Setanta Sports TV sold to eir

AwaitYourReply

Sports TV broadcaster Setanta Sports has been bought by Ireland's telecom provider: eir (formerly eircom)

Expect further competition in Ireland between the major players

Sky Ireland
eir (with Setanta Sports/BT Sport/ESPN sports channels in Irish market
Virgin Media (formerly UPC - owned by Liberty Global)
Vodafone Ireland not yet rolled out TV platform despite previous indications they wanted to enter the Quad play market too!
Magnet Networks ?
Digiweb Group ?
3 Ireland ?
Dixons-Carphone Warehouse ?

http://www.independent.ie/business/eir-acquires-setanta-sports-including-bt-sports-irish-rights-34264787.html

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/eir-moves-into-tv-with-setanta-sports-takeover-1.2457088

http://www.techcentral.ie/eir-acquires-setanta-sports-ireland/

https://www.eir.ie/opencms/export/sites/default/pressroom/eir-Acquires-Setanta-Sports-Ireland-Including-BT-Sports-Irish-Rights/

Kristopherus

Good for the consumer. Expect Eir to dangle that Sports carrot in front of all its customers in the coming months. And if they discount the price back to €12-€15 it could be a winner for them.

AwaitYourReply

Well, now that there are devices and APPs with various internet streams of live tv channels worldwide including sports coverage, the viewer has more access to coverage than ever before! SKY are having to adapt with more competition and look at all the Free-To-Air satellite tv channels which were once encrypted unless you subscribed to certain packages. Perhaps we could even see one of Eurosport's channels going Free-To-Air in the future as a showcase for their other encrypted channels.

irishgeo

Lets hope they increase the bitrate for a start.

Vodafone latest firmware update for their modems has added an iptv profile.

AwaitYourReply

That is interesting to hear about Vodafone

I knew I read it somewhere about 6-9 months ago that Vodafone was anxious to become a Quad player too by entering the TV market. They may decide to enter into an arrangement with another TV provider? Perhaps Vodafone are waiting for a number of things to fall into place before going out with yet another major sales/advertising/marketing campaign after the recent rebranding of their 2 main competitors referenced below.

eircom>eir
UPC>Virgin Media Ireland

mikeym

I wouldnt call Magnet a major player in the market.

AwaitYourReply

mikeym wrote: »

I wouldnt call Magnet a major player in the market.

Well Magnet Networks definitely not in their current form anyway.

Eircom's e-Vision iptv (now eir) was probably not regarded as a very serious TV platform competitor for SKY, UPC (now Virgin Media) or Saorview either at one time but that looks like changing given Eircom's big relaunch as eir and acquisition of Setanta Sports and UPC relaunch to Virgin Media Ireland of late.

Vodafone will probably launch their TV offering in 2016 and maybe smaller firms like Magnet will become more attractive to bigger players because of their existing customer subscriber numbers for products like phone & broadband. A lot has been happening in 2015 and I suspect 2016 will continue in a similar way as we emerge from that long economic recession. It's all about consolidation to gain market share at a much faster pace.

icdg

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