Setanta Offers Social-Media and Interactive Enhancements around its FA Cup Coverage

Sports programmer, Setanta Sports, offered a range of social-media and interactive enhancements around its broadcast coverage of soccer's FA Cup final Saturday (note: from 9:00AM to 7:00PM on the day of the final, Setanta's coverage was offered to cable and satellite subscribers unencrypted and free-of-charge). Twitter users could access what Setanta billed as "the first-ever Twitter commentary of an FA Cup final": during the live broadcast of the final, Jon Champion, Setanta's lead commentator for the game, offered simultaneous commentary via Twitter (using the handle, @commentweeter); in addition, in the days leading up to the final, he used the microblogging service to post preview comments and interact with soccer fans. "As a commentator, you want to communicate with people in a way that helps them enjoy the game as much as possible," Champion said in a prepared statement. "If becoming a 'Commentweeter' is going to help do that, then I think this is a great idea. This will be the first time I've ever commentated on a game in two ways at the same time but I'm looking forward to it. I'll be busy, but hopefully my co-commentator Craig Burley won't be deliberately trying to put me off!"

Starting May 26th, Setanta also offered an FA Cup final "Event Centre" on its Web site, that featured blog posts and Flickr photo galleries from fans of the two FA Cup finalists, Chelsea and Everton, behind-the-scenes videos, and Twitter feeds from presenters, celebrities and fans. "We want people to enjoy the whole sense of occasion of the FA Cup final, combining both the old and the new in our coverage," Setanta marketing director, Timothy Ryan, said in a prepared statement. "Getting Jon to run the first ever FA cup final commentary on Twitter is a big part of that approach to make Setanta the destination for football fans on cup final day, especially as our coverage will be free-to-air and therefore all cable and satellite viewers can watch our output. Whether Jon's Twitter followers are fans who have to work during the final, want to combine watching the game with surfing the Internet, or are even Chelsea and Everton fans in the stadium itself, we want to welcome everyone to Setanta on cup final day for what should be an exciting end-of-season finale." (Note: UK commercial terrestrial broadcaster, ITV, also offered social-media enhancements around the FA Cup final--see story published on itvt.com May 26th.)