Virgin Media chief questions RTÉ's spending spree on sports
Bang for buck?: RTÉ's Coverage of the GAA Championship fronted by Darren Frehill, Jacqui Hurley, Des Cahill and Joanne Cantwell is not giving licence fee payers value for money according to Virgin Media MD Paul Farrell. Picture Andres Poveda
RTÉ is failing to deliver sufficient GAA coverage to the Irish public for the amount of rights it owns, a leading sports agreement buyer has claimed.
In an interview with the Irish Examiner, Virgin Media MD Paul Farrell said RTÉ’s production of just one highlights show per week – The Sunday Game – was “extraordinary” and the station was unable to efficiently deliver sports coverage on its “linear service”.
This failure is impacting on GAA fans, who are not getting value for money as licence fee customers, and on “lesser covered counties”, he added.
Mr Farrell also claimed that despite being publicly funded, RTÉ is not held accountable by Government, where it simply refuses to declare the detail of its spending (most recently at an Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee hearing last January). As a result, he says, Irish sports rights are inflated and uncompetitive.
Said Farrell: “The clear reality is that RTÉ has built a monopoly using tens of millions of euro in public money and you have to question ‘is this the best use of public funding and where does it stop in terms of making it most competitive?’
“The state is making it difficult for us to provide a strong, competitive and independent broadcasting environment.
“If you take GAA for example, for the level of investment that RTÉ have put into the GAA and the little output that it delivers - it is extraordinary,” he said.
“They are struggling to get sport away, they cannot physically get it away on their linear schedule.
“With the GAA particularly, and the Sunday Game – is that enough coverage that fulfils a public service remit, say for lesser covered counties, through one highlights show every Sunday night, (with no midweek or preview shows)?
“They have so much stuff now that you just wonder is that the best use of public funding?”
Farrell believes that RTÉ’s “monopoly” is best highlighted by the recent spending spree on football rights – RTÉ owns all competitive Republic of Ireland Nations League and Euros qualification agreements, as well as Women's National Team competitive games, Champions League, World Cup and Euros (Finals), League of Ireland and U21s.
The value of RTÉ’s current football rights has been assessed as being approximately €25m, while its GAA costs are estimated at approximately €6m.
Much of Farrell’s arguments centre around why a public service broadcaster (PSB) can spend money on so many sports rights, when independent stations – like Virgin Media – should be buying agreements with private money, at a fair rate, and delivering it free-to-air for no cost to licence fee customers or subscribers.
Such spending by a state broadcaster, claims Farrell, bucks the international trend where PSBs are withdrawing from the marketplace due to budgetary responsibility.
“If you look at the UK and the BBC, as well as state broadcasters internationally - they are putting less money in sport while RTÉ has put more money in without a hope of recouping any of that investment.
“If commercial entities cannot make sport a viable option, based on the prices being charged by rights holders, who know they will get inflated values from RTÉ, why are RTÉ the only ones doing this? And the wider question is why are they being allowed to do this?
“The challenge we have is that they are simply buying up everything, at an inflated price, and they then have so much sport that they then don’t have enough channels to show it on,” he explains.
“It basically means that we cannot compete for sports rights fairly.”
Farrell points to the historic share agreement between RTÉ and Virgin Media for Guinness Six Nations Rugby rights, which was portrayed by all as a common sense cost saving measure – both channels split the rights under the current agreement.
However, Farrell insists that RTÉ then went and invested that saving in purchasing URC rugby rights (estimated at €3m) which it shares with TG4 and BBC.
“With the Guinness Six Nations we actually approached them on sharing the coverage because it was the right thing to do, it was a good deal for everybody but then what RTÉ saved with that they just went off and bought URC,” he added.
Even with a top tier event such a Six Nations rugby, which regularly peaks at up to one million viewers (for both stations), Virgin Media “just breaks even” for its coverage, insists Farrell.
“For production of a Six Nations rugby match RTÉ will have at least twice the production staff and resources that we have on matchday (and a far greater cost), but because we are far more efficient we carry less than half of the cost.”
Despite Farrell’s view of a monopolisation of the market Virgin Media has strong agreements of its own, including Wednesday night Champions League coverage, as well as all competitive non-Rep of Ireland Uefa international fixtures (including Euro and Fifa World Cup qualifiers) up to 2026.
RTÉ was asked to put forward its head of sport, Declan McBennett, to discuss the issue of sports rights and the points raised by Paul Farrell, but it declined.
