In the event, it is thought Virgin Media will walk away from Setanta Sports News, its joint venture TV channel with Setanta.
Setanta was rocked last week by the English Premier League's decision to take back its rights to air 46 games from the upcoming 2009/10 season live in the UK.
Yesterday (Monday), Setanta then lost its UK and Republic of Ireland live TV rights to air 60 games from the Scottish Premier League until the end of the 2013/14 season. ESPN picked up the rights to air 46 live games in the upcoming 2009/10 season and 23 games for the three seasons starting 2010/11.
It is understood IDS was on track to generate £16m in ad revenue for Setanta over 2009, earning it commission of about £3.2m. It is thought to have already banked about £2m in commission so far this year.
Should the company fall into administration, Setanta Sports News is likely to close. According to sources, Virgin Media would have no appetite to resuscitate Setanta Sports News if its equal partner in the joint venture goes out of business.
Virgin Media declined to comment beyond issuing a statement that said: "We're monitoring the situation at Setanta Sports carefully. At this time our customers will still be able to enjoy sports content on Setanta channels. However, if this situation changes we will contact our customers immediately."
Meanwhile, the future of four football channels - LFC TV, Arsenal TV, Rangers TV and Celtic TV - that are operated as joint ventures between Setanta and the respective clubs is also unclear.
Liverpool Football Club, for example, plans to offer LFC TV as an online channel should Setanta go under and then seek to relaunch the channel on pay-TV platforms. Rangers Football Club, however, would not be drawn on its plans.
Arena BLM, which handles Setanta's media planning and buying, totalling £8.3m in the 12 months to 30 April, according to The Nielsen Company, is also on alert should the company fail.
Setanta, the English Premier League, the Scottish Premier League, ESPN and BSkyB declined to comment.
