Dunphy's Last Word, a football programme produced for mobile operator 3's mobile television channel, puts him at the cutting edge of new media in Ireland. The weekly broadcast is filmed early each Monday morning at the former Irish international soccer player's south Dublin home, affording him the opportunity to reflect on the previous weekend's action and preview the coming week's football fixtures.

The Sunday Tribune sat in on last week's filming session to see how the mobile television show is put together. Production company Random Thoughts shoots up to 45 minutes of footage of Dunphy's trademark studs-up views on matters football each week. Footage of him branding the BBC's football analysts "spoofers", criticising the introduction of a January transfer window in the English Premiership and firing shots at European football's governing body Uefa will be trimmed down to a fast-paced three-minute runthrough of news, views and action clips to be broadcast to subscribers on 3's network.

It's a tight turnaround.

Random Thoughts director Daire Whelan said the footage has to be edited down and the final package delivered to 3 by early afternoon each Monday, ready to be uploaded to its network.

The operator will not disclose audience figures for the programme but it says over half of its estimated 50,000 subscribers regularly watch its video content, of which Dunphy's Last Word is one of the flagship items.

The bite-sized broadcast is part of the mobile operator's effort to encourage subscribers to make more use of its high-speed 3G network, which delivers services such as television clips, music and video content to mobile handsets.

At present Dunphy's Last Wo rd is simply a short video clip but 3 and Random Thoughts plan to enhance the service later this year, introducing an interactive format which they feel will make better use of the mobile medium.

Fans will soon be able to record their own clips, using the video camera functions on their mobile handsets, and send them to 3 as multimedia messages.

It's a development which gives an insight into 3's vision for its mobile television content. Dunphy's show is currently available to subscribers for free. Introducing the video messaging facility gives it obvious revenue-generating potential, much as terrestrial television shows such as Big Brother pull in money from interactive services such as text message voting. If the format proves a hit with mobile viewers Dunphy's show may provide the blueprint for 3 Ireland as it seeks to expand its mobile television offering.

Dunphy will respond to the video messages received, and it's a format which he believes will work well.

"My working premise as an analyst is that there's a large, intelligent audience out there, " he said - an audience which, he expects, will also be ready to take issue with Dunphy's forthright views. They may even get the chance to make the veteran pundit eat his words.

"Sometimes you're wrong, that's the nature of it, " he said.

There is, however, no doubt about who gets the last word.