Setanta Sports has passed the one million subscriber mark, adding 200,000 subscribers in the past year, and not including the two million homes that receive the channel as part of sweetheart deals with Virgin Media and UPC Ireland.
Setanta evolved from the transmission of Irish football internationals and Gaelic football into UK pubs. In recent years its DTH service has been built on US PGA golf and from August this year coverage of 46 matches from the Premier League.
The company needs an additional 500,000 subscribers over the next 18 months in order to reach breakeven.