Satanta Golf Channel

shapez

Hi Folks,

Just wondering what do people think of the new Satanta Golf Channel?
It has been added to my list at no extra cost.

I think it's pretty good so far. Tips/Ideas/How Tos each night and some highlights/repeats.

The Sony Hawaiian Open is on this weekend. So looking forward to that.

J.R.HARTLEY

sky customers have to pay an extra 15 euro a month, just to get it, do you have NTL or Chrous?
saw the highlights for last weekend and it was just piggybacking the golf channel coverage, i hope their first live tournament is sufficiently better or it won't be worth it.

shapez

I am a Sky Customer but I went for a Sky 4 Mix instead of the whole 6 Mix lot for €65 per month, so I could get Setanta Sports package. It costs me €15 per month at the moment for Setanta.

J.R.HARTLEY

ah, good old greedy JR shoots himself in the foot again, i just can't fathom paying an extra 15 on top of the 65, it seems like there's no real value for money anymore. i looked up the ntl option they only pay 8 euro but i hated their terrible service that was always breaking down

daveirl

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DIEGO WORST

I was very hesitant to purchase Sky Sports in the first place. Made the purchase two years ago, and I’m glad I did. However I found watching PGA events very frustrating due to the number of commercial breaks, and it seems that Tiger Woods is the only player in the tournament.

However I do like Sky Sports, their presenters and commentators, Butch Harmon aside , are very good and professional. I also think the weekly World of Golf programme is far far better than anything Setanta has to offer.
I’m not making the Setanta Sports package investment for two reasons. #1 competition in the market is supposed to reduce prices for the customer, as far as I can see, to be able to watch European Events and American events one would have to purchase both Sky Sports and Setanta Sports, I don’t want to pay extra! #2 I dislike the amateur effort of Setanta’s presenters & expert guests, they are truly awful & boring, and don’t seem to know a whole lot about the sport – unanimous prediction that America would hands-down win the Ryder Cup was one example demonstrating their total ineptitude. I expect this to improve as they headhunt various presenters from other TV networks, but for the moment I couldn’t justify the extra cost.

J.R.HARTLEY

daveirl wrote:

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sky is still worth having for the US Open USPGA, the WGCs and the ryder cup not to mention the European tour. Setanta is far behind Sky for me on Football, SPL? silk purse sows ear anyone? and they show very few prem matches and their basic nasn NHL coverage is again simple piggyback broadcasting, i'm no fan of murdoch but Setanta have a long way to go before they beat Sky.

ps pretty much agree with everything in your two main points there DIEGO, well put, we are being strung out.

shapez

It's really what tastes you have. At the moment I'm living without any Sky Sports Package. I am not a fan of soccer so I have the Setanta Sports instead. I love American Sports, which has NASN also. Some of the Rugby is also on Setanta. So, I figured I watch more of Setanta than Sky Sports.

J.R.HARTLEY

i love the NFL so i'll never cut sky while its on that, at the moment i think diego is right, the golf is too split, you have to choose between euro tour, wgc, tpc and 2 majors (the other 2 are free on BBC) or the ordinary pga tour, it really is a bad state of affairs for consumer choice, exclusivity deals should be illegal, that way channels like BBC and ITV could split things between them like NBC/Fox/CBS do in the states

MisterAnarchy

DIEGO WORST wrote:

I’m not making the Setanta Sports package investment for two reasons. #1 competition in the market is supposed to reduce prices for the customer, as far as I can see, to be able to watch European Events and American events one would have to purchase both Sky Sports and Setanta Sports, I don’t want to pay extra! #2 I dislike the amateur effort of Setanta’s presenters & expert guests, they are truly awful & boring, and don’t seem to know a whole lot about the sport – unanimous prediction that America would hands-down win the Ryder Cup was one example demonstrating their total ineptitude. I expect this to improve as they headhunt various presenters from other TV networks, but for the moment I couldn’t justify the extra cost.

We can thank the EU and their anti monopoly laws for this.
Idiots forced the break up of rights and now the consumer has to pay more .
Setanta paid £15m a year for the USPGA rights which averages about 30k viewers .
Thats £500 per annum per viewer.
They also spent £130m per year for their Premiership football package which is a direct replacement for Prem Plus.
Prem Plus yielded about £35-40m per year.
Setanta are paying way too much in my mind.

DMC

Agree there, as I said recently on the Rugby board, they've bought the rights, but they haven't invested in their production values etc. When Sky arrived, their production values blew the BBC and ITV out of the water, and made them catch-up.

Watching the Scottish Cup on Sunday on Sky Sports, in HD, pitch-side presentation and even in widescreen. Comparing to Setanta's SPL coverage, chalk and cheese.

WRT the golf coverage from the States, they are only at the whim of the US networks. For normal USPGA tour events, coverage is limited to 2 or 3 hours a night.
Sky have always had extended coverage from the WGC and USPGA and US Open majors, (6 hrs a day typically) but for Setanta to justify a dedicated channel that will have maybe just 10 hours a week of live coverage is a bit thin.

DIEGO WORST

Anyone watch Golf Night on Sky Sports last night?
I was well impressed with the format, highlights of the Joburg tournament intermixed with analysis and tips in studio, with Monty as special guest.
Very interesting to hear Monty’s take on things, e.g. how he sets up to shape a shot LtoR and RtoL.

irishtoffee

DIEGO WORST wrote:

Anyone watch Golf Night on Sky Sports last night?
I was well impressed with the format, highlights of the Joburg tournament intermixed with analysis and tips in studio, with Monty as special guest.
Very interesting to hear Monty’s take on things, e.g. how he sets up to shape a shot LtoR and RtoL.

Golf night is not great,they showed highlights that were already shown on sky sports3 an hour earlier.

J.R.HARTLEY

apparently according to the guardians story (first one i could find sorry) on it last year its a 6 year deal, god help us, unless Setanta drastically inprove or else they run out of money, quote is linky

Guardian wrote:

Setanta has signed a six-year deal with the PGA Tour, giving the broadcaster exclusive UK and Republic of Ireland rights to the premier US golf professionals competition

sorry i was wrong earlier when i said Sky still had TPC, Setanta have that too, official PGA story below
Setanta Sports to launch golf channel

Dunken Driver

I'm amazed there has not been more of a complaint re Sky losing out to Satanta.
What have Sky done with the monies set aside for the USGA contract?
Why have our subscriptions gone up when our service has gone down,
Golf night is a cop out, just repeating what we have already seen.
The USGA will lose out as Sky viewers will not pay thereby losing track of US golf.

shapez

Well my answer to that is simply. I've reduced the amount of channels I originally ordered. I have done the same for my parents and I've added Setanta to their list as well.

So you could say that Sky are losing ever so slightly due to the fact that people can't afford to watch €82 (Full Sky package + Premium channels & Setanta Sports) worth of digital TV per month!!! Which IMO is absurd!!