I just heard on the last word that Jim Williams and Paul Williams are working for TV3 during the World Cup. Did they get the rights? I know Setanta bought the rights from the IRB but perhaps they sold them on. I thought I read a while back that they will be covering all the games but may have been mistaken. ITV have the UK rights and are getting Miles Harrison and Stuart Barnes on loan from Sky for the tournament. Harrison is quite annoying imo though I’d say they’ll be better once they are not with Sky as no obligation to promote players who play in the leagues which Sky have the rights for. From a quick google search my answers to the Irish rights haven’t been answered. Hope I misheard and TV3 don’t have the rights as their coverage of other sports is usually cheap and not greatly insightful.
Setanta own the Irish rights. Due to broadcasting legislation Ireland’s games need to be available on terrestrial television so Setanta sold a share of the rights to the Ireland games to TV3 who outbid RT and Newstalk for radio.
So all games in the world cup are live on Setanta. The Ireland games are on TV3 and Newstalk. Nothing is on RT television or radio.
RTE have nothing? Thats a pretty poor show from our national broadcaster. The should really have tried to get something. Setanta is fast becoming a must have for sports fans, great station. My favourite pairing from the station has to be Pat Dolan & Felix Healy. Comedy gold.
I concur about Dolan , Dempsey is also good
Setanta have really built up a great portfolio at this stage. Far better package for the Irish sports fan than $ky.
Setanta are constantly trying to add to their portfolio - think it was piper who broke the story on here about them getting English international football games before it became public knowledge.
Indeed they do. Is it not a worry for them though that they won’t get enough subscribers to cover the cost of getting all these events? They have the Ricky Hatton fight this weekend which is obviously a tactic to get more English subscribers. To date though their main focus has focused on the Irish market. With the purchase of a selection of EPL games and the EFA cup and English internationals their focus is perhaps changing. Probably using Ireland as a bit of a testing ground before going into the bigger English marketAre they planning to make NTL customers pay for Setanta Ireland in the near future?
On a separate note I am disappointed RTE didn’t get the rights. While Hook is a bit of a buffoon, Pope knows his knowledge and Ciaran Fitzgerals is very insightful and doesn’t go for any bullshit. I couln’t think of a worse terestarial combination than TV3 and ITV to be honest. Both will be unfamiliar at covering rugby and will be all gimmicky with little or no substance I suspect. Hopefully Matt Cooper does presentation on TV3 (and I suspect he will because he brought up the fact TV3 had the rights on the Last Word) as although he doen’t have the class of McGuirk he isn’t afraid of playing the fool and avoids waffle.
Indeed it was though in all fairness I think we should draw a line under the exclusive story I broke. It is my understanding that the problems with the site today were caused by heavy traffic. The reason for the heavy traffic being various media outlets and other interested parties trying to see what my next exclusive will be. As I have said previously and which I dislike going into again is that while I did break the story and cause unparalled popularity for the site I only want a contribution from advertising revenue. I don’t want any credit.