The ongoing controversy surrounding the use of GAAGO took another turn this afternoon, with Virgin Media taking some serious shots at the GAA and RTÉ over the increasing role of the service in broadcasting games.
In recent days, a number of prominent names have voiced their displeasure over the decision to move championship hurling and Gaelic football fixture onto the pay-per-view service. Donal Óg Cusack spoke passionately on the issue on The Sunday Game, as did John Mullane yesterday. Tánaiste Micheál Martin even weighed in on the issue.
Now, another broadcaster has made their opinion on the matter known.
Virgin Media ask serious questions over use of RTÉ's Use Of GAAGO
GAAGO is a join venture between the GAA and RTÉ, with the state broadcaster owning 50 per cent of the streaming service. This is something that is often overlooked during this discussion, with the state broadcaster also benefitting as more games are moved to the service.
However, Virgin Media have now questioned the arrangement.
After former GAA President Liam O'Neill suggested that the decision was taken to move games to paid services (i.e. Sky Sports) due to TV3 being under pressure back in 2015, that remark has now been rebuked.
In a statement released this afternoon, Virgin Media corrected this error made by Liam O'Neill. They also took some serious shots at both the GAA and RTÉ, questioning they were not approach to gauge their interest in showing games once Sky decided not to renew their rights package.
On RTÉ's One's Upfront current affairs programme hosted by Katie Hannon last night (Monday 8th May 2023), former GAA president Liam O'Neill was addressing the issue of the paywalling of GAA sports onto the GAAGO platform, a joint venture between RTÉ and the GAA.
During his comments, Mr. O'Neill said, "We did it in the best interests of games because, at the time TV3 was going out, and it ultimately went out of business. We would only [have] had one station covering, we thought it was best to examine other options."
Virgin Media Television wishes it to be clarified that TV3 did not go out of business, as stated by Mr. O'Neill. Based on its continuous success and achievements as a leading Irish broadcaster, TV3 was purchased by Virgin Media in July 2015 and subsequently rebranded to Virgin Media Television in June 2018 where VMTV continues to be the leading independent, commercial public service broadcaster in Ireland.
RTÉ is a 50% shareholder in GAAGO, this has never been clarified in any editorial discussion about GAAGO and the decision not to show key games on Free to Air television.
When Sky Television decided not to renew its GAA rights, the GAA did not approach other broadcasters to ascertain whether they would be interested in broadcasting these games but arbitrarily decided to put them behind a paywall.
The question must be asked, did RTÉ pay anything for these rights or did they just agree to keep them behind a paywall to drive incremental revenues for both partners in GAAGO, i.e. RTÉ and the GAA.
Given the multi-million increases in State funding to RTÉ over recent years, RTÉ now has more Sports rights than it can show on its channels, with licence payers now being forced to further subsidise RTÉ by paying for GAA Sports content through its joint-venture with the GAA.
Certainly some strong language used there.
If it is indeed the case that no other free broadcasters were approached before games were moved to a pay-per-view service, serious questions need to be asked.
SEE ALSO: RTÉ Defend Lack Of Munster Hurling Games On Free-To-Air TV
