The future of pay-TV broadcaster Setanta looks bleak after Access Industries pulled out of its bid to buy a majority stake in the company.

On Friday evening, the Premier League announced that Setanta had lost their rights to broadcast two live Premier League games, effectively immediately.

It is another nail in the coffin for the Irish broadcaster, who had been warned by the Premier League that their contracts would be taken away from them should a £35million payment not have been paid today.

Sky Sports are expected to purchase one of the two packages which Setanta previously had the rights to, with the remaining package to be sold to another company as Sky are forbidden from holding a monopoly over all Premier League television rights.

What happens next will remain to be seen. At time of writing, Setanta’s customer services department were telling customers trying to cancel their subscriptions that the breaking developments were “just speculation” with one employee telling iFight365.com that they had heard nothing to suggest that the company had lost rights to show live Premier League games.

Setanta were minutes away from entering administration last week until Access Industries rescued them with a proposal to purchase the company.

But a week later, AI have pulled out and with television rights gone, it is almost certain that a large number of Setanta’s current 1.2million customer base will be looking to cancel their subscriptions.

It is unclear how long Setanta will now have before they are forced into administration. But unless they find a new investor quickly, it is again possible that UFC 100 on July 11 will not air live in the UK – at least not via Setanta.

Phil Lowe
phil@ifight365.com