TG4 - Club Championships Coverage

[rosnarun]

Having often praised TG4's GAA progtramming, I thought last night's coverage of the club championships descended to near-RTÉ Sunday-night levels. It's just not possible to cram highlights of four matches into a half-hour programme, with one break in the middle and one at the end. The result is that the only 'highlights' we see are scores and we don't even see all of those.

The low point was reached last night when watching the 'highlights' of Seneschalstown-Vincents and the score was something like 5 points each. Then Vincents got a point and the current score came up again - Seneschalstown 1-5, Vincents 0-6! We never saw the goal! It may have been the worst goal ever scored in the club championship (I'll never know now) but surely the only goal in any game must qualify as a highlight?

It's great to have TG4, so I hope they'll take this as constructive criticism – a critical audience is a good guarantee of standards. Couldn't we have another half hour of Monday highlights – we'd miss an episode of Ros na Rún, maybe. Win - win!

Lay off Ros an run
But in general it a good reason why setanta should get the Gaa coverage. Part of the reson the club championship has been v poor this year is they semmed to be showing so waiters on a break playing pool. in to days term a general entertainmet channel cannot provide proper indepth sports coverage  apart from major finals. they just spread it all so thin. where as setanta is crying out for programming  or soon they'll be showing show sports as ballroom dancing ,UFC(t**ker fighting) and tractor pulling

[GAA Beo]

In reply to a couple of points raised earlier:

The goal was missed on camera in the Vincent's v Seneschalstown match because of a camera battery change and that is why it didn't feature in the highlights package. It was unfortunate that the camera operator had to change battery at that time but when it is single camera coverage you always take a chance on losing a score. I've been told that it's just the second time that something like this has happened in almost a decade of covering matches for highlights for TG4. In relation to clips that are/ are not included, we generally don't show frees, and near misses are selected or left out after careful consideration. Because some programmes have tighter time constraints than others this may explain why sometimes incidents which didn't result in scores are omitted.

Regarding programme length, TG4 has a policy of making each of the GAA 2007 programmes half an hour in length. This cannot be changed on a week to week basis. Scheduling, advertising and other programming reasons make this impossible. In a couple of weeks we'll be down to the last match in each province, and a half hour will be more than enough.

From next weekend we're back to televising 2 matches back to back, we'll have live coverage of the Ballyhale v Birr match (coverage starts 1:30 pm), followed by the Tulla v Ballyduff match in full.

[Hardy]

Fair enough GAA Beo - that's not a bad excuse! I won't be picky and say that maybe the problem is not a battery failure as much as the fact that there's only one camera! I know there were many matches and maybe there are not so many cameras/crews and better one camera than none at all.

[Bogball XV]

Fair enough GAA Beo - that's not a bad excuse! I won't be picky and say that maybe the problem is not a battery failure as much as the fact that there's only one camera! I know there were many matches and maybe there are not so many cameras/crews and better one camera than none at all.

The goal was on the RTE news on sunday night.
On another note, why do TG4 ignore Ulster?

[saffron sam2]

Fair enough GAA Beo - that's not a bad excuse! I won't be picky and say that maybe the problem is not a battery failure as much as the fact that there's only one camera! I know there were many matches and maybe there are not so many cameras/crews and better one camera than none at all.

The goal was on the RTE news on sunday night.
On another note, why do TG4 ignore Ulster?

Because they learned their lesson after the Armagh final this year.

[Leo]

In reply to a couple of points raised earlier:

The goal was missed on camera in the Vincent's v Seneschalstown match because of a camera battery change and that is why it didn't feature in the highlights package. It was unfortunate that the camera operator had to change battery at that time but when it is single camera coverage you always take a chance on losing a score. I've been told that it's just the second time that something like this has happened in almost a decade of covering matches for highlights for TG4. In relation to clips that are/ are not included, we generally don't show frees, and near misses are selected or left out after careful consideration. Because some programmes have tighter time constraints than others this may explain why sometimes incidents which didn't result in scores are omitted.

Regarding programme length, TG4 has a policy of making each of the GAA 2007 programmes half an hour in length. This cannot be changed on a week to week basis. Scheduling, advertising and other programming reasons make this impossible. In a couple of weeks we'll be down to the last match in each province, and a half hour will be more than enough.

From next weekend we're back to televising 2 matches back to back, we'll have live coverage of the Ballyhale v Birr match (coverage starts 1:30 pm), followed by the Tulla v Ballyduff match in full.

The TG4 coverage has been brilliant although I have two suggestions, one of which is a MUST and the second merely a helpful idea for us slow-learners an dteanga:
1. The camera should be positioned opposite the main spectator area. For instance on Sunday last the stand at Newry was full but the camera was used from that position even though the main camera position is on the opposite terrace. So the ighlights suggested very few at the match wheres the attendance was over 5,000.
Your production values are diminished by not showing the spectators in the background which would be much more atmospheric than always looking at empty terraces. I know using the stand is the easy option but it does not do the games justice and if I was  in the GAA governing body I would insist on the preferred location being used. This was very pronounced in some of the hurling games this season.

2. I have a smattering of Irish but match commentaries are too fast to follow. Could a few token words in the foreign tongue not be thrown into the commentary in much the same way that M O'Muircheartaigh reverses it on RTE1. I know some interviews are in English (out of necessity) and I agree with the language ethos of the station but some recognition of us dunderheads would help us.

Otherwise keep up the good work and we'll chip in for a second camera for you.

