Setanta launches Freeview service

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The sports broadcaster that recently emerged as a serious rival to BSkyB for Premier League football rights, announced that it had secured a berth on the digital terrestrial service Free-view for the first time. According to media reports, the company has sealed a deal with Top Up TV, the add-on pay-TV element to Free-view founded by the former Sky executives David Chance and Ian West, to use its capacity to show games on a pay-per-view basis. It will initially use the slot to show the Scottish Premier League live games to which it has exclusive rights for between £6 and £8 a match. But analysts expect the broadcaster to launch an aggressive bid for the rights to some live English Premier League games when the current deal expires in 2007.

Under a compromise deal with the European Commission, the Premier League will have to split the rights between more than one broadcaster, ending Sky's dominance of live coverage. This has alerted a host of potential bidders, including Setanta. Over the past few months it has signaled its intention to become a major player in sports broadcasting by hiring Trevor East, the former Sky Sports deputy managing director, and was piped at the post by Sky in the battle for live coverage of the Football League. Although there are now more than five million households with Free-view in Britain, fans who want to watch the matches will need a set-top box compatible with the Top Up TV service.