitude back when Sky were giving a great deal, but the share of the money was not equally distributed.

[Zappa 0]

1.2 million customers, 85% of home are not in Scotland. It makes no sense for anyone to bid for the Scottish rights. The likes of Dundee Utd, Hibs and Hertz have royaly fcuked this up with there uppity attitude back when Sky were giving a great deal, but the share of the money was not equally distributed.

 

I wonder what sort of subscription numbers a non-profit making Scottish football channel or channels could muster up? One of the problems with the Setanta & Sky deals for Scottish football is that Scottish people know that those companies are supposed to be inherently profit-making & despite the fact that they're putting money *into* the Scottish game, they're also taking it out. If an SPLtv channel/s were to provide the clubs with their chunk of the subscription, advertising & sponsorship revenue and NOT take any money out of Scotland, but put it back into Scottish football youth development & lower leagues, then maybe the subscription numbers could be 2, 3 or even 4 times what Setanta have. Obviously it would need serious funding & that's something that taxpayers could help with if the Scottish parliament could help out, since such a venture would possibly be more beneficial to Scotland than bailing out supposedly failing banks south of the border with Scottish taxpayers money.

[calscot 0]

Yep it's time the SPL took over the TV and COMPLETELY overhauled the way we show football. Get 3 SPL channels (one HD) on there that show three games a week live with full replays of the other games, 30 minute highlights of every game, 15 minutes analysis of every game as well as a one hour program which shows 5 minutes of every game.

 

Put in a 30 minute preview of every game and a one hour weekly magazine programme for every team and a results program on the Saturday. Also a daily one hour daily news show covering all teams and take on the Real Radio phone in.

 

Bring in Cup games, Scotland games, friendlies, U21 and aU19 games, interviews, SFL highlights, goals and news etc, etc, etc - and with decent presenters, commentators and pundits, along with a pin-sharp picture it could be unmissable, especially if it's exclusive.

 

You could pad it out with EPL highlights and news as well as a European round up and maybe take up the cheap deals on live European games.

 

Much of the stuff could be repeated during the week to fill the schedule and allow people 2nd and third chances to watch stuff.

 

They could aim for 400k subscribers at �£200 a year (more than Setanta but better quantity and quality, and less than Sky) and you bring in 80M with perhaps 20M in costs, leaving 60M split between 12 clubs.

 

I'd pay more to be able to watch better coverage of two thirds of Rangers games and every Scotland game plus 30 minute highlights if I miss it. And I'm sure many fans of other SPL clubs would be willing to pay for seeing two thirds of their games plus extended highlights and Scotland games. They would no longer feel like second class citizens when it comes to their club on TV.

 

An HD channel would be a big selling point, bringing everything up to date and allowing us to watch the game with a great picture for a change.

 

Surely with over 150k people attending games, there must be about 300k willing to pay to watch them on the telly in Scotland and a further 100k in England?

 

There is the question of whether it would affect attendances but the live coverage from Setanta has hardly dented it.

[calscot 0]

1.2 million customers, 85% of home are not in Scotland. It makes no sense for anyone to bid for the Scottish rights. The likes of Dundee Utd, Hibs and Hertz have royaly fcuked this up with there uppity attitude back when Sky were giving a great deal, but the share of the money was not equally distributed.

 

There must be a significant number of those 85% who are Scots living in England though - like me.