Good vision to put us in the picture

RTÉ's television deal with the GAA works out well for both parties, Seán Moran finds out why

RTÉ's television deal with the GAA works out well for both parties, Seán Moranfinds out why

Last Wednesday in Croke Park's players' lounge RTÉ launched the 29th season of The Sunday Game. It was a convivial occasion attended by a swathe of the programme's celebrity panellists and the GAA's top brass.

There was a preview of the coming season's promotional television advertisement and the broadcaster's group head of sport, Glen Killane, outlined an expanded schedule of coverage in terms both of the number of matches and of the media technologies to be deployed.

GAA president Nickey Brennan struck a slightly dissonant note when calling for criticism of players to be kept within fair limits and, more pointedly, offering Croke Park expertise to RTÉ to make sure the broadcaster was aware of the rules and regulations of Gaelic games. He said at one stage that errors occasionally transmitted sometimes made him "cringe".

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The mood was positive, however. The event was the last of its type before the renegotiation of all broadcasting rights, a process beginning later this year, but there's no sign at present of the state broadcaster sustaining a challenge to its position as the GAA's chief media partner.

There have been some explorations undertaken with rival stations, such as the current deal to grant Saturday night National League rights to subscription channel Setanta Sports, but it will be a major surprise if The Sunday Game isn't still dominating coverage in a year's time.

Speaking to this newspaper two years ago, GAA director general Liam Mulvihill was frank about the options before the last round of broadcast rights was finalised: "All things being equal we're going to be in bed with a terrestrial Irish broadcaster going forward and money isn't going to be the major issue. For me the bigger issues relate to the quality of the coverage."

Relations between Croke Park and Montrose are better than in the past. Killane's predecessor Niall Cogley, now with Setanta, made up a lot of ground in terms of putting the relationship on to a more cordial footing, a warming that has been maintained.

There is also a harsher reality at work. Gaelic games are a good ratings generator. Aside from the most important competitive, international events - and they are rare, for instance Ireland in the Fifa World Cup finals - the All-Ireland championships are the strongest draw of all televised sport and they occur reliably every year.

With the battle for sports rights now so fierce, terrestrial broadcasters are under pressure from cable and satellite competitors, who have no scheduling difficulties and plenty of money. Rugby coverage has been hard hit with European Cup and World Cup rights going elsewhere.

Killane, however, denies this has enhanced the value of the GAA contract: "It was always a very valuable package for RTÉ and I don't think you can evaluate it in purely commercial terms. The GAA is about more than money. It's about a national movement; it's historical and really fits with what RTÉ does. Yes the commercial elements are certainly a factor and we do spend a lot of money but we're doing it on behalf of the public."

There's no doubt that for whatever reason the coverage has improved in recent years and this season there will be cameras at every match, championship and qualifier, and a weekly highlights package as well as sound commentaries will be available on the RTÉ website.

In Killane's first year a number of changes were made to The Sunday Game and not all of them were well received.

In the interview mentioned above Mulvihill defended the station: "I was very much in favour of what RTÉ did last season with regard to The Sunday Game. I know some people felt that getting rid of the old signature tune was a break with the past but you have to move on and I felt that they did a lot of good things that maybe were overlooked. And good-quality coverage is for me the most important aspect of the rights package."

Responding to Brennan's cautions, Killane says that they are aware of the amateur status of footballers and hurlers: "We've always had a slightly different approach to our coverage of Gaelic games. These guys aren't making a living out of it. When a guy is making vast sums of money out of playing soccer or rugby, that's his trade and if he's not doing his job properly . . .

"I'm not saying we go easy - there are certain issues that we are very, very tough on but the main issue that the president was raising was that we be balanced and I think that's fair comment. I don't think our guys go over the top very often but we all have our off days and I'm sure in the past that we have all got it wrong."

Speaking to Wednesday's gathering, Killane emphasised the need to innovate, and one significant trial with the future in mind will be conducted in July when a test broadcast for high-definition television will be conducted at Croke Park.

"It's an experiment," he elaborates. "We're preparing the ground for HDTV in the future and there's a digital terrestrial trial currently ongoing and as part of that we're trying out high definition on it.

"We're going to try it out on I think the Leinster football final. It won't be widely available because there's only a certain number of houses have these set-top boxes. This will be the first live broadcast. It's laying the ground."

He also queries the conventional wisdom that RTÉ can carry only so many fixtures on terrestrial television, pointing out that although the current limit is three per weekend, there would be a sharp appetite for midweek fixtures.

"If we could look at scheduling of matches across the week we'd be delighted. There are plenty of other factors that come into play like people's availability to play matches but we could certainly - you can see the success of our Champions League coverage at 7.45pm - find more capacity for terrestrial on RTÉ. It's so important to us that we could definitely make more time available."

The Sunday Game returns to RTÉ 2 next weekend. The Leinster football championship meeting of Longford-Westmeath will be the first match broadcast. Coverage starts at 1.15pm.