ADVERTISING/MARKETING: The FAI/Sky deal means Irish football viewers could be seeing advertisements for Bradford & Bingley instead of the EBS, and Tetley's tea instead of Lyons as Irish advertisers will not be able to buy Ireland-only space in the ad breaks.
Sky One and Sky News both offer an opt-out for the Republic, where the breaks between programmes can be isolated for broadcast to the Republic only and can feature "local" advertising. Sky Sports does not offer this facility.
Creating such an opt-out for Sky Sports would require a hardware investment of about €1.27 million.
"There is a point where opt-outs become economically unviable," according to Mr John Patten, managing director of Medialink, a sales company that represents Channel 4 and E4, Channel 4's entertainment channel.
Industry estimates put that point at around a market share of 2 per cent. Sky does not reveal figures for Sky Sports share of the market but has no plans to offer an opt-out facility in the near future.
E4 has offered an Irish opt-out since June 1st. It has a market share of 3.9 per cent and the breaks have been bought by Irish advertisers keen to sell to the young audience that reality show Big Brother attracts. It is thought that E4 hopes to pull in €1.6 million of Irish-generated revenue in its first year. Industry analysts say that such opt-outs represent a broadening of available advertising outlets but, crucially, they don't actually grow the advertising market. Most, if not all, of this income will have been diverted from other stations.
The flow of money out of the country to foreign stations further weakens the possibility for growth of the local independent programme-making sector.
Football internationals are particularly attractive to advertisers whose market is in the difficult-to-reach male AB category. International brands may have the budgets required to compete with British advertisers on Sky Sports during matches but the cost will force smaller, local brands out of the picture.
Not only would fans be exposed to advertising that might not necessarily be relevant to them - they would be exposed to a great deal more of it. RTÉ is restricted to showing six minutes of advertising per hour. Sky shows 11 minutes of advertising per hour.
According to Mr David Hayes, joint managing director of planning agency CIA Mediator, the Sky viewer in the Republic differs from his British counterpart in one key respect, affluence.
"Sky is very ABC1 in Ireland, which is not the case in the UK," says Mr Hayes. That profile makes it attractive to a large section of Irish advertisers.
World Cup matches generated advertising fever, with companies paying €20,000 to be in the breaks of the Irish games. The slots were snapped up, particularly by sponsors of the Irish football team.
Without an opt-out, those sponsors will have to compete in a bigger market to advertise during the more modest European championship qualifiers in September.
