The Sunday Game

[macdanger2]

Maith shibh TG4 anocht.
Good highlights of Tipp v Ros and also Down v Cork.

No money wasted on "analysis" either, I wouldn't lose a second of sleep if they cut the entire TSG panel completely

[tippabu]

Thank God for tg4, really wish rte done similar where they just showed highlights with a voice over never mind anyone in the studio, do an online podcast or something where they do analysis of the weekend

[BennyCake]

Yeah I agree. What analysis is worth listening to in February anyway? It's all stuff like... Ah sure its early days. Trying a few new players. They won't set up like that in the c'ship. Yawn!

[AZOffaly]

Thank God for tg4, really wish rte done similar where they just showed highlights with a voice over never mind anyone in the studio, do an online podcast or something where they do analysis of the weekend

Did anyone see Eir's thing last Wednesday? I only saw a bit of it, so I'm not sure what it covered, but it seemed good and lighthearted with the analysts not taking themselves too seriously. Anna Geary and Senan Connell are presenting it.

[macdanger2]

Thank God for tg4, really wish rte done similar where they just showed highlights with a voice over never mind anyone in the studio, do an online podcast or something where they do analysis of the weekend

Did anyone see Eir's thing last Wednesday? I only saw a bit of it, so I'm not sure what it covered, but it seemed good and lighthearted with the analysts not taking themselves too seriously. Anna Geary and Senan Connell are presenting it.

Didn't see that but Woolly used to do a decent show with BJP & Aaron Kernan when Setanta had the league

[Main Street]

I'm sure Monaghan and Kildare fans didn't mind the amateur camera work for their match yesterday as at least they got to see some footage of their match.

On the contrary, given  the nature of this thread to date I'd expect that a) the coverage wasn't long enough, b) it missed most of the key moments in the game, c) the camera work was amateurish, d) the analysis wasn't long enough, e) the analysts clearly didn't watch the game, f) local soccer gets better coverags and there's only 300 people at those matches, and g) RTE are c***ts.

Sky TV etc have created a beast whereby modern sports fans expect on-demand, high quality footage of their sport. In this case, these are unreasonable demands.

Not so, the difference between a Sky tv production and an Eirsport production is chalk and cheese.
That Tyrone Dublin game was a basic bog standard video production with dreadful audio quality which muffled the crowd atmosphere.
What can it cost to hire an independent video production company to at least match that quality?
or hire a production team  to cover a lower division game,  2 cameras, a sound engineer and a master engineer who edits and encodes the content for streaming/broadcast?
TG4 can easily manage high quality broadcasting of a sport event on a low budget, a fraction of what it costs Sky to do their thing.

Putting together a proper highlights package  for both codes  from all the divisions would take a sea change from traditional thinking
Norway has 5 sports channels, Iceland has 4 sport channels which cover most every football/basketball/handball game, some 140 live football games are broadcast in HD  each year and highlights  from the rest of the games.

[easytiger95]

God be good to you wobbler, you're fighting the brave fight but there is no point - I've had this conversation before, and it never seems to sink in with the members here.

I'm assuming that you're in the TV game, because you're spot on. And speaking myself as a veteran of literally hundreds of OBs, across NFl/NHL and champo, the rest of ye don't have a clue. Now, to be fair, you are all the consumers, not the producers, so you shouldn't have to have a clue. But if someone like wobbler is talking what is, fairly obviously, sense, perhaps you'd do him the favour of, oh...I don't know, maybe...listening?

But for the hard of hearing, here we go

RTE budgets across the board have been slashed, so, no, they can't send OB units out to every game in the country. In fact they don't even have OB units anymore, they were sold off in the early noughties to stave off a previous financial crisis, and they now have to rent off companies like TVM and Observe, like TG4, TV3 and Sky have to

It is the GAA who sell the rights to the National Leagues - they divide them into (roughly) Saturday night games, Sunday games and a couple of highlight packages. The GAA controls how many games you can televise within these packages. If you buy one of these packages that means other companies can't rock up and decide to do a game in a different county at the same time - that's what exclusive rights means.

RTE, because they only have highlight rights, must rely on the footage from Eir and TG4 - who are the main rights holders for this package. And since they don't have live rights, it would make no financial sense for them to send cameras to other grounds on the scale suggested here.

And by the way, even if there was a free for all on Saturday nights, do you know how many county grounds have floodlights that look actually good on TV? Or TV gantrys with facilities for two or more cameras? I'm out of the game full time now for 5 years, but back then, very few, which meant that your choice was limited, in the main to Div 1 counties.

I noticed a page or so back someone complaining that only one camera had been sent to a ground - worse, only 2 minutes of this footage was shown. This is because if you showed more than 2 mins of single camera footage at a time, you'd have the switchboard jammed with people complaining about motion sickness.

