Interview/Niall Cogley: Mary Hannigan talks to the chief executive of Ireland's first dedicated sports channel, Setanta Sports
When the ball left Steven Gerrard's right foot four minutes from time in Wednesday's Champions League game against Olympiakos it probably wasn't only the Kop that held its collective breath, the people at Setanta Sports might have done so too.
It would be an overstatement to say Setanta greeted the resulting goal with the same level of unbridled apoplexy as the travelling Greek supporters, but they really could have done with Gerrard's effort swerving six inches to the right and bouncing to safety from the post. Then Liverpool would have dropped out of the Champions League and in to the UEFA Cup. And Setanta has the rights to the UEFA Cup.
Ireland's first dedicated sports channel won't, then, have the company of this country's bountiful supply of Liverpool supporters for their coverage of the next stage of the competition. Nor indeed will they be joined by Arsenal or Celtic's Irish fan-base midweek: Arsenal's win on Tuesday kept them in the Champions League while Celtic failed to even make it in to the UEFA Cup.
Such are the vagaries of the life of a sports channel.
Niall Cogley, though, hasn't too many complaints about the fortunes of Setanta Sports since it went on air in August. The chief executive, head of sport at RTÉ before taking up his position at the new channel in May, is content with the station's progress, although he cautions that it will be "a work in progress for the next two years, in terms of getting together a schedule we're happy with".
"We tried to cool the jets a little bit at the start because a lot of people wondered if it was all going to be perfectly formed from its birth, ready to take over the world," he said.
"We tried to emphasise the fact that this was just a start-up, we asked people to reserve judgment because it was going to take us time.
"We're not due to be 'formally' born, if you like, until January. At the moment we're just broadcasting at weekends but from the middle of January we'll be going from 5.0 to midnight Monday to Friday and 8 a.m. to midnight Saturday and Sunday, as we are at the moment.
"We're conscious that we have to add some style and panache and continuity. We held back all of our marketing until now, largely because we wanted to have something a little bit more coherent until we invited people to come and test it, we knew it would take until about now or early in the new year before we'd be confident of standing over it."
The key question, of course, is how does the channel intend filling its airtime come January.
The danger, Cogley admits, is that sports dedicated channels end up opting for low-cost (or no cost at all) programming, as Eurosport, with their penchant for tractor-pulling and indoor-windsurfing, often do. He is, though, determined that Setanta won't go down that route.
"We have to resist the occasional temptation of cheap or free programming like that, the monster truck racing category, stuff that nobody wants to see but will fill a couple of hours. We don't want to be that, we want to be Irish, we want to be relevant, we want to be high-class international, we want to be community, and all the things in between, depending on what's in season."
The winning, last month, of the Formula One contract, which had been in RTÉ's hands, will help.
"It was a milestone for us," said Cogley. "It was the first time we had gone into the marketplace so we had to explain who we were to Formula One. Bernie Ecclestone's acceptance of us, in an open market, makes it altogether more possible for others to accept us too. We don't have to apologise, we don't have to explain who we are any more."
With Formula One secured, the channel is currently negotiating with several sports bodies to acquire the rights to more events.
"We've written to the IRFU asking if we can cover the Leinster Schools' Cup from the end of January. Their initial response was favourable so we are reasonably optimistic. We would hope to cover 10 to 12 matches in the competition, finishing with the semi-finals and final.
"We've also had discussions with a view to us doing a number of Eircom League matches live, again they seemed very receptive to it - things need to be ironed out before we can make any announcements but we would be hopeful that they would view our proposal positively.
"We'll also be showing the Setanta Cup (the new six-team cross-Border cup competition), which will occupy us throughout April, but thereafter we'd be looking to do a number of live matches and some highlights too."
And the GAA?
"We've tried to make an argument to them that there are enough games to go around, without discommoding any of the existing broadcast partners (RTÉ and TG4). They seem to have taken that point on board but we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, we have to await their decision, but we're hopeful that we will have some involvement in the next TV contract.
