| The brains behind the Setanta TV success story
By Niamh Hennessy
 SIXTEEN
years ago Ireland faced the might of Holland in the Italia ‘90 World Cup — but
two men in London felt left out.
Avid Irish Post readers Michael O’Rourke and Leonard Ryan had recently arrived
in Britain from Ireland and were frustrated that the match was not being
televised anywhere in mainland Britain.
Chelsea fan Michael, who hails from Newry in Co. Down said: “I knew the game had
to be on television. It was being shown in Northern Ireland so I knew the
picture had to be getting across the water somehow but that was the extent of
our knowledge at the time.”
They rang the BBC to enquire about getting the rights to show the game.
Michael said: “They told us that we really couldn’t get the rights as they had
been agreed eight years beforehand and the only way was if you got permission
from the BBC’s rights department.”
He added: “The guy at BBC was very helpful and gave us all the numbers for
people to talk to and the BBC told us that they didn’t mind us showing the
game.”
There lies the roots of Setanta television, which has grown from strength to
strength since these early days in Ealing.
The men had 24 hours to get the word out around London that they were showing
the Ireland-Holland game.
Michael said: “In those days in 1990 there were no mobile phones or internet, it
really was word of mouth but about 700 or 800 people turned up.”
The match was broadcast in the Top Hat in Ealing London, which is now the Ealing
Christian Centre but according to Michael back then it was a big Irish
nightclub.
He said: “We decided that because so many people turned up with just one day’s
notice there must be a busi-ness in this.”
Small beginnings
And that’s how it started. Despite not making any money from showing the game,
the guys decided to progress further. The next big match they showed was the
All-Ireland Football final which saw Dublin take on Donegal.
Dubliner Leonard said: “We showed that in the Hammersmith Odeon and also in the
Top Hat in London as well as in Leeds and Irish Centres in Birmingham and
Manchester and also in Paul Daly’s pub in Munich.
The business progressed from there and instead of doing venues they started
doing pubs.
Michael said: “There was a sportscast that was broadcasting Gaelic Games on a
Monday night in England and they were owned by British Aerospace. They had gone
bust and were competing directly against Sky so we bought all their dishes and
essentially their customers so that’s when we started showing Gaelic Games.
“London and mainly Britain were really the roots of Setanta because it wasn’t
until 1995 that we went to the States. Our very early days were very much
London-based.”
The men came on the scene at a good time as Channel 4 had been showing the GAA
finals for a few years in Britain but had dropped it to concentrate on Italian
football.
Leonard said: “One thing led to another really. The last six years of our
development we have certainly been building to where we are now but in 1990 we
just wanted to see the matches and see if we could make a few quid from showing
the games. The original match we just wanted to see, and we didn’t make any
money.”
Michael and Leonard hit the headlines this year with their £393million bid for
Premiership rights, starting next season.
Winning rights
Setanta broke BSkyB’s monopoly of live Premier League matches by winning the
rights to show 46 matches per season from 2007 after the European Commission
ruled that the Premier League would have to divide the rights to the matches
into six bundles of 23 games, stipulating that no one company would be able to
own all six.
Michael said: “It’s building up from where we are now. And when we start the
Premiership we’ll have nine channels.”
These channels include Setanta Sports 1 and 2, two racing channels, their North
American channel, Golf channel and Setanta Ireland as well as Celtic TV and
Rangers TV.
Despite the hype surrounding the Premiership deal both men are quick to point
out that they don’t see themselves as a challenger to Sky Sports.
Leonard said: “We see ourselves as complementary to Sky. We don’t ever think we
are going to supplant Sky Sports and it’s not an ambition we have.”
Some analysts believed Setanta paid too much for the Premiership rights but this
sentiment is not shared by Michael and Leonard.
Michael said: “We were delighted with the price we paid and we would suspect
that the price will be more expensive next time. Just look at Sky, many people
thought they paid too much when they first got the Premiership but they built
their business around that.”
He added: “Nearly everyone thinks we did well. Sky paid 50 or 60 per cent per
match more than we did and if we paid too much then Sky certainly did. We’re
very comfortable with the price we paid and to be honest we could have bid
more.”
Leonard added: “We’ve been building up and working towards this and Brussels
really opened the door for us. Someone was going to get a package but winning
the two packages was the big thing.”
GAA to stay
Both men were quick to point out that the GAA coverage will not have to make way
for other sports in future years.
Michael said: “No, the GAA will not make way for other things. This is the first
year we have shown all the Gaelic Games live in the home and I think that’s a
great development that people can see it at home.”
He added: “We will continue with the GAA coverage as long as we hold the rights;
that’s the beauty of having all the channels we have.”
Last year Setanta spoke of how they want to have 1million British customers by
the middle of 2008 and this is something they think they can still achieve.
But they are giving little away about who they have in mind as presenters for
next year’s Premiership season.
Michael said: “We have a very good idea of who they are but we can’t announce
anything yet. It’s still almost a year away but we have a very good idea of who
we want to have.”
He added: “Paul Dempsey has joined from Sky and he’ll be doing a lot of stuff
out of Ireland. It allows him to spend time in Ireland with his family.”
The next six months are going to be a busy time at the Setanta offices
worldwide.
Michael said: “The big thing at the moment is that we have just announced a
Racing UK deal which will be a huge interest to many of the readers of The Irish
Post.”
Expansion is key
International expansion is crucial to the development of Setanta and they said
they will continue their development in Europe, America and Australia.
Leonard said: “We’ve had enough announcements in the last six months and now we
have to get our heads down and build the business around them instead of buying
new rights. There’ll be a consolidation process for the next six months so you
probably won’t see any more announcements from us for a while.”
Part of this consolidation will be finalising how the Premiership games will be
broadcast next season.
Michael said: “The coverage won’t be hugely dissimilar to Sky in that we’ll
probably go up an hour before the kick-off. We will try and do things a little
differently as well but we’re not going to revolutionalise it either. At the end
of the day it’s still football, we’ll still just be following a ball with a
camera.”
Raising capital is another part of Setanta, which is part-owned by Benchmark
Capital and is something which has played a major role in the development of the
Irish television station.
Leonard said: “We have gone through a process for the last two months and we are
now at a shortlist stage where we need to decide who we’re going to go with
exclusively. But we were very happy with the reaction we got when we went out to
raise the money.”
The Irish translation of ‘Setanta’ may be ‘little’ but one thing is for sure
there is nothing diminuitive about this company. There is no doubt we’ll be
hearing a lot more from the Irish entrepreneurs in the future as Setanta
continues to grow.
Setanta timeframe
 1990:
Michael and Leonard show their first match in Ealing, London
1992: Setanta Sports is born
2002: Setanta begin to develop subscription television channels to complement
their sports pay-per-view operations
2006: A £393million bid for English Premiership rights by Setanta is accepted
2007: Setanta will begin broadcasting live English Premiership games from August
of this year
What’s in a name?
The word Setanta is taken from one of Ireland’s great heroes, Cúchulainn, which
means the “hound of Cullan”. As a child, this great hero’s name was Setanta
meaning “the little”.
He was given the name Cúchulainn when he killed the fearsome watchdog of the
smith Cullan, by hitting a sliotar (the small ball used in hurling) down the
animal’s throat. Having killed the watchdog, he undertook to guard Cullan’s
house in place of the hound.
Chance meeting
Although Leonard and Michael went to the same school it wasn’t until a college
party that they finally spoke to each other. Leonard’s girlfriend was in college
with Michael and the two boys met at a party one night in London. |
