Setanta sells football highlights to BBC

Setanta has agreed to sell highlights of this Saturday’s Holland v Scotland World Cup qualifier to the BBC for a “reasonable six-figure sum”.

BBC Scotland will be able to produce a highlights programme from the game in Amsterdam next weekend and will also be able to show highlights of Scotland’s visit to Norway in August as part of the deal.

The pay-TV broadcaster currently has the live rights for all of Scotland’s away fixtures in the World Cup qualifying period, so this deal is expected to go some way to appease terrestrial viewers who have previously complained about the national side’s matches being shown solely on satellite/cable television.

Setanta had previously been reluctant to offer rights deals and sub-license highlights, which would effectively dilute its own rights and risk concern building among its subscriber base.

However, the broadcaster has been open to negotiation and managed to reach an agreement with ITV over last September’s England v Croatia match, which was shown on ITV1 24-hours after the game was played.