Setanta Sport Could Join Freesat,In Future

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Could be good news :)


Setanta Sport, a pay-tv sports network presently available on Sky and Freeview, are currently in discussions with Freesat. They are considering allowing access to their channels through Freesat, free of charge, with income coming from advertising only.

This would be a huge boost for Freesat as Setanta is seen as an important package for keen sports fans, with a proportion of english football and world golf, plus many other sports.

Whilst an interesting prospect, Setanta will have to put significant investiment into making their channels available FTA on Freesat, whilst continuing to supply to Sky customers by subscription only.

The discussions are in very early days, there’s no way Setanta would take such a move now, but the future would certainly look interesting if Freesat can place agreements with such channels.
 
The only downside I can see to freesat, is that they are going too have to make a profit somewhere. That can only be done via advertising, so it will be 10 mins of program then 10 mins of Adverts so they can fund these "free" channels, especially if Sultana Sports join it.

Its good for the consumer having free tv, but bad for the watcher as they maybe wathing adverts most of the time!
 
TBH i cant see this happening as pubs would snap up these systems left right and center, at the moment for a pub to have setanta its about a grand via sly, some are getting it via freeview for 10 quid a month but sly are doing their best to stop this even though nothing in the box says it cant be used commercially

the only way it could be available for free was if it showed crap all of the time
 
Maybe what they actually mean is a new Setanta owned channel, perhaps showing highlights and delayed screenings along with Sports news etc.

I can't see a high profile sports channel joining a free service any time soon.
 
The only downside I can see to freesat, is that they are going too have to make a profit somewhere. That can only be done via advertising, so it will be 10 mins of program then 10 mins of Adverts so they can fund these "free" channels, especially if Sultana Sports join it.

Its good for the consumer having free tv, but bad for the watcher as they maybe wathing adverts most of the time!
I do not get this point whatsoever?
Adverts on sky are a nightmare as much as any free channel.
Advertisers pay money to the channels that get viewers, this is proven with skyonc -which has drastically lost viewers and is costing sky 80million a year in lost revenue. Skyonc used to have more viewers than any non-psb digital channel, yet it now often has less viewers than secondary channels from FIVE. ITV2 now has the most viewers excluding the 5 main psb's, and this is where advertisers want to be.
## So ITV make the profit, sky make the loss ##

Lets take a smaller channel too. Sky has 'History' channel with 0.1% of total viewing figures. Freeview has 'ukhistory' with 0.3% of total viewing figures. Freeview now also has more homes than sky.

The arguement that 'Free' satellite cannot beat 'Pay' satellite is just not valid. It has been proven that 'free' brings profit, and thats the drive for freesat and the reason why so many broadcasters want to join. As soon as subscribers start leaving sky then so will advertisers, so will skys profits. They pay heavily for content so they will have a market, but this will be too expensive for the majority.

In the future Freesat may even see additions of Pay channels too, as an upgrade, just like Top-up tv. Freesat will not be limited, thats why it will work.

:)
 
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In the future Freesat may even see additions of Pay channels too, as an upgrade, just like Top-up tv. Freesat will not be limited, thats why it will work.

...creating direct PAYTV competition to Sky, hence ending their monopoly and bringing down prices :)

Future looks bright, Viva la FREESAT!

:)
 
When i signed the peice of paper after my freesat hd was installed,there was a box to tick asking if you wanted to take part in a freesat questionairre.
All the installer could tell me was that he's heard it's something to do with setanta channels?
Questionairre not arrived yet,and it says theres a small cash incentive for taking part.
 
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