They think it’s all over…
Sunday, June 28, 2009 by Graham Kibble-White
...it is now!
With the collapse of Setanta last week, Steve Williams has jumped up from the subs’ bench and written a new addendum to his much lauded history of football on TV, Goalmouths.
So, where did it all go wrong for the channel?
“For those looking for the date the tide turned for Setanta, you could cite December 2008…” says Williams. Why? Well…
Having just read the article it is worth mentioning that in the wake of the out-cry of no terrestrial showing of the Croatia v England game, Setanta unscrambled the channel on Freeview so that non-subscribers could also watch their highlights programme later that same night. I did see this, but I can’t remember how I found out that this was to happen. I think it may have been on the BBC website.
My view is that international games should only be broadcast on free-to-air channels anyway; capturing the England away games was Setanta’s big advertising campaign and IIRC there was a special England fans offer of a reduced rate to cover a couple of the games.