Setanta raid Sky to claim East

Ian Guider

Trevor East, who is deputy managing director of BSkyB, the British broadcaster that owns Sky Sports, is jumping ship to become director of sport at Setanta Sports. Mr East also held that position at ITV.

Mr East’s knowledge will be vital when Setanta eventually make a bid for one of the English Premiership television rights packages.

He said: “I am joining Setanta at this point in their development because I believe the company has the potential to be a major player in sports broadcasting internationally.

“I have had 10 very good years at BSkyB where I was privileged to be part of a great team that built up one of the world’s best sports broadcast businesses. I believe Setanta has the same sort of potential.”

The Irish broadcaster has the rights to show Scottish, Spanish, French and German football, and will be hoping to break Sky’s stranglehold on the Premiership.

Sky have rights to broadcast the Premiership until 2007.

The European Commission has indicated that it would like to see another broadcaster show some of the matches, opening the way for Setanta.

The last rights deal cost BSkyB over E1 billion, though the EC are likely to split the package up with live football spread around several broadcasters.

The company also said that Richard Brooke, a former finance director of BSkyB, who is a non-executive of Setanta, is moving to the full-time position as director of corporate development. And Mark O’Meara, the former chief executive of online broadcaster Servecast, was joining as chief operating officer.

The move is a major boost for Setanta, which launched Ireland’s first sports channel earlier this year. It operates seven channels in seven countries.

The company, founded by Leonard Ryan and Michael O’Rourke, began life broadcasting GAA games to ex-pats in London, where the pair worked in the early 1990s.

Setanta now has the rights to Formula One.

Celtic League rugby, European football and world wrestling. Setanta also has a share in NASN, an American company that broadcasts US sports around the world.