tv3 press release

[pete]

[tv3.ie]

tvthree will broadcast more live soccer matches in the coming season than any other terrestrial channel in Ireland or the UK. The range of games to be broadcast on tvthree from this Autumn will include 33 live Champion's League matches, at least five live Eircom League matches along with a dedicated weekly Eircom League programme and extensive coverage of all Ireland's home international games including friendlies.

Following the UEFA Champion's League 2002-2003 draw held in Monaco last week, tvthree can reveal that Valencia V Liverpool will kick off this season's coverage on Tuesday 17th September with highlights of the Arsenal v Borussia Dortmund and delayed full coverage of Roma V Real Madrid.

Manchester Utd. V Maccabi Haifa will be broadcast live on Wednesday 18th with highlights of Dynamo Kiev V Newcastle and delayed full coverage of Bayern München V Deportivo La Coruna.

This season Packie Bonner is tvthree's main presenter and pundits will include Mick McCarthy, Mark Lawrenson, John Toshack, Kevin Moran, Frank Stapleton, Tony Cascarino, John Aldridge and Mick Martin. tvthree will increase Champion's League coverage even further this season with plans to show 33 live matches, 28 full delayed matches and 17 weekly magazine shows. tvthree is the only channel in Ireland or the UK where viewers can see two live Champion's League matches per week.

This Autumn tvthree will become the new home of the Eircom League. The dedicated weekly Eircom League programme will commence on Monday October 7th and will feature highlights and analysis from at least two Eircom League matches per week.

tvthree will enlist guests who are heavily involved in the game including managers, players and members of the media who report on the game on an ongoing basis. tvthree can also announce that the first live Eircom League match to be broadcast on the station will be Bohemians V Shelbourne at the beginning of November.

tvthree's Director of Programming Matthew Salway said today

'This is a very exciting time for Sport on tvthree. We are delighted to be involved in Irish soccer at all levels with a dedicated weekly programme and live coverage we believe that Eircom League fans will enjoy what tvthree has to offer. Champion's League continues to be the corner stone of Sport on tvthree with average viewing figures over 250,000 and audience growth of 20 per cent last season.We believe that this combination,not to mention delayed coverage of all the home international matches,will keep the legions of Irish soccer fans very happy indeed!'

For more information please contact Gillian Rowntree or Emer Langan on 4193426 or4193436 or 086 8361444

[Pablo]

That sound promising indeed. hopefully it wont be an RTE style bullsh!t press release.

We may have decent coverage of our domestic game at long last.

Didnt i read somewhere that RTE can also show some game? They should do a deal and split games between them, therefore saving money and covering more games.......

[pete]

From what i've seen tv3 would seem to have first option on games but theres nothing stopping RTE from doing a separate deal to show live games on game per game basis.

At least tv3 actually do a press release & while might be a bit of bs in there (don't all press releases) i can't see how can be any worse than current RTE situation - tv3 can only improve anyway & might use the eL to give RTE the 2 fingers

[Colm]

I notice it doesnt say what time the monday night highlights progamme will be broadcast at, lets just hope it gets a good time slot!

[Éanna]

just saw a picture of their launch in the star today. They had Packie Bonner and 5 kids, in the following jerseys: bohs, real madrid, man utd, ireland and shels. So at least there's a visual sign of interest from them.