The Sunday Game

[Premier Emperor]

I think the cost of highlights is being exaggerated here. Tg4 show highlights of league, u21, club, minor games etc that weren't on TV on a Monday evening and I'm sure they spend no fortune on it. You imagine if they were offered the right deal they'd happily do similar for the championship.

TG4 aren't held over a barrel by trade unions the way RTE are.

[Teo Lurley]

It's really easy to save costs, just look at the highlights on TG4. Sack Des Cahill and all the 'experts' and just show all the action!

[twohands!!!]

I think the cost of highlights is being exaggerated here. Tg4 show highlights of league, u21, club, minor games etc that weren't on TV on a Monday evening and I'm sure they spend no fortune on it. You imagine if they were offered the right deal they'd happily do similar for the championship.

TG4's top rated programs are all the GAA programs.

TG4 would probably kill to get the rights to show the qualifiers.

I still think that the GAA should be looking to have their own channel.
You compare what Armagh and a fair few clubs have done now in terms of broadcasting games on a shoestring and it really shows up what bad value RTE are.

[ONeill]

What RTE haven't copped on to is that this isn't 1995 when half the country maybe needed the evening show to catch up on that day's biggest game. Many just record the live game now if they're out and watch it later. We've already had to sit through analysis before, during and after the live show. Now we've another session of bollocks on the same game to endure before seeing clips of games not shown.

It should be the other way about. Dub/WM should have been a 3-min recap on scores followed by a 1-min acute analysis from Marty McHugh about how the famine still impacts on GAA today.

[twohands!!!]

What RTE haven't copped on to is that this isn't 1995 when half the country maybe needed the evening show to catch up on that day's biggest game. Many just record the live game now if they're out and watch it later. We've already had to sit through analysis before, during and after the live show. Now we've another session of bollocks on the same game to endure before seeing clips of games not shown.

It should be the other way about. Dub/WM should have been a 3-min recap on scores followed by a 1-min acute analysis from Marty McHugh about how the famine still impacts on GAA today.

It means far less work for the lads in the RTE GAA department to reshow the live game at length, so don't expect that to change anytime soon.

[easytiger95]

Lads the highlights on TG4 come from RTE/Sky material, which they don;t have to produce themselves - the cost isn't in making a highlights programme (though a good one is expensive) it is in getting usable, broadcasting pictures.

When they are doing minor/club/u 21 matches then they can show highlights of these as well. During the club season, TG4 would show max three games a weekend.

Trust me lads, in my time i worked w Setanta/TG4/TV3/RTE. The problem isn't laziness on anyone's part - for the broadcasters it is money, for the GAA it is balancing coverage with gate receipts.

[AZOffaly]

And would my suggestion not be a very low cost alternative?

[easytiger95]

you mean sending a single camera out to every game, bringing footage back and uploading it to streaming portal, making it available to everyone?

Well, it is certainly something you could do, but I don't think you'd have too many takers re  subscriptions. the quality would be very poor - again, a lot of these grounds don;t have TV positions, making it very difficult for single cameraman (which by the way, is an art in itself, it's a real skill to cover a match anywhere near effectively with one camera). I don't think ti would pay for itself, and would the GAA really want to let out a lot of poor quality material for little payback, especially when they are trying to promote the games as a high end product? Loads of downside, very little upside i would think, for either fans or GAA.

[trileacman]

Whilst we're discussing things that are never gonna happen whilst RTE hold the rights, can I suggest we have a Sunday Game Big Brother mash-up every Sunday night? We start the season with a full panel of presenters, analysts and commentators and every week we have a vote-off to see which one we execute live on air on Sunday night.

Think of the benefits;
- reduces cost by stream lining the work force.
- adds excitement and a sense of risk into the Sunday night broadcast.
- allows greater involvement by the audience.
- a flurry of sensible dress code as analysts try not to stand out.

If it starts to become stale you could throw in stuff like a 600 volt shock to the ass if Ger Canning says the word's "huge one" or Martin Carney utters the phrase "very much so".

So is this idea a runner or do you think I need to seek professional help?

[AZOffaly]

you mean sending a single camera out to every game, bringing footage back and uploading it to streaming portal, making it available to everyone?

Well, it is certainly something you could do, but I don't think you'd have too many takers re  subscriptions. the quality would be very poor - again, a lot of these grounds don;t have TV positions, making it very difficult for single cameraman (which by the way, is an art in itself, it's a real skill to cover a match anywhere near effectively with one camera). I don't think ti would pay for itself, and would the GAA really want to let out a lot of poor quality material for little payback, especially when they are trying to promote the games as a high end product? Loads of downside, very little upside i would think, for either fans or GAA.

Well this is what club teams up and down the country do and there doesn't seem to be any issue with it. As long as the scene was set correctly, in that it's not a professional program, it's just game footage, I don't see the drawback. There are cameramen/man there. The footage exists. It's in digital format. I can't see it being a huge job to upload it to a central repository for download for a small fee. They're probably archiving all the footage off somewhere ANYWAY.

[macdanger2]

Whilst we're discussing things that are never gonna happen whilst RTE hold the rights, can I suggest we have a Sunday Game Big Brother mash-up every Sunday night? We start the season with a full panel of presenters, analysts and commentators and every week we have a vote-off to see which one we execute live on air on Sunday night.

Think of the benefits;
- reduces cost by stream lining the work force.
- adds excitement and a sense of risk into the Sunday night broadcast.
- allows greater involvement by the audience.
- a flurry of sensible dress code as analysts try not to stand out.

If it starts to become stale you could throw in stuff like a 600 volt shock to the ass if Ger Canning says the word's "huge one" or Martin Carney utters the phrase "very much so".

So is this idea a runner or do you think I need to seek professional help?

Brilliant idea 

[County Man]

Too much coverage of games already live on tv.

Ridiculous reports from the rest of the games.

Needs to be overhauled.

[Jinxy]

Whilst we're discussing things that are never gonna happen whilst RTE hold the rights, can I suggest we have a Sunday Game Big Brother mash-up every Sunday night? We start the season with a full panel of presenters, analysts and commentators and every week we have a vote-off to see which one we execute live on air on Sunday night.

Think of the benefits;
- reduces cost by stream lining the work force.
- adds excitement and a sense of risk into the Sunday night broadcast.
- allows greater involvement by the audience.
- a flurry of sensible dress code as analysts try not to stand out.

If it starts to become stale you could throw in stuff like a 600 volt shock to the ass if Ger Canning says the word's "huge one" or Martin Carney utters the phrase "very much so".

So is this idea a runner or do you think I need to seek professional help?

Not sure if the power grid could handle the demand.

[Donnellys Hollow]

Why was 'The Game on Monday' dropped? That had proper extended highlights of all the weekend games.

[manfromdelmonte]

Sport is not a priority in RTE anymore

and even in the sport department, you'd have to seriously question how important the GAA is to the people in charge.