Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 12 July 2023
Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media
Future of Sports Broadcasting: Discussion (Resumed)
Mr. Paul Farrell:
We did have conversations from the end of 2021 to early or mid-2022. On 23 June, our head of sport got a call from his counterpart in the GAA to say it was nearing completion and to ask whether we had anything to submit by way of a bid. On 27 June, our head of sport responded and said we had looked for a model more around a shared broadcasting model because that was the biggest cost for us and to say that we would not be making a submission based on that but that if anything changed in the future, we would be happy to have a conversation again. On 23 October, it was announced that the Sky deal was not progressing and we issued a statement subsequent to that saying we were surprised, so I think it is a timing thing. I am not saying Peter McKenna said anything that was not accurate but our statement was made after the announcement regarding the Sky deal. We did have conversations up to until the middle of June. We moved away then. On 27 June, we asked the GAA to come back and talk to us that if anything changed. After the announcement regarding the Sky deal, nobody was consulted and the GAAGO deal was announced. We were surprised by that for two years. One is because RTÉ and the GAA are partners in that and we have seen a lot of evidence over the past few weeks where commercial influence is probably not the best focus for RTÉ when it is spending public money. Second, I do not think it was made clear in all RTÉ correspondence around that time that it was a joint venture and that RTÉ had skin in that game. That is why we issued a statement.
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