"The BCI has had discussions with a number of stakeholders regarding this issue and has indicated its willingness to participate in further talks on the matter that would involve all interested parties, " a BCI spokesperson said.

"As you will be aware the BCI participates in an independent capacity on the JNLR [radio listenership] committee and, in broad terms, the approach adopted in relation to radio audience research may provide a useful model for an expanding TV sector."

Channel 6, Sky and Setanta had threatened to launch their own audience measurement service to rival the established system provided by AGB Nielsen, as reported in this newspaper last month.

That threat has apparently proved sufficient to motivate the two sides to reach an accommodation.

Agreement has already been reached in principle, say industry sources, to increase substantially the size of the audience panel to better measure the viewership of newer digital and satellite channels.

The dissident broadcasters had demanded the Nielsen panel be expanded from its current 600 to at least 1,000 viewers.

There is, however, an unresolved dispute over who should pay what.

The advertising industry was horrified at the prospect of two measurement systems, what it calls "two currencies".

Advertising firms will be represented at the showdown talks later this month by the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland (IAPI) and the Association of Advertisers in Ireland (AAI).

Industry sources were optimistic that the issue over payment would be resolved. "It's madness that Sky, with four channels but a tiny fraction of RTE's audience share, should be the biggest payer into the system, " said a source close to one of the dissident broadcasters. Sky is also excluded at present from the committee that decides on Nielsen measurement policy.

"The most equitable solution would be a system of charges based on the audience measurement itself, " said a media director of a prominent Dublin firm who would be described as "broadly sympathetic" to the dissidents.

The current system has thrown up some "anomalies" in its reporting. In one period earlier this year, for example, the Nielsen research maintained that significantly more young women than men had watched the Scottish Premier League on Setanta Sports, an outcome deemed unlikely by more than one amused observer.

"We don't have enough confidence in the data to make programming decisions. Yet, in 2007, we will be expected to pay more than RTE, " Pat Donnelly, executive chairman of Channel 6, said last month.

"RTE has 200m in advertising revenue. When we've our plus-one channel and music channel up and running, we'll have maybe 5m in ad revenue. Does that seem fair?"

It seems that there is an industry consensus forming that it is not.