Speaking at employers group Ibec's annual Telecoms Industry Federation (TIF) conference Danon said entertainment was the key to selling Irish people on broadband. "I'm also convinced that the only thing that people will pay for is entertainment, " he said.

In the first step towards competition with traditional entertainment distributors including RTE, NTL and Sky, Eircom signed what it said was an exclusive deal with sports broadcaster Setanta last week to offer televised sport to its broadband customers over their internet connections, including matches from the Barclay's Premiership League beginning in August 2007.

Magnet Entertainment (see Sunday Profile, P12) also offers an internet version of Setanta content as part of its TV offer.

Danon said in the future the company hoped to be able to provide a range of niche sporting and entertainment content for Irish customers that is not currently available on television.

He said, for instance, that there was no reason why Irish club rugby matches could not be broadcast live or recorded and made available to download if subscribers were willing to pay.

Whereas traditional television networks control the content offered to subscribers, Danon said internet (IP) television would be characterised by user choice.

On-demand access to back episodes of old television series and sporting events will be key tenets of the proposition.

Danon said the IPTV would be driven by the concept of 'The Long Tail', outlined in the recent book of the same title by Chris Anderson and highlighted in TribuneBusiness earlier this year, which argues that niche content with smaller audiences can be profitable to distribute in a broadband environment.

Distributors such as Eircom will offer a wide array of niche content rather than a small amount of mass-market content, much as internet retailer Amazon has based its success on selling small numbers of a wide selection of titles.