Pumas maul Lions as S4C and TG4 deliver first-ever joint host in Dublin By Fergal Ringrose Monday, June 23, 2025 - 14:39
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Kieran Hartigan, Iris Productions, executive producer
S4C and TG4 joined forces to provide free-to-air coverage of the British & Irish Lions' first-ever fixture in Ireland and the first sports co-production between the two public service broadcasters. The opening match of the 2025 series took place at Dublin's Aviva Stadium on Friday 20 June where the Lions were defeated 24-28 by World Cup semi-finalists Argentina.
Production was provided by the team behind Rugba Beo from Iris Productions, in tandem with Whisper / Lions Productions, alongside broadcast facilities from NEP Ireland. Following Friday's Dublin clash, the Lions depart for Australia for the nine-game tour, including three Test matches against the Wallabies.
Sky Sports is the UK and Ireland rights holder for the Lions Series, and Friday night's historic 1888 Cup match served as a curtain-raiser for the upcoming tour. Sky deployed a seven-camera add-on presentation unilateral remote production from the Aviva Stadium, working with Irish facilities provider TVM.
We've always had a good relationship with TG4; we're very similar in lots of ways, obviously including being minority language, S4C head of sport Sue Butler tells SVG Europe. We've worked together for many years on sports like Tour de France and URC rugby, but we've never actually done a joint production. So it's great that something of this magnitude is the first one.
Sky was always the main rights holder, but there was an opportunity here for a free-to-air production. I hate the word synergy' but that's really what it is, with two minority language broadcasters doing the British & Irish Lions opening match before they go to Australia. It felt like a good opportunity, a good fit.
Kieran Hartigan from Iris has been great all the way through, he's a big part of making this happen. We've known his team for years through working together on the URC. And TG4 head of sport R n n Coisdealbha and I spend quite a bit of time working together over the sporting calendar, she adds.
We broadcast in English and Welsh; we do English on the red button. We're taking the world feed commentary to provide our English language service, so it's an extra feed. That means S4C will have a Welsh language feed and an English commentary feed - and that English feed will be book-ended by the S4C programme before and after the game. That's another thing that has to happen on the truck.
Last October Butler and Coisdealbha attended Sportel in Monaco and learned of a possible opportunity to broadcast the Lions match for free-to-air through Pitch International. The Lions were looking for a broadcaster to put together an OB unit and facilities for host broadcast obligations - with production crew, technical crew and fibre connection to BT Tower, Coisdealbha explains.
There's a lot of feeds, with TG4, S4C, clean international feed, and then the world feed which Pitch International sends to broadcast takers around the world. These included Stan Sport in Australia, who will be host broadcaster for the Lions vs Wallabies Test Series.
Kieran puts blood, sweat and tears into every production, and you can see that on the screen. The effort that goes into getting interviews, pre- and post-match analysis and half-time, drones, cameras, directing, running orders - everything is just down to a tee. We're very lucky to have a producer like Kieran who has such a deep interest in rugby and who does a great job on every production for us.
We're delighted and proud for TG4 and S4C to get the opportunity to co-produce a match of this size, and that we're able to showcase a Lions match happening in Dublin. We had the URC final in Croke Park last weekend, which was obviously a big game with really good viewing figures. But to have two big rugby matches on TG4 within the space of seven days is great. Never in a million years did I think TG4 would be broadcasting a live Lions match - it's huge.
Bigger than the Six Nations
Hartigan adds: We've had numerous meetings in respect of this production, with a huge amount of planning involved. Sky indicated some months ago that they were going to be on-site with a significant add-on presence, and that they were going to produce remotely.
From an Irish perspective I would say we are extremely honoured to be the production company managing the world feed production to takers all around the globe, and separately on-site we have productions for both TG4 and S4C through Iris and working with our colleagues from Whisper / Lions Productions in respect of the S4C production.
Never in a million years did I think TG4 would be broadcasting a live Lions match - it's huge
Tom Kearns, who works with Iris and is a native Welsh speaker, is directing for S4C and Si n Jones from Whisper / Lions Productions is producing, with Sinead Murphy directing and Kara Kelly producing for TG4. Gruff Davies is directing the world feed coverage.
There has been excellent cooperation with Sky, who are managing their own production, and there will be some in-game camera sharing as well. World feed will be dedicating cameras to both S4C and TG4 for use in their build-up too.
He continues: We have a world feed graphics package with two slaved Viz engines from AE Live here. As we fire world feed graphics in English, two slaved machines will simultaneously fire Irish language and Welsh language to the TG4 and S4C trucks. And then there are Viz Trios on each of the TG4 and S4C trucks driving pres graphics as well. It has been a phenomenal effort by AE Live in the last number of weeks to get that turned around for us.
In terms of numbers, a tot
