Pubs offered Setanta's Premiership games in Sky package

LONDON - BSkyB and Setanta Sports have reached an agreement that will allow the nation's pubs, clubs and sport centres to receive Setanta's coverage of Premier League football as part of their Sky subscription.

The announcement of the deal follows last week's award by the FA Premier League of 92 matches a season as part of a new contract for Sky and 46 matches a season to Setanta for a three-year period starting with the 2007-2008 season.

The deal will involve Sky paying an undisclosed amount to license the Setanta coverage for commercial premises and is set to ensure that all commercial Sky subscribers will be able to receive all 138 live Premiership games without the need for separate subscriptions.

The deal follows the existing deal brokered between Sky and Setanta for Sky subscribers to receive live coverage of the Scottish Premier League as part of their subscription to the satellite broadcaster.

Richard Freudenstein, Sky's chief operating officer, said: "This is good news for Sky customers -- both commercial and residential. We're pleased to have been able to reach agreement with Setanta to ensure that Setanta's Premiership coverage will be available on the satellite platform."

The two broadcasters have also reached an agreement in principle that will also allow Sky's household customers to access Premiership matches broadcast by Setanta across the Sky digital satellite platform, although viewers will have to pay an additional Setanta subscription for the service.

Trevor East, Setanta's director of sports, said: "Setanta's strategy is to make our programming services available on all platforms. We're delighted to have agreed a deal with Sky that will give us access to all Sky homes, as well as distribution to their pubs and clubs, for both the FA Premier League and the Scottish Premier League."

According to Sky, during the 2005-2006 season an average of 6.1m visits a week were made to watch Sky Sports content in commercial premises including pubs. The figure was up from 5.4m during the 2004 to 2005 season.

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