Essay 1st draft

Has ‘Sentanta Sports’ recent monopolisation of british football led to the exploitation of digital tv subscribers?

Question 1

I have chosen to look at this subject because it has affected me in many ways for example it has taken I watch England games at home on ITV 1 and sentanta took England away games and some home games away from ITV 1 and Sky. Sentanta took the games of sky breaking there fifth consecutive year of screening them. Sentanta was a new company from Ireland that started in 2001 but only just started to make an impact in the UK in 2008; sky was shocked when they got outbid by sentanta and are now trying everything to get it back. By the end of my research I want to see if my theory is correct the theory that sentanta has used us and taken one of the things we love, England being a very patriotic country we always watch are team play and most of us cant now because of what sentanta has done, now that sentanta has taken the games we will have to pay a ten pound fee plus more fees to be able to watch them again which is too much in this day and age.


The secondary methods I will use to help me explore my hypothesis will be a questionnaire I thought of eight question some open questions and some closed and I will give this out to a couple of friends and family so I get a wide range of responses so that when it comes to talking about it I can say I have a used a varied age. A questionnaire is a really good research tool because it can give you short feed back and long quotes that you can then use to help answer a point and so the questionnaire is a very good research tool. Also the questionnaire is a very quick and easy way to get answers there is no time periods and it can be done anywhere. With the findings of my questionnaire I made a graph and wrote down some key quotes and these can all be used to help me answer my hypothesis. Then I created a focus group I thought of five questions that I thought were more in depth then my questionnaire questions so that I could get a discussing under way and this is exactly what happened the focus group gave me loads of great quotes that were exactly answering my hypothesis not fully but they helped me answer it a bit.

The primary methods I will use consist of a blog that I have created, newspaper articles, blogs that other people have created that talk about my topic, internet statistics internet reviews any books that help with my topic. First I used a blog so that I could post bulletins and questions and also so I could post helpful sites that I could then look at in more detail at home. Secondly there are the newspaper articles there were no articles in the paper at this date because when this a kicked off I was not thinking about looking into the topic so I looked at an archive that was on the guardian site and this had loads of helpful articles so I printed them off and highlighted the key bits I wanted for later use. Thirdly I looked at a wide range of blogs that other people had created this was a good source of research because some of the blogs have been running since the beginning of the year so there was loads of info that I could extract as quotes. Fourthly there are the stays that show us the viewing changes since sentanta have come and the effect of these changes. Finally I will look at all the books that are out there by going on a web based sit called Amazon and looking at everything they have to offer I found a book about ofcom and how the rise of other networks are battling but I cant seem to get it.


Overall all of my research after I have collected will have to go trough a selection and rejection process so that I can find the best bits of info and then I will be able to use that to help answer my question. If there are some more info I need I can either use links that I have already looked at or I can use a completely different research method for example going on Google and typing in key words.

Question2

Also my specific focus relates to the topic as a whole because it has changed how we watch sport on tv and what we watch, we don’t have the freedom to just switching on a tv and watch the football its not on any more so we now have a new whole perception on digital tv we have to find a digital distributor that a has what we want and then have to pay a monthly. My specific focus has changed England’s main plus its fans England’s has one of the biggest audiences in the world, bigger then most national teams and now most of its fans cant even watch them in the comfort of there own home because digital tv institutions like sentanta has taken them.

Now I will talk to you about the key conceptual areas and how they relate to my topic first I will talk to you about audiences the audience has a big effect on my topic because the audience is were the money is mainly at, the audience has the power to make or break an institute. The audience I asked had the same views as me I wanted a more wide range of feedback so I gave more questionnaires out so at the end of it a gave out about twenty questionnaires and then I had a more varied response this told me exactly what I wanted I knew that sky was much better the sentanta its prices and channels tell you that.

Then there are the institutions the main institutions I am looking at are sentanta sky and itv and a slight bit into virgin these distributors are the most popular due to there exposure from advertising and there presentation as being good smart company’s. The institutions are the reason why I am even looking at this topic because they started this all of when they started to broadcast.

My conclusion is that I have really researched my topic in detail and that my hypothesis ‘Has ‘Sentanta Sports’ recent monopolisation of british football led to the exploitation of digital tv subscribers?’ has been clearly answered and I have found out that sentanta has used the English game and used the audiences to make more money I have found out that sentanta charge less money but for less channels and has in my eyes gained more viewers because it took the national team home games.

England vs Germany

Did everyone watch the england game probably yes, but did anyone remember that setanta had outbid sky and itv for england away games and the game was played in berlin in germany!! did they back down or did they just get offered a wod of cash for one game?

What will happen next will england away games be shown on itv?

Who knows?

Sky vs Setanta

SKY SPORTS AND SETANTA SPORTS step up the battle for viewers for their live Barclays Premier League matches today by announcing their selection of fixtures. Sky, which has lost its monopoly of live rights for the first time since the league’s formation in 1992 after European Commission intervention, will broadcast 92 games, two thirds of the 138 that will be shown live, with Setanta screening the remaining 46.

Questionaire results.

When i handed out my questionaire i knew i would get short and to the point answers that is a reason for my focus group, the reaction i got from my questionaire was predicable all the people had backed up sky on being the best and setanta for being a company which is using us to gain money.

Feed back from my focus group.

I did my focus group to 4 people who i thought had different views on the up coming of sentanta, these 4 people gave me mixed feed back one saying that they like what setanta have done and they feel that sentanta has done its job to make money and to show sports, they have not used us to get one over on sky they have just had the better offer and people have warmed to them. Another one said that they feel sentanta are just a waist of money because of the lack of channels and the lack of a good quality signal when before that when they was with sky they had no problems.

So I feel that my focus group was a success because it gave me a wider view of what people think.

Picture from sky sports.

The line up

The lineup

Sky Sports
Premier League 92 live matches, 242 delayed games on Football First

Other football 14 live matches a week from Uefa Champions League; 70 live matches; Coca-Cola Football League play-offs; Spanish La Liga; FA Cup; Carling Cup; international football

Presenters Richard Keys, Jeff Stelling

Pundits Andy Gray, Jamie Redknapp, Ruud Gullit

How much? £28 a month for one sports channel, £34 for two



Setanta Sports
Premier League 46 live matches on Saturday teatime and Monday evening

Other football 60 live Scottish Premier League matches; 79 live Blue Square Premier matches; games in Holland, Germany, France, Portugal

Presenters Angus Scott, James Richardson

Pundits Steve McManaman, Emmanuel Petit, Tim Sherwood, Les Ferdinand, Neil Warnock

How much? £9.95 a month for eight channels on Sky; £9.95 for "best of" channel on Freeview; £8 for Virgin Media cable customers



BBC
Premier League Match of the Day

Other football FA Cup; England home competitive internationals

Presenters Gary Lineker, Ray Stubbs

Pundits Alan Hansen, Mark Lawrenson, Alan Shearer

How much? Licence fee £131.50 a year



ITV
Other football Live Champions League, Football League highlights

Presenters Steve Rider, Matt Smith

Pundits Andy Townsend, Terry Venables, Robbie Earle



BT Vision
Premier League £4 a month for 242 delayed matches in full; £1.99 to watch full delayed matches on pay per view basis; £12 for 242 delayed matches, plus Setanta's "best of channel" including 46 live games.



Virgin Media
New free website offering five-minute highlight packages of Premier League matches. Weekend games available from midnight on Sunday and midweek matches from midnight on day they are played.