Originally Posted by BBC News
US investor Len Blavatnik is offering £20m in return for a 51% stake in the troubled Irish pay-tv channel Setanta, the BBC has learned.

Mr Blavatnik is also involved with Top-up TV, the pay-tv service on Freeview.

BBC business editor Robert Peston said Mr Blavatnik's intervention could buy Setanta some extra time to stave off "the great day of reckoning".

Setanta has been hit by not having enough subscribers and only winning one of the English Premier League packages.

The firm declined to comment.

Hmmm if they refuse this, they'd be pretty stupid... would be interesting to see how TUTV and Setanta would link-up, as they already have strong ties because of their DTT partnership.

I hope Setanta go under though, its about time Sky were allowed all the matches back, everytime another broadcaster gets live football contracts (ITV Digital, NTL Premiership Plus, Setanta), they always fail and Sky had to bail ITV and NTL out, it seems they are the only broadcaster that can be trusted to make it viable!

I find this bit most interesting:

Originally Posted by BBC News
Setanta, which shows cricket, golf and rugby union as well as football, has about 1.2 million subscribers.

But this is only about 60% of the number it needs, according to analysts, and the company is losing up to £100m a year.

And I wonder how many of them subscribers, are getting it free on Virgin Media as part of the little deal they struck with Setanta... Im not sure on the deal figures, but Setanta will be lucky to take even £1.50 per month per customer revenue from that deal - a pretty big drop from the £10 - £12 they want from everyone else (probably net of about £5 - £6).

BBC News Report