The GAA division of live television and radio championship rights will be announced in the next fortnight, and RTÉ are under significant pressure to maintain their position as the country's leading sports broadcaster.

Last year RTÉ lost coverage of the Rugby World Cup on both television and radio to rivals TV3, Setanta Sports and Newstalk FM.

They are, however, expected to retain the rights for the All-Ireland finals, semi-finals and quarter-finals (known as Package One). But given TV3 have already received the rights to Package Three, the GAA's relationship with RTÉ is undergoing fundamental change.

"Looking at the last contract, Setanta and TG4 were involved," noted incoming GAA director general Padraic Duffy. "TV3 will be in this time. That has already been decided, so, yes, that is a new departure. The rest of it remains to be seen."

Some aspects of the new format are already known. TV3 will pay almost €8 million for Package Three, which includes seven live provincial matches, two of them finals, along with three football qualifier games.

Package Two, yet to be allocated, includes the other provincial finals. How these finals and semi-finals will be allocated throughout the packages has yet to be announced.

Elsewhere, UTV have acquired clips of championship games.

Setanta Sports secured the rights for deferred coverage in 2007, while they share coverage of pre-season competitions and the national league with TG4. This is expected to be renewed under the new, multi-layered system.

Setanta have live coverage of tomorrow's O'Byrne Cup opener between Dublin and Wicklow at Parnell Park, while TG4 will repeat the match after their live McKenna Cup match between Armagh and Derry on Sunday.

TV3 and Setanta Sports (who will not be using their pay-per-view outlet) made tenders, along with RTÉ, for live coverage of the top two packages.

All three channels are also in competition for early championship games, while TG4 sought to retain only the national leagues and the AIB club championship. They have already received confirmation of rights for the latter, part of Package Eight, until 2011.

RTÉ Radio find themselves in a similar dogfight for the first time since they became the only Northern Hemisphere outlet to transmit live coverage of a field sport back in 1926. Then known as 2RN, it was the voice of sportswriter PD Mehigan (who wrote for this paper, and went by the alias Carbery), who provided commentary on the All-Ireland semi-final between Kilkenny and Galway.

They have secured three sets of radio broadcast rights and one for "video-on-demand", but Today FM will have "score flash" rights (updates) for this year's championship.

Raidió na Gaeltachta have the full rights for Irish broadcasting of all matches.

After TV3 announced their first live GAA coverage, decisions on other tenders were expected before Christmas, so there is some urgency to make a comprehensive announcement as opposed to the new, three-tier championship sponsorship.

"On the TV side of it we would be anxious to have it sorted out by the third week in January," said Duffy. "The sponsorship arrangement is slightly less urgent as the championship doesn't start until May, so we have some time.

"I haven't been involved in that process up until now, but I would imagine we'll have an announcement by the end of January."

However, the new sponsorship structure does influence the negotiations on the television rights, as the stations will be required to use the various company names as part of their presentations.

Six companies, three for each code, are being sought for the next three years, worth a total of around €29.1 million. The GAA are reportedly pricing the All-Ireland football championship sponsorship at €5.1 million per company for three years and the hurling at €4.6 million.

This is not the only significant issues facing Duffy when he officially succeeds Liam Mulvihill on February 1st, as three crucial roles within the organisation must be filled: Duffy's current brief of player welfare officer, the new operations manager role and a replacement for retiring PRO, Danny Lynch.

"Over the next few weeks myself and Liam will be working on the transition process. Part of that process will be filling these positions, but in the short term I will hold onto the player welfare brief. There is a management meeting in a fortnight, on the 18th and 19th, but nothing is going to happen before then."

Duffy, Mulvihill and GAA president Nickey Brennan meet next Monday to begin work on restructuring the association in 2008.