League Sunday...

[Maroon Manc]

This is what TG4 have advertised for tonight;

Weekly GAA highlights. Allianz Hurling League: Dublin-Limerick, Waterford-Galway, Offaly-Tipperary, Cork-Wexford and Kilkenny-Clare. Allianz Football League: Dublin-Derry, Cork-Mayo and Down-Meath.

[AZOffaly]

It's not even that the Football was sacrificed for the hurling. The hurling coverage was absolute shite as well. It was the same sort of roundup they give to the 'other' championship games during the summer when they are busy replaying the game they showed live already! "Meanwhile in Ruislip..."

[ck]

RTE clearly don't give a damn. League Sunday is embarrassing it's so poor. Compare it to any other countries national sport, highlights package. The analysis is zero and the highlights are tokenism at best.

Any wonder Sky is getting in for a piece of the action. They are up against nothing. A smart move would be if they took on the NFL coverage and did it properly and leave RTE to the weather and the news.

[twohands!!!]

I wouldn't usually be one for e-mailing complaints but that Sunday League programme last night was so bad that I sent the e-mail below to RTE this morning.



Dear RTE,

I wish to register my disgust at the quality of your League Sunday programme last night.

Firstly you placed great emphasis on the weekend's hurling matches on your programme last night which is fair enough, as the importance of the league quarter finals and relegation play-offs were worthy of such coverage.

However, your gaelic football coverage was deplorable. It was amateurish to the point of embarrassing. A number of notable developments took place in the football leagues over the past weekend;

1.Monaghan secured their first win over Kerry since 1987 and their Division 1 status for next year,
2.Donegal laid down a marker for their championship opener with Tyrone later in the year by handing Tyrone a crushing defeat yesterday,
3.The Division 2 league results over the weekend mean that going into the last round of games there are two points between the first five teams, which sets the scene for an interesting and exciting final round of games next weekend,
4.Armagh and Fermanagh secured their promotion to Division 2 for next season, and
5.Longford secured their promotion to Division 3 for next season.

Yet bizarrely NONE of the above was deemed worthy of mention or comment last night. All of the above were positive stories to emerge over the weekend but instead RTE, as is your norm, chose to focus on the Dublin vs Derry game and how it represents all that is wrong with gaelic football at present. As it happens I have no issue with highlighting and analysing the awful spectacle that was the Dublin vs Derry game; that game was so bad that it would have been remiss of you to ignore it. However, in the interests of balance, I feel that at least some of the positive gaelic football stories listed above were worthy of mention and discussion as well rather than ignoring them completely.

It is not as if you did not have the time to provide a more in-depth analysis of the weekend's gaelic football. To close the programme you "treated" the viewer to yet another montage paying homage to Henry Shefflin and his playing career, a subject that has been flogged to death at this stage. The decision was obviously taken by your producers to fill the remaining time left on your programme with this "filler item" in lieu of making the effort to give the weekend's gaelic football the proper analysis it deserved. That represents a staggering level of incompetence, laziness and amateurism on your behalf. Who made that decision? Are they deemed to be competent at their job and if so, why?

You may respond to me stating that it is not feasible to have a camera at every game in order to produce a more comprehensive highlights package. However, the viewer does not expect a highlights package covering every single game that takes place over a given weekend; we expect a quality of analysis of the games, and this is sadly lacking. Yet, notwithstanding this point, the quality of the footage of the Cork vs Mayo game was so poor that I suspect it was shot on an iphone or other such device. Therefore, if that is the standard of footage deemed acceptable to RTE then I would contend that it would be feasible for RTE to have a correspondent at every game with an iphone with which to record the action for your highlights show.

RTE runs advertisements on the television these days about how much value for money people are getting for paying their TV License. Unfortunately your own belief in your own quality is sadly misplaced. Last night's League Sunday programme represented all that is wrong with RTE's GAA coverage and regrettably, nobody is surprised anymore.

Yours in disgust,

CL

Very good Charlie, unfortunatly i dont hold out much hope of a satifactory reply, or even anyone at RTE paying much notice.

I did see an ad recently about RTE updating it's public service statement and I found the link below.

http://www.rte.ie/about/en/serving-our-audience/2015/0306/685100-rte-public-service-statement/

Might want to tweak your letter and submit it under this.

I'm doubtful about how effective it might be but it's better than nothing.

Personally I think the GAA should be looking to form it's own television company and massively expand the number of games broadcast.

