Nigeria’s pay TV company, HiTV, has controversially lost the lucrative English Premier League (EPL) broadcast rights in Nigeria to Multichoice/DSTV beginning from the 2010-2011 season kicking off next month.

THISDAY sources said despite paying $40 million for the content value of the first of the three seasons which it won last year, EPL insisted on bank guarantees for the remaining two seasons.

HiTV was given a deadline of last Monday, but, according to an inside source, “the new processes put in place because of the banking reform meant we could not get the guarantees ready by the Monday, July 19 deadline, but we had letters from Nigerian banks which said the guarantees would be ready by Friday (today)”.

However, DSTV announced yesterday that it had acquired the Nigerian broadcast right to the Premiership for the next three seasons.  It held the right until three seasons ago when HiTV arrived on the scene.

Adewunmi Ogunsanya, chairman of MultiChoice Nigeria, SuperSport’s parent company, said he was delighted to have the premium content back on his platform, but said the focus would still remain the growing of the domestic league, a project his company embarked upon two years ago after they lost the Barclay right to their local rival.

“We are happy to welcome back the English Premier League onto the DStv platform in Nigeria, to stand alongside the other exciting international soccer coverage we already provide to our subscribers here.

“However, our focus remains firmly on showcasing home-grown talent from the Nigerian Premier League and we will continue our investments in this regard.

“As a Nigerian business that is committed to providing our growing subscriber community across Nigeria with the world’s best channels and programming, we are pleased that SuperSport are able to take up the opportunity when it presented itself, to ensure that fans of this league will not miss any action from it.”

A dependable source at HiTV confirmed the development, saying that it was as a result of the failure to secure a bank facility to pay for the right.

Meanwhile, SuperSport is promising even better packaging for the return of the bouquet to the MultiChoice fold. According to Ogunsanya, apart from the return coming with all 380 Barclays Premier League matches, there will be a Premier League 24-hour, seven-day-a-week content service in high definition, which will launch on August 13.

The Chief Executive Officer of SuperSport, Imtiaz Patel, added on the issue of the extra packages to accompany the return of the Barclays League content: “Nigeria will be one of the very first countries to receive the 24-hour content service and we are delighted to lead the way with our partners at the Premier League, and associates in Nigeria.”

Premier League Chief Executive Richard Scudamore added: “We are pleased to extend our partnership with SuperSport into Nigeria and are confident they will continue to deliver a premium product that will showcase the Barclays Premier League to our many fans in the territory.”

The Barclays Premier League is the biggest continuous annual sporting event in the world; followed by more than 2.5 billion fans in the world and broadcast to more than 500 million home



http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=178982

This is too bad for Hi Rubbish, I fear they wuld be able to stay in biz without EPL

dont think they will still remain in business