2003, Carlton and Granada stepped in and paid £2.8m to the liquidators to allow the boxes to stay with their customers, because at the time the ITV companies received a discount on their broadcasting licence payments based on the number of homes they had converted to digital television. It was also likely done to avoid further negativity towards the two companies. During the time under administration, Carlton and Granada were in talks regarding a merger, which was eventually cleared in 2004. Effect on football clubs ITV Digital's collapse had a large effect on many football clubs. Bradford City F.C. was one of the affected, and its debt forced it into administration in May 2002. Barnsley F.C. also entered administration in October 2002, despite the club making a profit for the twelve years prior to the collapse of ITV Digital. Barnsley had budgeted on the basis that the money from the ITV Digital deal would be received, leaving a £2.5 million shortfall in their accounts when the broadcaster collapsed. Clubs were forced to slash staff, and some players were forced to be sold as they were unable to pay them. Some clubs increased ticket prices for fans to offset the losses. The rights to show Football League matches were resold to Sky Sports for £95 million for the next four years compared to £315 million over three years from ITV Digital, leading to a reduction from £2 million per season to £700,000 in broadcasting revenue for First Division clubs. In total, fourteen Football League clubs were placed in administration within four years of the collapse of ITV Digital, compared to four in the four years before. News Corporation hacking allegations On 31 March 2002, French cable company Canal+ accused Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in the United States of extracting the UserROM code from its MediaGuard encryption cards and leaking it onto the internet. Canal+ brought a lawsuit against News Corporation alleging that it, through its subsidiary NDS (which provides encryption technology for Sky and other TV services from Murdoch), had been working on breaking the MediaGuard smartcards used by Canal+, ITV Digital and other non-Murdoch-owned TV companies throughout Europe. The action was later partially dropped after News Corporation agreed to buy Canal+'s struggling Italian operation Telepiu, a direct rival to a Murdoch-owned company in that country. Other legal action by EchoStar/NagraStar was being pursued as late as August 2005, accusing NDS