As the Setanta issue rumbles on with no terrestrial highlights likely to be available for a terrestrial service for the Croatia away game for England on Wednesday, I’ve just had a scary thought.
Essentially Setanta purchased both live coverage and highlights of the fixture. But they’ve declined to sell on those highlight rights. The radio rights were sold separately and the match will be on BBC Radio Five Live (I don’t think that Talksport is also covering it, but I’m happy to be corrected).
The radio rights are obviously significantly cheaper than television rights. But what’s to stop Setanta buying up those rights as well? Is there any reason they could buy them and not use them? Or perhaps just put the “radio” out on their own subscription TV channel to show that they’re using them.
That’d incur even more wrath of the fans, but they could do it. Of course we might see the return of the old Talksport trick of reporting what’s going on from a television.
Just a thought!