[GrandMasterFlash]

TG4 will have better coverage tomorrow. RTE's is pathetic.

GAA 201520:30 Weekly GAA highlights. Allianz Hurling League: Dublin-Limerick, Waterford-Galway, Offaly-Tipperary, Cork-Wexford and Kilkenny-Clare. Allianz Football League: Dublin-Derry, Cork-Mayo and Down-Meath.

http://www.tg4.ie/en/tv-listings/tv-listings.html

Not much... at least from a football perspective..

[Jinxy]

They have Seo Spoirt as well though on a Friday which is very good.

[Niall8100]

TG4 will have better coverage tomorrow. RTE's is pathetic.

GAA 201520:30 Weekly GAA highlights. Allianz Hurling League: Dublin-Limerick, Waterford-Galway, Offaly-Tipperary, Cork-Wexford and Kilkenny-Clare. Allianz Football League: Dublin-Derry, Cork-Mayo and Down-Meath.

http://www.tg4.ie/en/tv-listings/tv-listings.html

Not much... at least from a football perspective..

By the looks of the games TG4 have for their highlights and the lack of coverage from RTE it looks like they just didn't have any cameras in Tralee or Ballybofey, etc. which in itself is just ridiculous and unforgivable.

[BluestackBoy]

TG4 will have better coverage tomorrow. RTE's is pathetic.

GAA 201520:30 Weekly GAA highlights. Allianz Hurling League: Dublin-Limerick, Waterford-Galway, Offaly-Tipperary, Cork-Wexford and Kilkenny-Clare. Allianz Football League: Dublin-Derry, Cork-Mayo and Down-Meath.
 
http://www.tg4.ie/en/tv-listings/tv-listings.html

Not much... at least from a football perspective..

By the looks of the games TG4 have for their highlights and the lack of coverage from RTE it looks like they just didn't have any cameras in Tralee or Ballybofey, etc. which in itself is just ridiculous and unforgivable.

Cameras were probably all at the Aviva 

[Maguire01]

TG4 will have better coverage tomorrow. RTE's is pathetic.

GAA 201520:30 Weekly GAA highlights. Allianz Hurling League: Dublin-Limerick, Waterford-Galway, Offaly-Tipperary, Cork-Wexford and Kilkenny-Clare. Allianz Football League: Dublin-Derry, Cork-Mayo and Down-Meath.

http://www.tg4.ie/en/tv-listings/tv-listings.html

Not much... at least from a football perspective..

By the looks of the games TG4 have for their highlights and the lack of coverage from RTE it looks like they just didn't have any cameras in Tralee or Ballybofey, etc. which in itself is just ridiculous and unforgivable.

Still no excuse for it even talking about the results and te u r significance to the league etc.

[Main Street]

I wouldn't usually be one for e-mailing complaints but that Sunday League programme last night was so bad that I sent the e-mail below to RTE this morning.



Dear RTE,

I wish to register my disgust at the quality of your League Sunday programme last night.

Firstly you placed great emphasis on the weekend's hurling matches on your programme last night which is fair enough, as the importance of the league quarter finals and relegation play-offs were worthy of such coverage.

However, your gaelic football coverage was deplorable. It was amateurish to the point of embarrassing. A number of notable developments took place in the football leagues over the past weekend;

1.Monaghan secured their first win over Kerry since 1987 and their Division 1 status for next year,
2.Donegal laid down a marker for their championship opener with Tyrone later in the year by handing Tyrone a crushing defeat yesterday,
3.The Division 2 league results over the weekend mean that going into the last round of games there are two points between the first five teams, which sets the scene for an interesting and exciting final round of games next weekend,
4.Armagh and Fermanagh secured their promotion to Division 2 for next season, and
5.Longford secured their promotion to Division 3 for next season.

Yet bizarrely NONE of the above was deemed worthy of mention or comment last night. All of the above were positive stories to emerge over the weekend but instead RTE, as is your norm, chose to focus on the Dublin vs Derry game and how it represents all that is wrong with gaelic football at present. As it happens I have no issue with highlighting and analysing the awful spectacle that was the Dublin vs Derry game; that game was so bad that it would have been remiss of you to ignore it. However, in the interests of balance, I feel that at least some of the positive gaelic football stories listed above were worthy of mention and discussion as well rather than ignoring them completely.

