Ryan to meet IRFU over TV coverage

FREE-TO-AIR DEBATE:THE MINISTER for Communications Eamon Ryan will meet IRFU officials and the ERC chief executive Derek McGrath today to discuss free-to-air television.

Minister Ryan, a rugby fan who played for Gonzaga College and UCD and whose uncle played for Munster, has studied sports, such as boxing, English cricket, French rugby as well as Australian sports, for one and a half years.

On foot of this he recently proposed a list of events he proposes to designate as of major importance to society, thus making them free-to-air for Irish television viewers, including Ireland’s Six Nations matches and the Irish provinces’ Heineken Cup games.

“I am proposing this in the interests of rugby,” he said yesterday. “The bigger the audience the better it is for that given sport in the long term, whereas ghetto-ising a sport by putting it on pay per view is damaging in the long-term.”

As things stand, although Ireland’s Six Nations games are not A-listed, the Six Nations committee can consider offers from pay-per-view as well as terrestrial television, with the net result that they are shown on both BBC and RTÉ (as are Ireland’s autumn internationals).

Sky Sports have the live rights to Heineken Cup games, meanwhile, which are then shown as deferred highlights on RTÉ.

The IRFU calculates that the ensuing loss in television income from the Six Nations and the ERC would amount to €12 to €13 million a year and that, contrary to the Minister’s belief, this would not be compensated for an ensuing increasing in sponsorship.

This in turn would seriously jeopardise their ability to ensure that the Irish provinces would be able to keep their leading players at home, and thus the recent competitiveness and success of both the provinces and the Irish international team.

Furthermore, the IRFU and Irish rugby would effectively have their hands tied when it comes to negotiating international television rights, in contrast to their European rivals from England, Wales, Scotland, France and Italy, not to mention the Southern Hemisphere big three, where Sanzar have lucrative deals with BSkyB for the Tri-Nations as well as their Super 14.

The consultation process ends on June 4th, after which the Minister’s proposals – should he still proceed with them – would have to be passed by the EC.

Meanwhile, Doug Howlett, Keith Earls and Jerry Flannery are all included in the Munster squad from which the team to play Leinster in the Magners League semi- final at the RDS on Saturday will be selected.

Also included in the 27-strong squad is Mick O’Driscoll who missed the game in Cardiff with an ankle injury.

Earls and Flannery both played in the Heineken Cup semi-final defeat to Biarritz in San Sebastian but Howlett has been out of action since the quarter-final win over Northampton Saints.

MUNSTER (squad): S Deasy, D Barnes, D Hurley, D Howlett, T Gleeson, K Earls, L Mafi, J de Villiers, P Warwick, R OGara, P Stringer, T OLeary, M Horan, D Ryan, J Hayes, T Buckley, J Flannery, D Varley, D Fogarty, D OCallaghan, M ODriscoll, B Holland, A Quinlan, D Wallace, N Ronan, N Williams,J Coughlan.