GAELIC GAMES/Championship TV Coverage:GAA President Nickey Brennan has called on RTÉ to bear in mind the sensibilities of players when analysing matches. His comments came at yesterday's launch of the broadcaster's championship schedules, which will be the most extensive yet transmitted.

Speaking at the event in Croke Park, Brennan said: "Players can have an off day and things can go pear shaped on them. That has to be taken into account. They have to go to work the next day. So while critical analysis is fair and reasonable, I think the person's integrity must always be kept in mind."

He went on to offer to brief the RTÉ panellists on various matters relevant to playing rules and regulations.

"We want to make sure that you're working from a position of knowledge and fact. If you need assistance or presentations we will do that. You must have the facts and I don't mind saying that there are times when I cringe when I hear some comments being made because they're factually incorrect. All we're asking for is balance and I'm sure we're going to get that in the year ahead."

Launching the coverage, RTÉ's group head of sport Glen Killane, said that it would bring "more matches, more choice across media and more innovation".

This will include a new statistics package and new personnel. The Sunday Game will have two new hurling panellists. Kilkenny's multiple All-Ireland winner DJ Carey and former Clare captain and manager Anthony Daly will join the programme's team of analysts.

Evanne Ní Chuilinn and Joanne Cantwell will join the team of television and radio sideline reporters.

Now in its 29th year The Sunday Game will broadcast over 50 matches live and for the first time will have cameras at every championship and qualifier match, including relatively peripheral fixtures involving New York and London.

There will also be a football documentary about Kerry and the place of the game in the county's culture.

Every championship match will be simultaneously streamed live on the internet and a highlights package on will be available every week on line.

All commentaries will be broadcast on the web and a new, interactive radio programme, presented by Con Murphy, will go out between six and seven o'clock.

There will also be an experimental, high definition television live broadcast in July.

The current round of broadcast rights expires after next year's National Leagues. Negotiations are likely to get under way at the end of this year. "The process begins with us outlining our requirements in a tender document," according to Brennan. "At the moment we're getting our head around the various packages that will be on offer."

Two years ago for the first time, the GAA allocated live rights to a subscription channel when Setanta secured the deal for Saturday night NFL matches. Asked had there been any interest expressed by Sky, Brennan was non-committal but said that the association would willingly talk to any broadcaster.

"I haven't heard that but at the outset of these type of discussions you can't exclude anybody from them if they've expressed an interest. The more widespread the coverage for our games the better so we have to see what these people have to say."

Commenting on hostile reactions to the Setanta deal, some of which were expressed at last month's congress, Brennan said the departure had overall been positive. He also said that there were other considerations besides the money on offer.

"It's not all revenue related. To me the quality of the coverage is just as important as the finance. We've been using Setanta, our first venture into pay-per-view or whatever terminology you want to use.

"We would say generally it has been pretty successful and a very worthwhile venture for us. We now have to decide should that be continued or expanded.

"A lot more homes have access to pay-per-view tv now so although many people have very strong views and would be anti the notion I think from the association's point of view we are correct to explore new markets and technologies and we would be failing if we didn't do that.

"The number of cameras being used and their physical location in grounds is an issue. Not all of the games would attract a full house so it's important that cameras aren't facing into barren and empty spaces and the viewer thinking there's nobody at the match when there might still have been thousands but the main camera wasn't picking them up."