RTE forced to sell Euro soccer rights to Sky, TV3

RTÉ must sell some of its rights to this summer's European Championship football matches and Olympics Games events to commercial broadcasters such as TV3 and Sky, it has emerged.

An RTÉ spokesman confirmed last night that an EU ruling - not in place for the last European Championships or Olympics - requires RTÉ to sell or "sub-license" some of the rights to commercial broadcasters.

The rights to both events are held by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). It represents 71 public service broadcasters, including RTÉ and the BBC.

According to a 2000 European Commission decision, the EU allows this body to purchase broadcasting rights collectively, but only if the EBU distributes some of them to commercial broadcasters, which in the Republic's case would be TV3 and Sky.

TG4, while not a private company, does acquire its programming separately from RTÉ and may also be interested in broadcasting some of the events.

In recent weeks, the Portuguese state-owned channel Radiotelevisão Portuguesa SA has sub-licensed 19 matches in Euro 2004 to its two private competitors, while reserving the key matches for itself.

The RTÉ spokesman said the station was still involved in discussions with commercial broadcasters about how many matches might be sub-licensed. Some reports suggest four matches might be exchanged. The RTÉ spokesman said the station would have to be compensated by getting a "market rate" for any games sub-licensed.

The spokesman said RTÉ had been advised by the EBU about the matter. According to the 2000 ruling, if stations cannot agree on the number of games to be sub-licensed, an arbitration process can be used to hammer out a final agreement.

A TV3 spokesman said the station was interested in any events that could deliver a commercial return and an audience. He said the station had been in brief contact with RTÉ and a meeting was scheduled to take place between TV3's programming representatives and RTÉ executives shortly.

With the Republic failing to qualify for the competition, the ratings for Euro 2004 are unlikely to be as high as the World Cup in Japan. Despite this, a significant audience will be interested, particularly in the later stages and RTÉ will be anxious to hold on to these viewers.

The rights to Euro 2004 were sold to the EBU by UEFA. The 2000 ruling arose after private broadcasters challenged the EU Commission's stance on access to the Eurovision Song Contest, which is also owned by the EBU.

Meanwhile, TV3 yesterday said ITV (previously called Granada) did not have any special option to acquire CanWest's interest in TV3 or vice-versa. CanWest and ITV each own 45 per cent of the station.

"In the event that either of these two shareholders wanted to sell, there are perfectly standard pre-emption rights (i.e. the seller would have to offer the shares to the existing shareholders before going elsewhere) but there is no right to force either of these shareholders to sell to the other one."