If we ask ourselves why The Saturday Game appears only sporadically on the schedule this summer on RTÉ 2, or why there’s no magazine show on in the middle of the week, it is fair to say it’s not because the GAA doesn’t want it. It’s because TV companies reckon they can’t turn a profit doing it. Forget about what’s in the broadcast deal signed last year – it would be enshrined in any deal if there was a will there to make it and the audience numbers there to ensure it would be profitable.
Virgin might think the GAA should have picked up the phone once Sky was out of the equation. The GAA statement in reply on Wednesday evening fairly brutally laid out the reality as it saw it. To me Virgin Media’s statement was at least as focused on bringing home the perceived inequity of the licence fee situation as it was about making a point regarding the GAA broadcast deal.
Virgin is in competition with a State broadcaster in receipt of both the licence fee and advertising revenue. I can imagine it was far from amused to hear RTÉ's group head of sport, Declan McBennett, saying on The News At One on Tuesday that the money RTÉ gets from its co-ownership of GAAGO will go towards bidding for more live sports rights.