National League: Just short of a month after it was confirmed the Government would yank the rug from under the controversial deal between the FAI and Sky television, the final segment of the association's new broadcasting arrangements are about to be agreed as TV3 is expected to sign a new deal within the next week or so to cover Irish football.
In effect, the contract seems set to be very much a restatement of where the relationship between TV3 and the FAI has been left by the wider changes in the landscape, with the station's right to broadcast highlights of competitive games and "as live" coverage of friendlies being confirmed.
There is some satisfaction within the Eircom League, however, that the station, which appeared to sign up to covering the local club scene merely as a way of gaining access to the scraps of Sky's €7.5 million international deal, has made clear it remains interested in covering the domestic game.
The details are as yet unconfirmed but it is anticipated TV3 will continue to carry goals from various league games and also, somewhat more surprisingly, commit itself to broadcasting a number of games live. The number of live games is very low, however, with just two or three planned for each season, although RTÉ's return to the scene will just about more than double that figure.
RTÉ has apparently committed itself to carrying both FAI Cup semi-finals as well as the final and at least one other game live. This is little more than the small print, of course, to a €2.3 million deal, the main element of which is the senior international team's competitive internationals.
The association's chief executive, Fran Rooney, nevertheless described the new arrangement as "very satisfactory" and says that out of all the difficulties over broadcasting rights during the past year the organisation has actually emerged with "really great" relationships with all of the companies concerned.
On the face of it both deals are good news for the league which, has found the issue of decent television exposure a hard nut to crack. There are hitches, though, both in terms of the scheduling of the coverage and the quality, particularly at TV3, where resources appear to be tight.
TV3 has been sufficiently happy with its Monday night programme to extend it from the standard 25-minute Sports Tonight slot to 40 minutes but producer Stephen Cullinane acknowledges while there has generally been positive feedback for the package the 11.30 start has attracted some criticism.
The programme is repeated on Wednesday afternoons but, despite the fact the repeat show is aimed at a much younger audience and is broadcast closer to the next series of games, no repackaging is done.
"There is no pretence made that this is anything other than a straight repeat," says Cullinane. "We're a commercial operation and if the original programme is going to get an earlier slot or anything else about the coverage is going to change it has to be established the required audiences will be delivered.
"We're very happy with the figures for the programme at the moment but I don't see anything changing, not this season anyway."
The station's willingness to include league-related packages on other nights of the week is encouraging but the extensive reliance of the Monday night programme (which had an average reach - the number of people who tuned in at some point during each show - of 154,000 during May) on footage supplied by clubs is far less so.
This isn't entirely the fault of TV3, which is required under the terms of its current deal to have only a single camera at two games each week. It actually exceeds this requirement regularly but it still relies heavily on clubs to provide additional coverage with the station committing to show goals from games in either division as long as the tapes are of good quality.
The approach has allowed first division clubs like Dublin City and Finn Harps to gain access to the airwaves and it is certainly a development welcomed by fans.
However, as a promotional tool for the home game the benefits of this single-camera approach remain questionable especially when compared to the equivalent but more lavish English league packages on Sky, ITV and the BBC.
LEAGUE CUP: Quarter-finals:
Longford Town 2-1 Bohemians (aet)
Cork City 2-0 Waterford Utd.
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