"The current National League contract isn't up until February 12 months but the Championship contract ended last September. We'll see, but we would love to be involved."
There are other possibilities for Setanta - like Wimbledon tennis ("if we got access to alternate courts to the BBC"), the Tour de France ("we have made an expression of interest") and non-Golden League athletic Grand Prix - while formal talks are being held with a number of associations, covering sports such as motor cycling, boxing and basketball. The latter sports would be largely used to fill what Cogley describes as an eclectic night on a Monday.
"We have plans to have theme nights on a regular basis. Tuesday might be rugby, Wednesday we're hoping for some archive Gaelic games, Thursday we have UEFA Cup and Fridays, hopefully, we'll be live - Celtic League rugby, Eircom League soccer. Other European leagues are available to us if we want, including Serie A.
"We hope to improve what we have at the moment on Saturdays and Sundays, although they are strong days when we have live English Premiership and Scottish games.
"We're happy with the direction we're going, we're on target to be a good holistic sports service to Irish sports fans. There's not far short of a million homes on the island of Ireland that can get us, if you add up NTL's 360,000, Sky's 330,000, Chorus (60,000) and Sky in Northern Ireland, which is another 150,000 - we're also trying to hook up with NTL Northern Ireland.
"You want to have as strong a content as you can possibly have for these customers, ideally you'd be going live five, seven nights a week. To some extent that is achievable, but not yet. You have to get a balance, you have to stay in business and you have to fill up your airtime.
"Sometimes it will be very strong content, sometimes not so strong. The only circumstances when you would put out what might be regarded as poor programming is if there is a trade-off, if you have some powerful programming at the other end of the scale.
"This is the way some of the television industry works, you get access to a premium event if you agree to put out a magazine programme that's related to it."
No regrets, Cogley insists, about leaving RTÉ and taking up this new challenge.
"I spent most of my working life in RTÉ. I had the idea when I took the job that I would do it for three to five years, I never thought I would still be doing it in 20 years' time.
"If I had said no to Setanta it would always been a case of 'what if'. I accepted the job because of the challenge, or maybe it was just a mid-life crisis," he laughed.
"I really enjoyed RTÉ, I was sorry to leave it, and some of the things that have happened since I left have been joyless, because winning, like with Formula One, meant RTÉ had to lose. These guys are all my friends and colleagues, but I have a job to do and everyone accepts that. The guy who is now head of sport, Glen Killane, is a particularly good friend of mine.
"Yeah, it still feels strange when I watch sport on RTÉ. My wife just says to me, 'it's not your problem any more', which is true. RTÉ's coverage of sport is excellent, it's my job now to ensure Setanta does it as well."
What's on Setanta this weekend
SATURDAY
08:00 Serie A Replay: Roma v Sampdoria 09:50 Sports Monthly 10:20 On the Limit (Motorsport) 10:50 SPL Highlights 11:50 Serie A Highlights 12:50 IRB Rugby Sevens (last weekend's rugby Sevens from Dubai) 14:45 Premiership Live: Manchester City v Tottenham 17:15 KOTV Classics (Boxing classics, including Kid Gavilan v Billy Graham (1951), Muhammed Ali v Sonny Liston (1964) and Sven Ottke v Charles Brewer (1998)). 18:15 KOTV News (Boxing news) 18:45 IRB Rugby Sevens 21:45 European Boat Angling Championship (from Kerry) 22:45 On the Limit 23:15 Sports Monthly.
SUNDAY
08:15 Samsung Nations Cup (International Showjumping from Buenos Aires). 09:15 SPL Replay: Rangers v Celtic. 11:05 Premiership Replay: Manchester City v Tottenham. 13:00 SPL Live: Dunfermline v Celtic. 16:30 On the Limit. 17:00 Sports Monthly. 17:30 SPL Highlights. 19:00 KOTV News. 19:30 Serie A Live: Bologna v Juventus. 21:30 KOTV Classics. 22:30 SPL Replay: Dunfermline v Celtic.