[Owenmoresider]

drici - I didn't see any clips from Ballina v Tourlestrane last night?

[Louth Exile]

Fair enough GAA Beo - that's not a bad excuse! I won't be picky and say that maybe the problem is not a battery failure as much as the fact that there's only one camera! I know there were many matches and maybe there are not so many cameras/crews and better one camera than none at all.

The goal was on the RTE news on sunday night.
On another note, why do TG4 ignore Ulster?

They showed the Monaghan football live this year

[tayto]

The TG4 coverage has been brilliant although I have two suggestions, one of which is a MUST and the second merely a helpful idea for us slow-learners an dteanga:
1. The camera should be positioned opposite the main spectator area. For instance on Sunday last the stand at Newry was full but the camera was used from that position even though the main camera position is on the opposite terrace. So the ighlights suggested very few at the match wheres the attendance was over 5,000.
Your production values are diminished by not showing the spectators in the background which would be much more atmospheric than always looking at empty terraces. I know using the stand is the easy option but it does not do the games justice and if I was  in the GAA governing body I would insist on the preferred location being used. This was very pronounced in some of the hurling games this season.

Agree with that, hersindoors ALWAYS comments on it when i'm watching a match and the stand opposite to the camera is empty. "sher you must be the only person interested in this, there's no one there" ... I try to explain that there's in fact about 5000 people underneath the camera but she dosent believe me. I know TG4 try to show the crowd as often as possible but it looks bad when the stand you see during play is totally empty.

[imtommygunn]

They showed the Down and Armagh finals live as well.

In saying that I'm not sure they are actually showing any ulster club football live at all which you would have to question.

Also given the ulster hurling final is on before basically any other provincial finals meaning there are less conflicts I hoped it would have been shown too but not to be...

[his holiness nb]

The low point was reached last night when watching the 'highlights' of Seneschalstown-Vincents and the score was something like 5 points each. Then Vincents got a point and the current score came up again - Seneschalstown 1-5, Vincents 0-6! We never saw the goal!

Peno, Joe Sheridan, buried low into the keepers right hand corner, keeper dove the right way but couldnt stop it.
A Tg4 cameraman was seen behind the goal scrambling frantically through his kit bag for batteries at the time.

Who is live this weekend?

[tayto]

Who is live this weekend?

From next weekend we're back to televising 2 matches back to back, we'll have live coverage of the Ballyhale v Birr match (coverage starts 1:30 pm), followed by the Tulla v Ballyduff match in full.

Must say i think a better highlights program could be produced as well, whats wrong with an hour and a half, a bit of anaylsis and so on. I'm not just saying this is TG4s fault, they've done wonders for GAA club coverage but i think it could be taken to another level now. A bit of an aul'desk and a couple of GAA journalists having a chat couldnt cost that much.

[Bogball XV]

They showed the Down and Armagh finals live as well.

In saying that I'm not sure they are actually showing any ulster club football live at all which you would have to question.

Also given the ulster hurling final is on before basically any other provincial finals meaning there are less conflicts I hoped it would have been shown too but not to be...

Only because there was feck all else on at that stage and they didn't want to have to try and justify showing the galway quarter finals at the expense of finals on elsewhere.

[GalwayBayBoy]

They showed the Down and Armagh finals live as well.

In saying that I'm not sure they are actually showing any ulster club football live at all which you would have to question.

Also given the ulster hurling final is on before basically any other provincial finals meaning there are less conflicts I hoped it would have been shown too but not to be...

Only because there was feck all else on at that stage and they didn't want to have to try and justify showing the galway quarter finals at the expense of finals on elsewhere.

They only showed the Galway county football final this year. They didn't show the hurling final. In fact I can never remember them showing anything other than the finals in Galway. Unless they did years ago.

[Louth Exile]

The TG4 coverage has been brilliant although I have two suggestions, one of which is a MUST and the second merely a helpful idea for us slow-learners an dteanga:
1. The camera should be positioned opposite the main spectator area. For instance on Sunday last the stand at Newry was full but the camera was used from that position even though the main camera position is on the opposite terrace. So the ighlights suggested very few at the match wheres the attendance was over 5,000.
Your production values are diminished by not showing the spectators in the background which would be much more atmospheric than always looking at empty terraces. I know using the stand is the easy option but it does not do the games justice and if I was  in the GAA governing body I would insist on the preferred location being used. This was very pronounced in some of the hurling games this season.

Agree with that, hersindoors ALWAYS comments on it when i'm watching a match and the stand opposite to the camera is empty. "sher you must be the only person interested in this, there's no one there" ... I try to explain that there's in fact about 5000 people underneath the camera but she dosent believe me. I know TG4 try to show the crowd as often as possible but it looks bad when the stand you see during play is totally empty.

Its just cause she got to watch the first episode of Corrie in the nice warm living room and then you arr probably packing her off to a cold kitchen to watch the second episode while you watch the GA, admit it 

They showed the Down and Armagh finals live as well.

In saying that I'm not sure they are actually showing any ulster club football live at all which you would have to question.

Also given the ulster hurling final is on before basically any other provincial finals meaning there are less conflicts I hoped it would have been shown too but not to be...

Only because there was feck all else on at that stage and they didn't want to have to try and justify showing the galway quarter finals at the expense of finals on elsewhere.

They only showed the Galway county football final this year. They didn't show the hurling final. In fact I can never remember them showing anything other than the finals in Galway. Unless they did years ago.

Galway can have no complaints they ONLY show the football final
They seem to show it every year though