TV broadcasting rights: The GAA are close to finalising their television broadcast rights for the 2005 championships, and are due to make a recommendation to Management Committee by the end of the month. Although the details of the negotiations remain privy to the parties involved, the emergence of Setanta Sports appears certain to break up the normally straightforward domestic television contract.

An additional aspect of this latest round of negotiations involves the rights to the National Football and Hurling Leagues, currently held by TG4. That contract ends with the two league finals next May, and Setanta are almost certain to be in the hunt for at least a part of those rights for the 2006 league programme.

RTÉ, however, have long held the exclusive rights to domestic broadcasts for the championships, which included national radio rights, with their most recent three-year contract expiring at the end of last summer's All-Ireland series. According to GAA commercial and marketing managing Dermot Power, the main difference in the new round of negotiations was the breakdown of the various broadcasting rights.

"This time the broadcast rights were split up into different packages," explained Power. "The first one we're dealing with is domestic television. Then we have international television, then radio, and then new media rights, such as the Internet.

"Right now we're dealing with domestic television, and when that's done we'll move on to the other three. We are due to make a recommendation to Management Committee by the end of the month, and at this stage we are more or less on schedule to do that."

The Management Committee will consider the initial recommendation at their meeting on January 28th. There may be some further negotiations depending on the level of approval from the committee.

The negotiations for radio broadcasts will also differ significantly from previous years with the growth in the commercially successful independent stations. Newstalk 106, for example, were granted the commercial rights for the International Rules series with Australia last October, while RTÉ held the national rights.

Fronting RTÉ's negotiations with the GAA is their head of television sport, Glen Killane, the former executive producer of Gaelic Games who took over the position last July. While unable to comment directly on the nature of the negotiations, Killane did confirm that the marketplace had changed significantly over the past three years.

"We are clearly facing a more competitive environment," said Killane, "and it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. The GAA will take advantage of that, and I would fully expect them to do so. And as a result of this increase in competition we are looking at more complex agreements than we've ever had in the past, and a by-product of that is the greater amount of time involved.

"We are working towards the same deadline as the GAA, but the negotiations are still ongoing, and still at a sensitive stage."

There was, however, a hint of RTÉ's ambitions: "Well, we're certainly not taking anything for granted, and we're not being cocky either. But we are confident about what RTÉ has done for the GAA over the past 80 years, and we continue to have a very close relationship. So these negotiations are very much at the top of our agenda. And I think the suggestion that RTÉ sport is in decline is being greatly exaggerated."

In the meantime, though, Setanta have on several occasions indicated their interest in securing some part of the domestic broadcast rights. The station starts its daily schedule from next Monday, although Gaelic Games won't be figuring for the immediate future.

Setanta chief executive Niall Cogley, a former head of sport at RTÉ, has said there are enough games to go around, without upsetting the existing level of broadcasts from RTÉ and TG4.

Yet another large part of the domestic broadcast rights are currently held by TG4, including the National Leagues, the Sigerson Cup, and the club championships. All those rights will expire with the finals of the league at the beginning of May, but according to Ronan Ó Coisdealbha of TG4 sport, the station is also no longer taking anything for granted.

"The competition is there now, and that's the reality of it," he said. "But obviously we would be very eager to hold on to those rights beyond this season."

TG4 have already drawn up a provisional list of football and hurling fixtures, which they will broadcast over the coming months, but that must also be approved by Management Committee on January 28th.

What is certain, though, is that their league coverage will be the most exhaustive yet, and will include two full league matches every Sunday - a live fixture, followed by a full, delayed broadcast. The first weekend of matches at the start of February will feature Cork against Kerry on Friday evening, Dublin against Mayo on Saturday evening, and on Sunday Donegal against Tyrone live from Ballybofey, and then deferred coverage of Offaly against Westmeath.