I also noticed someone making a comparison with the Premier League coverage. Lads, the next round of those rights is about to go under auction - expected price? 6 billion. That six billion is merely the price for rights themselves. Within the contract the Premier League specify exactly what type of production must go around the match coverage - this costs hundreds of millions on top of the upfront costs. You're not comparing apples and oranges, in fact you're not even comparing apples with sub atomic particles. Please, please, please stop comparing coverage of the NFL and NHL with the richest, most high profile national league in the world.

And what about, as was mentioned by Wobbler, all the post production needed back at base to service a highlights show? the army of editors, sub editors and assistant producers needed to produce a decent looking programme? Because judging from the comments here, they'd want to be Emmys-quality every night.

And then this "TG4 does it better" crap. Lads, TG4, very cannily, bid for a package of rights which include Sigerson/Fitzgibbon/juvenile competitions, which is cheap as chips, and no one, bar them,really wants. Because they have a stripped down model (which they obviously upgrade as they go through club and league competitions), we accept as viewers that it is ok to present from the sideline and have zero frills. We don't accept that from RTE, which means doing those kinds of competitions as loss leaders, makes no sense for them at all.

I have worked, in both a fulltime and a freelance capacity, for all the companies I have spoken about above. I am not a defender of RTE, but I know that they are manned by (or were, when I was doing the rounds) capable people who are passionate about what they do - as are TG4, TV3, Eir and Sky. They make a public facing product, so they can expect and, sometimes, deserve criticism. But in universally concentrating on the things that are patently beyond their control, you actually let them off the hook for the things that they could deserve a bit of stick for - editorial choices, scheduling choices, talent choices etc.

[easytiger95]

I'm sure Monaghan and Kildare fans didn't mind the amateur camera work for their match yesterday as at least they got to see some footage of their match.

On the contrary, given  the nature of this thread to date I'd expect that a) the coverage wasn't long enough, b) it missed most of the key moments in the game, c) the camera work was amateurish, d) the analysis wasn't long enough, e) the analysts clearly didn't watch the game, f) local soccer gets better coverags and there's only 300 people at those matches, and g) RTE are c***ts.

Sky TV etc have created a beast whereby modern sports fans expect on-demand, high quality footage of their sport. In this case, these are unreasonable demands.

Not so, the difference between a Sky tv production and an Eirsport production is chalk and cheese.
That Tyrone Dublin game was a basic bog standard video production with dreadful audio quality which muffled the crowd atmosphere.
What can it cost to hire an independent video production company to at least match that quality?
or hire a production team  to cover a lower division game,  2 cameras, a sound engineer and a master engineer who edits and encodes the content for streaming/broadcast?
TG4 can easily manage high quality broadcasting of a sport event on a low budget, a fraction of what it costs Sky to do their thing.

Putting together a proper highlights package  for both codes  from all the divisions would take a sea change from traditional thinking
Norway has 5 sports channels, Iceland has 4 sport channels which cover most every football/basketball/handball game, some 140 live football games are broadcast in HD  each year and highlights  from the rest of the games.

Jesus more of it. Sky have champo - which usually means it is sunny, there is a good crowd and atmosphere, and you are not relying on flood lights without the sufficient power. There is a big difference between that and a murky winter's night in Omagh. Do you know the difference in audio between 8 thousand people and 20 thousand people?

They all - ALL - use the same OB companies to produce these games - it is the same equipment, it is just a question of how upscale you want your OB to be.

And here's the news, the Eir game had at least three cameras on it. TG4 use a minimum of three cameras for their live games - everyone does, it is the minimum you should use for a live game.

So, they use the same independent OB companies, the same equipment, in many cases the same pool of camera, audio, video replay staff - but in one case they were in the middle of winter, at a league game, the other it is the summer and championship. Lipstick and pigs.

[seafoid]

The league is only of genuine interest to hardcore GAA followers like us. Aside from the cost RTE has to cater to other groups.

RTE is very restricted by the economic reality. The DG said last year they could do a lot if the licence fee was doubled and she was savaged.

Someone mentiioned BBC NI's Irish League coverage. It's very amateur looking even if the BBC jazz it up. 

[Esmarelda]

All I want is Brolly to have a thirty second slot at the end of the highlights show where he reads out the Division 3 & 4 scores, just to prove that he's not elitist.

How many cameras would that require?

[Main Street]

I'm sure Monaghan and Kildare fans didn't mind the amateur camera work for their match yesterday as at least they got to see some footage of their match.

On the contrary, given  the nature of this thread to date I'd expect that a) the coverage wasn't long enough, b) it missed most of the key moments in the game, c) the camera work was amateurish, d) the analysis wasn't long enough, e) the analysts clearly didn't watch the game, f) local soccer gets better coverags and there's only 300 people at those matches, and g) RTE are c***ts.

Sky TV etc have created a beast whereby modern sports fans expect on-demand, high quality footage of their sport. In this case, these are unreasonable demands.

