Interest to centre on rivals' allocation

GAELIC GAMES:THE LATEST award of GAA domestic broadcast rights is expected within the next day or two. There are no major surprises on the cards, but speculation is there will be some changes to the existing packages.

Overall, the value of the domestic rights, overseas and new technology – the latter packages have yet to be finalised – in the last round of negotiations, three years ago, was in the region of €25 million and whereas there is not likely to be a major increase in this revenue, the GAA will also be reducing the number of matches available for live broadcast.

That reduction was flagged by the association’s director general, Páraic Duffy, during the year and will be confirmed when details of the new deal are announced.

In the championship season, which concluded in September, there were 50 matches included in the live schedule for broadcast by RTÉ and TV3. The new agreement will cover only 40 matches, but won’t impact heavily on the television audiences, as the fixtures to be dropped will be taken primarily from the early part of the season.

Sources in Croke Park say this decision was taken simply because there were too many matches on television. “Good matches on television can be a great promotional event for the games, but bad matches on television are a turn-off,” according to Dermot Power, the GAA’s director of commercial and marketing.

“People tend to forget that in the last broadcasting contract we went from 36 games to 50, which was quite a jump. It’s all about getting the balance right between positive exposure and at the same time not cutting into club activity.

“The optimum figure is somewhere in between. We’re confident the average viewership will go up and that we may equal the aggregate audience or exceed it even with the reduction.”

There was a strong feeling the number of matches on some weekends had been excessive with a couple of them featuring three matches on both Saturday and Sunday and others with five fixtures spread across a weekend.

The intention now is to settle on throw-in times for weekend matches, with one match being shown on Saturday and two on Sunday. “The big thing for broadcasters is consistency,” according to Power, who declined to comment further with negotiations near completion.

Most interest will centre on the relative allocations for RTÉ and TV3. The recently-expired contract saw RTÉ given the rights to show 40 of the 50 matches, including the top package of All-Ireland finals, semi-finals and quarter-finals, while TV3 were granted package three, which principally included early championship fixtures, some qualifiers and some provincial finals.

Packages are based on a hierarchy of choices and there is speculation on whether TV3 will be granted a higher package than they were awarded three years ago – when the station had rights to choose matches 21-30 – allowing access to the All-Ireland championship stages from quarter-finals.

Setanta Ireland and TG4 are also in contention to continue with their coverage of National League matches.

BBC Northern Ireland were another rights holder in the last agreement, as the GAA recognised the need to relay accessible signals to the north to allow Ulster championship matches to reach as much of the provincial audience as possible. But according to Power developments in technology will impact on that with the switch to exclusively digital television in two years’ time.

“Saorview (the official free-to-air terrestrial service planned for Ireland) when it comes fully on stream will enable the rights holder to make its games available throughout the 32 counties.”

There will also be much interest focused on the distribution of radio rights. RTÉ radio has always had exclusive access to championship matches. Newstalk 106 was bitterly disappointed three years ago to make no impact on that arrangement and will be hoping it can be more successful this time.

A range of other rights, from conventional overseas to mobile telephones, are also being tendered for. European rights have been dropped as RTÉ is available on so many digital platforms the market for selling Europe as a separate bundle has collapsed.