Bravo TV and Setanta to Share Live Serie A Coverage

Drag00n79

[font=verdana, arial, helvetica]Just thought people would be interested in this. British Eurosport's TV rights to live Serie A is up and Bravo have acquired the rights (along with Setanta) for 2005/06 and 2006/07.

Bravo is set to revive Football Italia after poaching the rights to Italian Serie A league football from British Eurosport.

The Flextech-owned broadcaster has teamed up with Irish broadcaster Setanta for a two-year deal, which will give Bravo the rights to screen the key "Superclassico" matches on Sunday nights from 28 August. It will also show a recorded mid-week match, an hour-long highlights programme and a weekly magazine show.

Setanta, which brokered the estimated £1m deal with rights holder Sport 5, will air the remaining games live on Setanta Sports 1 and 2 and on Setanta Ireland.

Bravo has commissioned All3Media-owned producer North One to produce its footage, which will be anchored by veteran Serie A presenter James Richardson, who moves over from British Eurosport.

Richardson and North One head Neil Duncanson have a long history with Serie A. North One, formerly Chrysalis TV, produced Channel 4's Gazzetta Football Italia coverage back in the 1990s, which Richardson anchored.

Duncanson said the shows would be similar to C4's classic magazine-style show, which was feted for making the often confusing world of Italian football relevant to British football fans.

North One entertainment editor Carri Rosen will series edit, while Don Terretta, who also worked on the original C4 series, is executive producer. North One is also in talks with Setanta about pooling resources such as commentators and other costs.

[/font][font=verdana, arial, helvetica]In Flextech Television’s biggest sports acquisition to date, Bravo is partnering with Setanta Sports to bring live coverage of the Italian Serie A league—home to such clubs as Juventus and AC Milan—to its U.K. audiences every Sunday night.

As part of the two-year deal with Setanta Sports, Bravo will air the ‘superclassico’ matches live as well as a recorded match mid-week, a one-hour highlights program, and a weekly magazine show. Bravo has tapped independent production outfit North One to produce the entire package of programming.

Setanta Sports will show the remaining Serie A games each week live on its Setanta Sports 1 and 2 channels and on Setanta Ireland.

“Football Italia and Serie A are established and respected sporting brands in the U.K. thanks to the work of Chrysalis and Channel 4 in the 1990s,” noted David Clarke, Bravo’s channel editor. “We believe it has been dormant too long and in close partnership with North One we intend to reinvigorate Italian football in the U.K. and showcase all the passion, skill, style and footballing culture that it brings.”
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therecklessone

Good stuff.

Big fan of Richardson, probably the best in TV footie.

Very surprised the deal is only worth £1 million TBH.

Bateman

Setanta had live games last year as well, though, and a highlights package on a Thursday night. I hate the way Italian and Spanish matches clash though. I feel an investment in Sky Plus coming on.

Drag00n79

Bateman wrote:

Setanta had live games last year as well, though, and a highlights package on a Thursday night.

Last year, Serie A was only on Setanta Ireland — not the UK versions as well. From the press releases the magazine style offering from Bravo will be very remeniscent of the old Channel 4 one on a Saturday morning, which was much more comprehensive than anything Setanta or Eurosport did last year. It's a good move for fans — that's the main thing.

Bateman

Shamrok wrote:

Last year, Serie A was only on Setanta Ireland — not the UK versions as well. From the press releases the magazine style offering from Bravo will be very remeniscent of the old Channel 4 one on a Saturday morning, which was much more comprehensive than anything Setanta or Eurosport did last year. It's a good move for fans — that's the main thing.

I take your point, but the morning Gazzeto show on C4 used to be farcical when Gazza went there, I mean James and Gazza playing FIFA, James and Gazza visit the Colosseum, James and Gazza talk interiors, etc etc.

Having said, Setanta do suffer from not having a studio setting, the abrupt ending to their programmes does annoy me, so hopefully they'll develop that end of things in the near future.

Drag00n79

true about Gazza but he was only there for three seasons up to 1995. After that, the Channel Four show was excellent with some big interviews most weeks.

MisterAnarchy

Disappointing news this.
Eurosport did a good job.
Setanta are a farce of a channel.
Their production values are atrocious,I'd do better in my attic with a PC.
Bravo will do a good job though.

Badabing

A bit harsh on setanta, their bringing a lot of live football to Ireland previously not available without sky etc...Interesting to see how vieira gets on playing in a more compettive league with juventus.

Mossy Monk

bit harsh on Setanta? but it's true!!!

good to see that non Setanta subscribers will see some games from Italy

Badabing

Mossy Monk wrote:

bit harsh on Setanta? but it's true!!!

good to see that non Setanta subscribers will see some games from Italy

I agree it's not the best coverage of games, but give them a chance, remember when sky sports started not exactly first rate, after a couple of years they improved vastly.

Roar

gooooaaalllllll lacccciiiiiioooooooo......

(sorry just had to do that)

bravo will do a good job i reckon, i refuse to pay for setanta cause its sh!te..

not the biggest fan of italian football myself, most of the time its like watching a game of chess..

KdjaCL

Ah feck Setanta seriously suck, prefered Eurosport.


kdjac

evad_lhorg

dont get eurosport on NTL unfortunately so this is good for me as setanta is free.

YeatsCounty

Of course I'll just be getting rod of chrous and heading off to canada when this happens. :rolleyes:

Still, it is good news though. I don't have British Eurosport, so i didn't get to see any Serie A games at all. :-/

Drag00n79

Roar wrote:

bravo will do a good job i reckon, i refuse to pay for setanta cause its sh!te..

I have to agree that their presentation is poor but they do allow the viewer to see European matches live which I enjoy. Btw, it is being widely tipped that the next Live TV deal in the UK for the Prem will be split between Sky and Setanta UK. They will be big players.

Mossy Monk

i would expect Sky to hold on to the big games, while Setanta will get the not so big games

Third_Echelon

I watched the bundesliga and french football last year on setanta. Their presentation is a bit pants to be honest, but i got to see some good football. Hopefully for italian, german and french games they will spend a bit on the production...