Not so, the difference between a Sky tv production and an Eirsport production is chalk and cheese.
That Tyrone Dublin game was a basic bog standard video production with dreadful audio quality which muffled the crowd atmosphere.
What can it cost to hire an independent video production company to at least match that quality?
or hire a production team  to cover a lower division game,  2 cameras, a sound engineer and a master engineer who edits and encodes the content for streaming/broadcast?
TG4 can easily manage high quality broadcasting of a sport event on a low budget, a fraction of what it costs Sky to do their thing.

Putting together a proper highlights package  for both codes  from all the divisions would take a sea change from traditional thinking
Norway has 5 sports channels, Iceland has 4 sport channels which cover most every football/basketball/handball game, some 140 live football games are broadcast in HD  each year and highlights  from the rest of the games.

Jesus more of it. Sky have champo - which usually means it is sunny, there is a good crowd and atmosphere, and you are not relying on flood lights without the sufficient power. There is a big difference between that and a murky winter's night in Omagh. Do you know the difference in audio between 8 thousand people and 20 thousand people?

They all - ALL - use the same OB companies to produce these games - it is the same equipment, it is just a question of how upscale you want your OB to be.

And here's the news, the Eir game had at least three cameras on it. TG4 use a minimum of three cameras for their live games - everyone does, it is the minimum you should use for a live game.

So, they use the same independent OB companies, the same equipment, in many cases the same pool of camera, audio, video replay staff - but in one case they were in the middle of winter, at a league game, the other it is the summer and championship. Lipstick and pigs.

Okay the lights could have been crap at Omagh but the rest of the comparison stands.
Eirsport's production costs are puny compared to Sky.
I do know the difference between capturing the sound of a crowd like Sky can manage  to great expense  and what Eirsport  can manage.
As you seemed to have missed my point  by a country mile I will repeat it.
My point countering Wobbler was that we do not expect a production like Sky manages to do.
The difference in costs between a Sky production and what Eirsport managed in Omagh is enormous.
We don't expect a Sky production for  the league 1 games  never mind for lower league game.
GAA fans would be quite content with the standard TG4 can manage.
And if a tiny populated country like Iceland  can manage to broadcast 140 live games from one sporting code with proper HD highlights from all the other games,  I think that's evidence enough that it's viable to do in Ireland.

[Asal Mor]

Yeah I agree. What analysis is worth listening to in February anyway? It's all stuff like... Ah sure its early days. Trying a few new players. They won't set up like that in the c'ship. Yawn!

The best one was after the highlights of Limerick beating Offaly by 17 points, Lyster said that it might not be a bad thing for Offaly that expectations were dampened after the win over Dublin and Eddie agreed with him.

Indeed lads, it was vital after nearly 20 years of despair that they nipped that bit of optimism in the bud.

[westbound]

The league is only of genuine interest to hardcore GAA followers like us. Aside from the cost RTE has to cater to other groups.

RTE is very restricted by the economic reality. The DG said last year they could do a lot if the licence fee was doubled and she was savaged.

Someone mentiioned BBC NI's Irish League coverage. It's very amateur looking even if the BBC jazz it up.

Of course it's very amateur looking.
BUT ask any of the teams in divisions 2/3/4 would they prefer the hghlights shown on last sunday night from their games or an  amateur looking highlights package similar to BBC NI's league coverage.

I don't think anybody in their right mind is saying that EVERY league game down to the last game in Div 4 should be covered with the quality of an all ireland final. BUT a little bit of recognition that these teams even exist wouldn't go astray.

[AZOffaly]

I think I asked this before, but there seems to be a trend now of amateur cameramen streaming games on behalf of clubs/counties onto their web pages. Armagh is one, I think I saw it in Waterford as well or somewhere like that. Obviously it's a single camera and it's low cost, but would it be worth the GAA launching an online service where all games are streamed, and stored online. You could charge a certain amount per year, and allow viewers download complete games at their convenience. There'd be amateur or no commentary, although to be fair I'd prefer Eddie Moroney to Ger Canning, and obviously expectation would have to be set (via the price point I suppose) as to the quality.

I'd still subscribe to a service that allowed me download and watch Offaly v Fermanagh last Sunday, as long as the fee wasn't exorbitant.  In these days of facebook live streams etc, surely the technology for this exists.

[johnneycool]

The league is only of genuine interest to hardcore GAA followers like us. Aside from the cost RTE has to cater to other groups.

RTE is very restricted by the economic reality. The DG said last year they could do a lot if the licence fee was doubled and she was savaged.

Someone mentiioned BBC NI's Irish League coverage. It's very amateur looking even if the BBC jazz it up.

Of course it's very amateur looking.
BUT ask any of the teams in divisions 2/3/4 would they prefer the hghlights shown on last sunday night from their games or an  amateur looking highlights package similar to BBC NI's league coverage.

I don't think anybody in their right mind is saying that EVERY league game down to the last game in Div 4 should be covered with the quality of an all ireland final. BUT a little bit of recognition that these teams even exist wouldn't go astray.

You gotta remember that for the last two weekends the NHL Div1 A and B was also on and there's even more burden for those 6 games to be covered as well.