Signals look good for RTE

GAELIC GAMES/Broadcasting rights: This weekend the four provinces will meet to finalise the programme of matches for next summer's championships. Once complete the schedule will be the subject of discussions between Croke Park and RTÉ within the next month or two with a view to drawing up a broadcasting programme for next year.

Whatever the arrangements 2004 will be the last year of the current deal between the GAA and the national broadcaster and negotiations will begin by the middle of next year on the next likely three-year contract for television rights.

Dermot Power, the GAA's commercial manager, will soon be visiting Oliver Ohlbaum, the rights consultants in London who advise Croke Park in this area.

"First we have to decide," says Power, "whether we put the domestic rights out to tender or do we just negotiate with the current rights holders."

The market for sports rights internationally has weakened in recent years but the GAA isn't particularly concerned by this. "We've never benefited from a TV bubble," according to Power. "It's not like the AFL in Australia, who got A$100,000,000 for their last deal because the market has been driven by Channel Nine and Channel Seven being at each other's throats. Our figures have always been realistic."

He also remarks in passing that the audience figures for last month's International Rules Tests were good enough to surprise the AFL and force a rethink on future series.

"Commercially their attitude has changed in general. There were no freebies given out, for example, this time around. The TV figures surprised them, as they were above average for Melbourne. International Rules used to be thrown in as part of their overall deal but now they're beginning to think they should follow our example and have separate agreements."

The domestic rights were put out to tender during the last round in 2001 (the usual three-year contract has been rolled over for a year to include 2004) and attracted wider interest than just RTÉ but Croke Park stuck with their long-term partner.

Realistically it's hard to see a departure from this when the next contract is signed off.

International rights are held by Setanta and include overseas television rights as well as everything else such as Internet and WAP telephones.

It is an area where Power says there may be some "unbundling" of rights so that television and other rights are separated out for individual tender.

"Maybe it's time to strip away the various, distinct rights," he says. "New mobile technology means that broadcast score updates by phone will become a reality in the next couple of years and could be an issue in future negotiations."

The old television rights overseas had to be adjusted last year because of the accession of RTÉ to the Sky digital platform. This means that any Sky subscriber with an Irish encryption card can access live games by satellite. Compensation had to be passed from RTÉ to Croke Park to Setanta in recognition of this development and Power says it has already had an impact.

"The European market has been largely wiped out by Sky Digital," he says. "Most pubs in Europe have copped on that all they need is an Irish card and so the pay-per-view market has been badly damaged. The same thing hasn't happened in Britain because the environment is easier to control."

One long-running criticism about broadcast availability in Britain will be addressed next year, as Setanta will launch a pay-per-view service for subscription viewers. This means licensed premises will no longer be the sole venues where championship matches can be viewed - a situation that has been a cause of dissatisfaction about the need to bring young children into pubs to watch matches.

It will be a welcome departure in the beleaguered British market. "The English audience isn't growing," says Power, "because emigration isn't growing and it's largely an emigrants' market. Gaelic games aren't mainstream and minority sports are struggling, as the big sports get bigger.

"So it's highly unlikely that BBC or Channel 4 are going to resume All-Ireland broadcasts."

TG4 have announced that the live club fixture for this Sunday will be the Leinster football semi-final between Round Towers from Kildare and Laois champions Arles-Kilcruise, who will cap a hectic eight days with their third competitive match after last weekend's historic first county final victory followed 24 hours later by a comeback win over former holders O'Hanrahans, from Carlow, in the Leinster championship.

The throw-in is at 2.0 in Dr Cullen Park, Carlow.

WEEKEND FIXTURES

SUNDAY

Leinster Club FC: Semi-finals: Arles-Kilcruise (Laois) v Round Towers (Kildare), Dr Cullen Park, 2.0, J Bannon (Longford); Clonguish (Longford) v St Brigid's (Dublin), Mullingar, 2.0, D Coldrick (Meath).

Ulster Club FC: Semi-final: Four Masters (Donegal) v St Gall's (Antrim), Clones, 2.30.

DOMESTIC: RTÉ have the rights to show championship matches in Ireland. Subsidiary rights exist with TG4 broadcasting club championship matches and National League fixtures. UTV and BBC NI also have rights to Ulster championship matches although RTÉ also broadcasts these fixtures. The last rights agreement cost RTÉ about €7,620,000 (£6,000,000) over three years - with production costs on top of that.

INTERNATIONAL: Setanta Sport are the rights holders for overseas and have pushed up the GAA's revenue from this source to the point that for the first time the international deal brings in more than the domestic. This was worth €8,000,000 (£6,300,000) over the past three years.

INTERNET: Until broadband technology is more widespread this isn't a significant area. At present the rights are held by Setanta but are likely to be separately offered next year.

WAP: Much the same applies to this as to the Internet but with the arrival of 3G mobile phone technology it will become a more significant area. Like the Internet, its rights are held by Setanta but also likely to separately offered at the next negotiation round.