Another one bites the dust

So that's it then. As of 6 p.m tonight Setanta U.K ceased to trade, blank screens and a simple but stark message that the company's U.K operations had ceased. Around 200 employees will be sacked including several people who had jumped ship from Talksport radio and other media outlets in the hope of finding some gold at the end of this particular Irish rainbow. This news comes days after the English Premier League took away the Setanta's rights to show Premier Legue football. The rights has been handed over to ESPN.

It has been revealed that Setanta had below 1.9 millions subscribers and has over £100m debts.

We, or rather I, signed up to Setanta over a year ago. The attraction wasn't just the Premiership coverage but also the football from Scotland, France, Holland and Germany. Suspicions were raised earlier in the year about the company's ability to conitinue trading when a series of articles began appearing in the financial sections of the daily newspapers. It was also noticeable that coverage of the Bundesliga, which had been a highlight of Friday evenings during the autumn and winter months, suddenly disappeared without any warning.

Unfortunately it isn't the viewers who will suffer the most, just as the collapse of the Carlton and Granada owned ITV Digital back in 2002 hit the smaller clubs the hardest, the Blue Square Premiership and Scottish clubs will be the ones who are hit hardest in the pocket. There were already rumours circulating that staff cuts would have to be made and that players contracts were not being renegotiated, this can only add to the financial worries of those clubs involved. It's worth noting that a week after their relegation, Newcastle United shed 200 jobs and that was with the security of two years worth of 'parachute payments.' Clubs in Scotland, with the only exception of Celtic, will have to make up the shortfall in income that has already been factored into budgets for the next three years.

The viewer loses because choice is restricted, okay in this case the Premiership rights have been reassigned to ESPN but it's quite possible that Sky will snap up the Scottish rights. As for the European leagues it looks like a return to the dark days when the British television viewers opportunity was restricted to the Champions League, and half the U.K coverage for those games lies with SKY.