Cabled viewers get free access

The biggest money-spinning tournament in the history of golf is to be transmitted free to Irish television viewers. In a surprise decision, Cablelink - which operates in the greater Dublin, Waterford, and Galway areas - is giving all its 375,000 subscribers access to next week's Ryder Cup, in which Europe will be defending the trophy at The Country Club, Boston.

Only a few months ago, as part of a major advertising push, Cablelink warned in this newspaper that without Sky Sports, there would be "no live Ryder Cup". So what brought about their change of heart?

"It has to do with the way the event was designated at Sky headquarters," replied Cablelink spokeswoman Anna-Maria Barry, yesterday. "Their decision meant that the Ryder Cup would have been accessible in this country only to satellite digital subscribers."

She went on: "Our understanding was that the Ryder Cup would be on Sky Sports and when we learned of the change, we immediately made contact with them. On inquiring how we could transmit it to our viewers, they concluded that the best solution was to give it free." According to Sky, it was their original intention to transmit the Ryder Cup on Sky Sports 1. But they later decided it should go out on Sky Box Office 3, Sky Box Office Ditigal and Sky Sports Extra, none of which would be accessible to Irish viewers, even Sky Sports subscribers. They are currently carrying advertising to that effect.

The anticipated situation in this country was that it would be available only to Sky Sports subscribers, who pay an additional annual subscription in excess of £200 for this specialised service. Now it appears that Sky have become victims of their own technology.

So, from Thursday next, the eve of the Ryder Cup, Cablelink will be transmitting a test card on 288 megahertz, the same as TV5 and close to TV3, so that prospective viewers will know they have tuned to the correct position. Existing Sky Sports subscribers are being advised of the change by post.

All of which means that instead of a very limited audience, the biennial showpiece, for which the NBC television network in the US have paid a record rights fee of $13 million, will have 10 times the anticipated number of viewers in this country.