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E-gambling firm sells assets to RTE
Thursday, August 01 2002
by Matthew Clark


UKbetting plc, a British on-line gambling and sports content company, has sold
its 80 percent share of Radio Tara to RTE following a recent acquisition. 

In a deal announced on Wednesday, the UK-based controller of UKbetting.com and
Totalbet.com said it will sell its majority interest in Radio Tara to RTE for an
undisclosed "nominal" sum. RTE, which already owned 20 percent of the business,
will now be the sole owner of the radio station formerly called Atlantic 252,
later renamed Teamtalk 252. 



UKbetting, which is run by Eric Semel, the son of Yahoo founder Terry, said the
radio station, which also transmitted over the Web, will stop broadcasting
immediately.  



The British company's share of Radio Tara was purchased just weeks ago when the
company acquired Teamtalk Media Group plc, a competitor in the sports content
business, for around STG14 million. TeamTalk itself purchased its share of the
station from Luxembourg's RTL only nine months earlier for around STG2 million. 



In a statement released on Wednesday, UKbetting said that after the station was
acquired by TeamTalk, Radio Tara lost approximately 60 percent of its weekly
reach and also incurred unaudited pre-tax losses of STG2.2 million. "The
disposal of this shareholding will stem a significant cash drain on the Teamtalk
business," UKbetting said. 



The station, which was previously called Atlantic 252 and was renamed TeamTalk
252 earlier this year to correspond with its sports-based content, broadcast from
a 500 kW long-wave transmitter at Trim in County Meath. Its audience was
primarily in Northern England. 



It is thought that UKbetting will now focus on the other assets of Teamtalk,
mainly its sports Web site Teamtalk.com, but also its text messaging service and
other media assets. The company already has tremendous experience integrating new
assets thanks to a series of acquisitions in the Internet gambling arena which
included Sportinglife.com, Sportal.com and Sportal.co.uk, plus the on-line
betting assets of the collapsed Sports.com.



Currently, it remains unclear what RTE will do with the station, and a
spokesperson for the the state-owned broadcaster said RTE was, "considering its
options." The spokesperson could not comment on what will become of the
station's employees, who number around 5. 



Separately, UKbetting on Thursday announced the promotion of Sportinglife.com
managing director David Annat to the position of content director at the group.
Annat will also join the company's board of directors as pert of the move. Annat
founded PA Sporting Life in 1996 and was formerly managing director of The
Sporting Life newspaper.