It is not as if you did not have the time to provide a more in-depth analysis of the weekend's gaelic football. To close the programme you "treated" the viewer to yet another montage paying homage to Henry Shefflin and his playing career, a subject that has been flogged to death at this stage. The decision was obviously taken by your producers to fill the remaining time left on your programme with this "filler item" in lieu of making the effort to give the weekend's gaelic football the proper analysis it deserved. That represents a staggering level of incompetence, laziness and amateurism on your behalf. Who made that decision? Are they deemed to be competent at their job and if so, why?

You may respond to me stating that it is not feasible to have a camera at every game in order to produce a more comprehensive highlights package. However, the viewer does not expect a highlights package covering every single game that takes place over a given weekend; we expect a quality of analysis of the games, and this is sadly lacking. Yet, notwithstanding this point, the quality of the footage of the Cork vs Mayo game was so poor that I suspect it was shot on an iphone or other such device. Therefore, if that is the standard of footage deemed acceptable to RTE then I would contend that it would be feasible for RTE to have a correspondent at every game with an iphone with which to record the action for your highlights show.

RTE runs advertisements on the television these days about how much value for money people are getting for paying their TV License. Unfortunately your own belief in your own quality is sadly misplaced. Last night's League Sunday programme represented all that is wrong with RTE's GAA coverage and regrettably, nobody is surprised anymore.

Yours in disgust,

CL

Very good Charlie, unfortunatly i dont hold out much hope of a satifactory reply, or even anyone at RTE paying much notice.

I did see an ad recently about RTE updating it's public service statement and I found the link below.

http://www.rte.ie/about/en/serving-our-audience/2015/0306/685100-rte-public-service-statement/

Might want to tweak your letter and submit it under this.

I'm doubtful about how effective it might be but it's better than nothing.

Personally I think the GAA should be looking to form it's own television company and massively expand the number of games broadcast.

Very good letter of protest Charlie and Monaghan's victory rightfully was the  NR1 item of protest

RTE should give a damn and they should be reminded to give a damn about the quality of their program.

[ck]

The GAA should set up its own TV channel and take it away from RTE who clearly are incompetent

[AZOffaly]

Then it would have to be all pay per view. That would be unpalatable.

[twohands!!!]

Then it would have to be all pay per view. That would be unpalatable.

I'm not sure I'd agree with the assumption that it would have to be pay per view.

You have clubs and schools broadcasting matches on the internet at pretty much close to zero cost.

I would imagine that the amounts that the likes of Setanta and TG4 spend on broadcast games would fall into the extremely reasonable category.

You would also have the opportunity to sell advertising which I would imagine would bring in significant amounts of revenue.

Overall I definitely think it should be something Croke Park should be looking into - the current situation where you have pretty woeful coverage on the main television channel for large portions of the year and where a substantial proportion of games are broadcast on a channel in a language an overwhelming majority of the population have zero interest in and the remaining handful games are on pay-per-view is a long long way from ideal in terms of providing decent access/coverage to the game for the ordinary supporter.

Sadly the current regime seem to be gone down the completely wrong road with their notion that cutting down the number of matches broadcast will increase the number attending games to a noticeable affect. They seem to have the idea that GAA fans are solely interested in following their own team and have no interest in watching teams from elsewhere when anyone knows that this is patent nonsense. 

Even the game that is going to be broadcast live - Tyrone v Kerry is a great example relating to the notion that televising less games will increase attendances in any sort of significant way. If TG4 announced that they weren't broadcasting the game today, would the number travelling from Kerry increase significantly? No it would not because Kerry to Omagh is a 10 hour plus round trip. Would the number of Tyrone fans increase significantly - no it would not. What would increase significantly would be the number that don't get to actually see the game (especially the "neutral" supporter), which would be just a disaster in terms of sponsorship and promotion of the game.

[AZOffaly]

I don't know that the GAA could finance a channel to run for many hours, showing live and deferred games and highlight programmes without charging for it. It would be great if they could (!) but I can't see it.

[An Fhairche Abu]

I would agree with a lot of what's been said here, RTE don't give a toss about GAA coverage, when you see what TG4 do in comparison with a fraction of the overall budget it's embarrassing for them.
The quality of analysis is non existent and the coverage of the league is mere tokenism at this point. In the summer they'll get loads of viewers as they are the only free to air show in town but once again, the general standard of analysis and commentary is shocking, Ger Canning and Marty Morrissey are well past their sell by date.
RTE put in the absolute minimum effort required in their Gaelic Games coverage, nothing more, is it any wonder that it's lazy, unimaginative and uninformative as a result?