TG4 targets parish passion plays

This week's announcement by TG4, formerly TnaG, that they will be expanding their GAA coverage into live broadcasts indicates a major refinement of the station's sporting priorities.

Because of the investment needed to carry live matches, Nemeton, the production company which handles TG4's sports output, will be rationalising its programming, most notably Ole Ole, the Spanish soccer magazine show which will now be broadcast as a half-hour highlights package.

Micheal O Domhnaill, who presented Ole, Ole, will now be presenting Ard san Aer Beo, the live programme on Sundays covering club, league and higher education matches. He will also be producing Ard san Aer, the weekly highlights programme which will go out on Monday nights.

"We're taking the matches and seeing how the various programmes work out. RTE have the primary rights, exclusive rights to football and hurling, and they're happy that TG4 feature them. RTE went live with the league finals last year, but we'll get more wide-ranging feedback from broadcasting earlier matches. Otherwise, RTE have tended to limit themselves to inter-county fixtures and this gives us the chance to carry club games.

"TG4 is working on really minor budgets and RTE would always be able to blow them out of the water.

"Nemeton's brief is to produce sport for TG4 within a budget," O Domhnaill says. "TG4 wanted to move into GAA and Ole Ole was dying a death because Spanish soccer followers are going to be able to follow it live on Sky and soon will be able to get any match they want on digital tv."

"Last year we showed deferred coverage but decided that live TV was the only way to go."

"Live broadcasting is where it's at," according to Padhraic O Ciardha, leascheannasai TG4, "and the club thing is huge - sparing the cliches about the foundation of the game and all that. We will try and give selected county finals."

As the news of this initiative has emerged only this week, there hasn't been time for counties to co-ordinate their dates with a view to optimising the number of big finals which can be broadcast. This has meant that a full schedule of county finals can't yet be drawn up. At the moment, the Donegal football final is confirmed, with hopes for the Kilkenny hurling final and the Down football and Clare hurling equivalents.

"Early publication of our schedules is most difficult," says O Ciardha. "Because of the exigencies of county teams going late into the championship, dates in counties haven't been finalised. Then you've the All-Ireland winners going to Boston in October with the hurling All Stars.

"Then we have a core audience with An Ceathru Rua (Galway), Gaoth Dobhair (Donegal) and Gaeltacht (Kerry) all still going well in their championships. That's not an absolute requirement for us though, and we'll be trying to get around to all counties over a four or five year cycle."

"It'll be announced on a fortnightly basis. We hope to have a shortlist of county finals soon enough, and are waiting for the counties to come back to us. We're not restricted to Irish-speaking counties. We'll be hitting counties who've done well in inter-county championships.

"Quality isn't the sole determining factor either," says O Domhnaill, "because for television to work, there has to be an atmosphere, a decent attendance which makes for spectacle. There's no point in showing a Munster junior final in Thurles on a bleak and miserable day with only 3,000 present."

Although the most successful broadcasts from last year commanded around 50,000 viewers (which compares with audiences of about 600,000 for big inter-county championship matches at this time of the year - a respectable comparison taking into account the time of year and more limited appeal of the club matches), Nemeton believe the figure could be higher.

Nemeton have also been at pains to reject criticism of their role in the broadcasting of incidents in and around Tuesday evening's Munster under-21 hurling final. After Tipperary had defeated Clare, a fracas broke out on the sideline.

Excerpts of the disorderly scenes were shown on TG4 and RTE on Wednesday night. Complaints were received that neither the build-up to the incident nor a previous occurrence during the match when Clare corner forward Brian McMahon received a gash to the head which required his hospitalisation were shown.

"All we have done has been to show pictures. The use that is made of them has nothing to do with us. Ard San Aer will be showing a full highlights package next Tuesday evening when we feel the presentation will give equal balance to both sides," says O Domhnaill.