ITV strikes deal with Setanta...to show England v Croatia highlights

by Staff, Brand Republic 11-Sep-08, 17:00

LONDON - ITV has reached an agreement with Setanta to broadcast highlights of yesterday's England match in Croatia, in which Theo Walcott scored a hat-trick to give a England memorable victory.

The one-hour highlights programme will be broadcast immediately after News at Ten at 10.35pm tonight with a further extended broadcast ahead of the Kazakhstan game.

Mark Sharman, director of ITV News and Sport said: "We're pleased to have secured the highlights of last night's 4-1 victory. We know there is a huge demand to watch England and we're glad we can offer fans a chance to see the action."

ITV already holds the rights to broadcast live coverage of all of England's competitive home fixtures until 2012 - beginning with England v Kazakhstan live on ITV1 on October 11.

However, the commercial broadcaster reached an impasse in negotiations with Setanta after doubling its offer to air highlights last night after the match to £500,000. Satanta eventually aired the highlights at 11:30pm free to air.

Trevor East, Setanta's director of sport, said: "Setanta wants as many football fans as possible to watch its sport. We are delighted that we have been able to agree terms with ITV that will allow further millions of England fans that already watched on Setanta last night to see Theo Walcott and Wayne Rooney score in a terrific victory.

"Setanta will continue to take steps to try to agree sensible and realistic commercial terms with terrestrial broadcasters so that highlights of future international games will be made available to as many television viewers as possible."

Read Gordon's Republic blog - "We hate Satanta" now on YouTube.