as a boxing fan, i'm kinda disapointed about this...

[web]http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article6458205.ece[/web]

I sorry for the people who work there, but this is a positive development for me.

We started with Sky having a monopoly on the footie - bad thing. They would show maybe 50 Premiership games per season, including all the top ones.

Then we got in Setanta to break the monopoly, and what happens? Sky start showing more games, but more crap, and half the good games go to Setanta. Sky don't bring down their prices, so you're getting a smaller amount of watchable footie for the same money...or, if you pay for Setanta, the same amount of watchable footie, but for more money.

How is that helping the consumer by breaking a monopoly?

The boxing will be back, Doug. If enough people want to see it, someone will pay for it.

Steve W

I subscribe to setanta and think what you get from them is great value to be honest.I cancelled my sky sports and movies last september as I felt I was giving my money to fund the english league as sky only have the rights for the scottish cup which is now a mickey mouse event.Setantas boxing coverage is excellent also.I believe setantas problem is due obviously to lack of subscribers.They need 1.9 million to break even ,but only have 1.2 million.On some other footie forums that i visit some people are claiming to get setanta for £6 or less after complaining to them.There really lies the problem.I paid £180 up front for a year with a one off payment yet some are paying a fraction of this.It's not right but this is happening as matter of fact.My sky subsciption keeps going up as well despite not having the premium channels.Recently my broadband went up from£5 to £10 and I didn't even get a letter.Back to setanta,if it goes tits up which looks very likely scottish football is in even bigger trouble unless sky come in but that looks unlikely as sky knocked back setantas offer to them to buy their rights to show the e.p.l. for 50 million.Things can only get better.

it's gone.

i'm gutted.

my old online pal steve bunce has lost his show...probably one of the best uk boxing magazine shows there has been.
i sent him an email and just got a reply, he's rightly gutted...he will get work elsewhere {he's got other things going on anyway...radio 5 + newspaper columns}, but will he get the boxing hour up and running like it was?..it was totally his own production..
i'll miss that show a lot.


.

With the closure an end has also come to Celtic and Rangers TV. This is gonna be huge, the impact will probably be felt more by the Scottish clubs than the English. But remember it's not just football that's affected. As Doug said the boxing and not to mention things like the Irish League football and a host of others.

I must admit though that I was a bit annoyed when NTL/Virgin made Setanta part of the package because it meant that I no longer got NASN for free. My hope is now that Setanta have ceased that I might get it back. I missed all the College Football last season which was very annoying.

Time to cancel the subscription, i am now only recieving Setanta Ireland (sorry Doug), but i subscribed to watch Scottish football.
With Celtic and Rangers TV now also gone ( the original idea for Setanta was 2 Celtic fans discussing how they could watch Celtic every week on the tv. They formed Setanta TV and the vast percentage of subscribers / viewers were old firm fans.)
Now old firm fans can no longer watch their teams, how long before they are cancelling subscribtions and the rest of the Setanta channels are shut off and more people face the dole Q.

All the channels are off now Davie.