What, or who, links RTÉ and Discovery Communications? One answer is Dee Forbes, the president and managing director of Discovery Networks Northern Europe, who has been appointed director general and editor-in-chief of RTÉ.

Another answer concerns not an individual, but a broadcasting battleground more bloody than any executive search: sport.

Discovery, as a recent Wall Street Journal article put it, is bidding to be "the ESPN of Europe", whereas RTÉ is frantically bidding for whatever sports it can still afford to broadcast.

If the word “sport” induces chronic yawning, you are in the minority. Sport accounted for 12 of the top 20 and four of the five most-viewed programmes in Ireland last year. In any case, this isn’t just about sport. The fate of sport on television and the fate of national public service broadcasters happen to be brutally intertwined.

In the days of much less fierce competition and more secure licence fee income, public service broadcasters could make merry with big sporting occasions, placing their organisations, their brands, at the “heart” of national moments.

The insanely massive viewing figures could then be cited as one rationale for their continued public funding.

Sliding fee income

They can still do it, of course, it’s just getting much, much harder. In 2016, licence fee income is sliding, competition is cut-throat and control of sports rights has pole-vaulted out of hands of national public service broadcasters, such as RTÉ, and onto the mattresses of global media giants, such as Discovery, that can better cope with their inflated price tags.

This summer, RTÉ will go for broadcasting gold at Rio 2016, billed as the "biggest sporting event on the planet" (though ticket sales suggest otherwise). To do so, RTÉ sub-licensed the rights from an agency called Sportfive International, which had done the necessary deal with the International Olympic Committee.

This was already a slightly less comfortable situation than that which had gone before. The IOC had previously done business with the European Broadcasting Union, of which RTÉ is a member.

Now, if RTÉ wants to continue showing the Olympic Games after this summer – and it has said it does – it will have to reach an agreement with Forbes's old employer, Discovery. The media company, headquartered in Silver Spring, is, like TV3's ultimate owner, Liberty Global, backed by American billionaire John Malone.

Discovery owns the rights to the summer and winter Olympics from 2018 to 2024 in most European countries, including Ireland, and for 2022 and 2024 in others, such as the UK. It has paid €1.3 billion for the pleasure.

The difference between Sportfive and Discovery is that the latter owns a network of channels on which it can broadcast its jewels. It is currently bestowing love and affection on one of these channels in particular. No, not Animal Planet, but Eurosport. Discovery began investing in Eurosport in 2012 before buying it outright from France’s TF1 Group last June. Under Discovery’s wing, the also- ran Eurosport is about to hit the big time.

Eurosport’s action

The BBC has already agreed a deal with Discovery for live UK coverage of the key events of the 2022 and 2024 Games. But the most extensive coverage, including on-demand action, is set to be Eurosport’s.

For the Irish sub-licensing (and free- to-air restrictions means there has to be some kind of deal), RTÉ has declared itself “hopeful” of continued coverage and says it will engage when Discovery offers up the rights. Nobody in Ireland really cares about ice hockey and luge, so it’s really Tokyo 2020 that counts. The outcome will depend, as ever, on the interest of rival bidders.

Dee Forbes inherits RTÉ at a time when it is still bruised from the loss of Six Nations rugby rights from 2018 to Virgin Media's TV3. And to pay for its much- praised 1916 commemorations, its general election coverage and the 2016 Olympics, the public broadcaster was forced to make a sporting sacrifice by sub-licensing the rights to 22 of its Euro 2016 matches to TV3.

Big sporting losses inevitably shrink RTÉ’s audience and hurt its participation in the advertising market recovery. And that’s before other risks, such as a more unfavourable and/or more costly carve-up of the next set of GAA rights, are considered. In the absence of any other revenue-spinners, blows such as these, if they pile up, will eventually force further cutbacks in RTÉ’s cost base.

Forbes has jumped the fence from a multinational media world backed by billionaire shareholders to a relatively puny national one beset by political inertia. As she competes with the very sector she departed, expect more commercial partnerships with rivals such as TV3 and new alliances with other public service broadcasters. Fun and games.

The next boss is said by RTÉ chairwoman Moya Doherty to have a "visionary understanding of the global broadcasting market and a proven management record". At RTÉ, employees will soon discover what this means - as will viewers.