Ruling puts RTÉ TV rights at risk

RTÉ’S monopoly over TV rights to the Olympic Games and World Cup soccer finals could be under threat following a landmark legal ruling by the European courts.

It comes as Communications Minister Dermot Ahern will put his finalised list of major sports events to be designated free-to-air for Irish TV audiences to the Cabinet later today.

The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled yesterday that State TV companies like RTÉ are enjoying an unfair competitive advantage over other broadcasters in relation to TV rights for sports.

The decision is likely to make it easier for other terrestrial, non-pay channels like TV3 to compete with RTÉ for sports audiences.

However, legal sources last night said the ruling by the Court of First Instance was unlikely to have any impact on plans by the Government to designate events such as Ireland’s competitive soccer internationals and All-Ireland hurling and football finals as free-to-air under other EU legislation.

The court ruled yesterday that the joint buying and selling of TV rights for major sports events by members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) - which includes many State broadcasters such as RTÉ and the BBC - was unfairly discriminating against private TV networks.

The EBU - which consists of most of Europe’s public TV networks - pools its purchasing power to bid as a collective unit against pay-per-view operators to secure the TV rights for lucrative sports events like the Olympic Games.

The court found that the European Commission was wrong to conclude that the sub-licensing system set up by the EBU guarantees access to Eurovision rights for third parties competing with EBU members. The case was taken against the commission by four European terrestrial channels - France’s M6, Portuguese station, SIC and Spain’s Antena 3 and Gestevision.

Yesterday, it found that such exemptions restricted competition by virtue that TV rights to sports events were usually awarded on an exclusive basis for a given territory.

An RTÉ spokesperson said the ruling would have no immediate impact on its ability to show any events for which it has already secured TV rights including the Olympics in 2004 and 2008. A spokesperson for TV3 was unavailable for comment.