TV3 and Newstalk make gains

GAELIC GAMES NEWS:RTÉ'S TRADITIONAL grip on live GAA championship broadcasts has been further loosened with both TV3 and Newstalk radio gaining new rights for the next three seasons.

TV3’s coverage will now extend to the All-Ireland senior quarter-finals and both minor All-Ireland finals, while Newstalk finally gets to break into live national GAA broadcasting with a choice of “second” championship matches – the latter marking an end to what had been RTÉ’s long-standing monopoly of radio championship broadcasts.

Details of the new three-year broadcast packages were announced by Croke Park yesterday, following the recent tendering process for GAA media rights in television and radio. The championship broadcast rights apply from 2011 to 2013, while the league broadcast rights, which are largely unchanged, apply from 2012 to 2014 – as the broadcast rights for the upcoming league, in 2011, are part of the existing packages.

As reported in The Irish Timesyesterday, the number of senior championship matches tendered for television broadcast was reduced from 50 matches annually to 40, although this won't impact heavily on the television audiences as the fixtures to be dropped are to be taken primarily from the early part of the season.

As a result, RTÉ will broadcast 31 senior championship games in total and TV3 will cover nine. While RTÉ still get the headline games in terms of the senior All-Ireland semi-finals and finals in both football and hurling, TV3 have won what is known as “package two” – or the second best of five championship packages. This represents a higher tier of fixtures for the Irish commercial broadcaster than three years ago, when TV3 was awarded “package three”, the third of five packages.

Under “package two”, TV3 also get to broadcast both minor All-Ireland finals for the next three years, which again had been a long-standing RTÉ monopoly. RTÉ have also traditionally broadcast those games with Irish commentary, and although Irish commentary was not part of the TV3 broadcast rights, they are considering maintaining this tradition.

“We certainly would be looking into maintaining the Irish language commentary on those minor finals,” said TV3 press officer Maureen Catterson. “It’s not under contract, and we just wouldn’t be sure, but it’s something we will consider.”

TV3’s nine senior championship matches will now consist of two All-Ireland quarter-finals, two qualifiers, three provincial finals, two other provincial fixtures – plus the two All-Ireland minor finals.

“This new package delivers better fixtures for TV3 viewers and a higher proportion of the championship fixtures available for broadcast,” said TV3 commercial director Pat Kiely.

TV broadcast rights for the national leagues remain largely, with the new packages – which begin in 2012 – seeing TG4 continue to air Sunday games, while Setanta will have the rights to Saturday games in the same competition. TG4 will also have the rights to broadcast club and college games and have also secured a new mid-week package of live Wednesday night games from the various third level college competitions and under-21.

There was much interest on the distribution of radio rights, as RTÉ radio has always had exclusive access to championship matches. Newstalk will now have live broadcast rights for second choice championship games. RTÉ remain the primary rights holder, but over the next three years, Newstalk listeners will have the chance to hear games on Saturdays and Sundays across the championship season.

Overall, the value of TV rights in the last round of negotiations, three years ago, was in the region of €25 million and a similar sum was expected this time.The GAA will now go to tender for international rights.