GAA say lack of HD cost TV3

GAA commercial and stadium director Peter McKenna admits TV3’s lack of high definition quality TV and penetration into Northern Ireland counted against them in rights bidding.

Although the station’s director of programming Niall Cogley claimed they had made a “very commercial bid”, McKenna revealed they fell down on those two counts to Sky Sports.

“Some of the things we were looking at were changes in technology,” McKenna told The Marian Finucane Show yesterday. “RTÉ have high definition broadcast facilities so does Sky. That wasn’t true of all the people who were looking at it [the rights].

“We also wanted a 32-county distribution so Sky and RTÉ can both do that. What Sky brings us in the UK market is access to 10 to 11 million households that will really bring our game to a new level there.”

He continued about the decision to cut TV3 because of no HD facilities: “That would be a lot of it and the fact that they only have a 26-county distribution. I must say I thought TV3 were very gracious through the whole process. We had a very strong relationship.”

Although McKenna said there was no rancour among Croke Park officials, ie the GAA’s management committee, about the decision to go ahead with the Sky deal, he does expect it will be brought up on the floor of Congress in Cavan next year.

The Sunday Times reported yesterday that the GAA will be asked to explain their reasons behind the Sky Sports decision in front of an Oireachtas committee on transport and communication later this month. The paper also claims the GAA as late as 2011 had informed the Department of Communications that they would not sell media rights to “a foreign channel” as it would be “contrary to the culture and national ethos of the association”.