BSkyB has tightened its hold on live TV coverage of the Premier League after attaining the rights to the maximum number of games in the new three-year package that went up for auction this week.

The satellite broadcaster won the rights to five of the six packages of 23 games available as bidding reached a combined £1.8billion, 5 per cent more than was raised the last time rights went out to tender three years ago.

Setanta Sports, the Irish-owned channel that broke Sky's monopoly on live football three years ago, faces a battle to retain subscribers after it lost one of its two packages, leaving it only with the rights to show matches early on a Saturday evening.

It was thought that ESPN, the American sports broadcaster, would attempt to win one of the two remaining packages, after Sky retained its four existing packages earlier this week.

Instead, Sky, which is 39.1 per cent owned by News Corporation, the parent company of The Times, will add Monday-evening games to its portfolio when the new deal takes effect at the start of the 2010-11 season.

Last week, BBC secured the future of Match of the Day by agreeing to pay £173m over three years to retain the rights to domestic highlights, a small increase on the price of its existing contract.

The three channels' outlay will undermine reports that the wealth generated by football was set to fall tumble in the financial downturn and should provide clubs straddled with high wages and large debt with some security.

Richard Scudamore, the Premier's League's chief executive, said that he believed Setanta remained viable saying he was "looking forward to working with them for another four and half years" until the new contract ends.

However, Mr Scudamore was reluctant to say that the result demonstrated that football was recession proof. "It's in the zone - neither remarkably high, nor remarkably low. It's a mother bear number."

Sky paid £1.623 billion for 115 games a season compared to £1.3 billion for 92 last time. Setanta paid £159 million to keep its 23 Saturday evening games - well below the £392 million for two packages under the current deal.

It is estimated that Setanta paid 20 per cent less for the Saturday package, suggesting it had a strategy of bidding low and trying to save money. Sky paid more in total but slightly less per game, at £4.7 million against £4.76 million currently.

Mr Scudamore said that there was no prospect of Premier League games being played overseas while the newly announced deals run, putting back any possibility of a 39th game to 2014 at the earliest.

"Meaningful matches for points overseas - that cannot happen within the rights cycle just announced," he said.

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