UTV & BBC & RTE & TV3

[Maguire01]

(e.g. the Dr. McKenna cup a few years ago which attracted crowds of near 20,000 for games)

To be fair, that was a one-off between Tyrone and Armagh when both were at their peak. No other McKenna Cup game has come close - not even for finals.

[Tyrone Dreamer]

Caught some weekly sports round up thing there on RTE - think its aimed at young people. They discussed both the rugby this Sunday and Ireland match tonight and world cup fever etc. There was no mention of the gaa. RTE only pay lip service to gaa for most of the year and seem to spend a lot of time building up other sports. This was highlighted when they announced at the sports awards that Munster NZ got the biggest viewing figures of the year even though in reality it was the all ireland finals.

I also think that the gaa needs to promote its games better. A repeat of the All Ireland football final is taking place on Sunday in Omagh. There's also loads of other top matches in both football and hurling this weekend. More effort should be made to make the general public aware of these games and make them appealing to them. I actually think the whole season needs to be redesigned. Does it make sense that the majority of games played by counties during the year are seen as meaningless by many fans?

You would have to see (a) why many fans see such competitions as meaningless and (b) how you would be able to redesign the intercounty season to have more meaningful fixtures without impacting further on just as meaningful club competitions. Crowds of 80,000 for league openers under floodlights in Croke Park can show that when it gets itself in gear the GAA can do the marketing of its games well and one-offs or something that doesn't have a long lifespan (e.g. the Dr. McKenna cup a few years ago which attracted crowds of near 20,000 for games) the GAA right now appears to be good at. However stretching it over the course of an entire national league campaign is going to be much tougher and would require more resources.

As regards RTÉ, when the next round of bidding comes along for rights to show championship games, it needs to be made clear that it won't have a guaranteed majority of championship games to show, with the possibility of only having a small number of games they would have the rights to show (like TV3 now have) or even the sacrilege idea of them losing the rights completely. While many would be up in arms, it would surely be the boot up the arse the public broadcaster deserves.

Probably the wrong thread but I have suggested one way of changing the season which I will out line below. Its only a rough idea but I think we need to think of better ways to get people interested from earlier in the year:

. Link the league and championship and split the championship into an A championship and B championship.
. Have 2 groups of 8 in the A championship and the same in b). There are a lot of teams who simply arent in a position to compete with the top teams.
. Each team plays each other once with the top four qualifying for the quarter finals with 1st in group 1 playing 4th in group 2 etc.
. Start the B championship earlier. This would mean that the winners of the B championship could have a playoff with one of the 4th placed teams for a quarter final place. Meaning every team in Ireland still has a chance of winning the All Ireland.
. Each team plays 3 home and 3 away games. Have a huge advertising blitz early in the year. Season tickets for home games and for all games will be available through clubs at reasonable prices and with oap/children tickets available. These will have 1st choice on quarter final tickets and on.
. Each team plays 1 neutral match possibly in Croke Park. Say have a few big Croke Park Weekends with double headers on Saturday and Sundays.
. Possibly organise the groups on a geographical basis so that there will be plenty of derbies and bigger crowds.
. There would be relegation/promotion each year between championships.
. Possibly have the provincial championships as a warm up.
. Start the championship in March/April. Matches will be played once every 2 weeks. Every other week will be set aside for club games with county players and there will be no exceptions. Club players need more games than once every 2 weeks so something would have to be considered here. Still think this would be better for clubs than the current situation.

This would be a huge shift from current situation and I'm not saying its the best way forward. But really think it makes no sense currently for most counties to only start playing meaningful games in July even though the season commences in January. Also think it could lead to a better structured season for clubs. Should also mean nearly every county match is important. The traditionalists would probably hate this idea!

[ziggysego]

I'm a traditionalist. 

[Tyrone Dreamer]

Watching the sports news tonight again showed the poor promotion the national leagues get on TV. To be fair to RTE they did have a preview of the all ireland intermediate and junior finals focusing on the 2 Kerry teams. But they didnt mention the 1st hurling game under floodlights in Thurles or a repeat of the All Ireland football final on Sunday. Surely these were worthy of mention. They had a preview of the rugby, a look at the current financial situation of Chelsea football club and sailing. BBC had rugby, biking, an interview with a Crusaders player and then at end mentioned Tyrone game was on radio on Sunday followed by Stevie saying the rugby was on radio and tv and he'd look forward to it.

[ziggysego]

I gave up watching the BBC Sport TD. Nothing but lip service.

In fairness to UTV though, they had a good interview with Jordan about the lead up to Sunday's game. Little mention of the rest of the games though.

[redcard]

you could always complain ziggy like these people

BBC Northern Ireland, Sport scheduling, 15 June 2008
Publication date: 16 June 2008
Complaint

We received complaints from viewers in Northern Ireland who were unhappy that the coverage from the Artois Championships at Queen's Club concluded early on BBCNI in order to show an alternative sporting event.

The BBC's response

BBC Northern Ireland aims to provide audiences with a diverse range of sports output, which includes a mix of local and network programming. Unfortunately the fixture dates for external events occasionally coincide which means we sometimes have to make difficult scheduling decisions. We try to minimise the disruption caused to our audience and in this particular instance we moved away from the network schedule to provide coverage from the GAA's Ulster Senior Football Championship Quarter Final at Breffni Park, a fixture that involved Cavan and Armagh.

We accept that some viewers would have wanted to continue watching events at Queen's Club and we used an on-air announcement and accompanying screen captions to indicate that the tennis coverage could be accessed on the digital platforms and online at bbc.co.uk/sport. We realise not every viewer will have been able to obtain these services and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. It was unavoidable in the circumstances and resulted from scheduling decisions that were outside our control. Our GAA coverage attracted increased viewing figures in Northern Ireland (the audience more than doubled) and was delivered as part of an enhanced BBC commitment to programming in this area.

We work hard to balance region-specific and network elements within the schedules on BBCNI and our local output is produced in line with the Charter and Service Licence requirements. In seeking to reflect the diversity of community life and experience, the scheduling of local programmes can sometimes displace network output. This reflects the constraints of analogue television, but the wider availability of BBC services on digital platforms means viewers are increasingly able to access other BBC network or regional schedules as an alternative to BBCNI programming.

Shane Glynn Editor - BBCNI Sport

http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/response/2008/06/080630_res_ni_sport.shtml

[ziggysego]

Enhanced BBC committment to programming in this area?

Try getting the feed for free from RTE.

[Maguire01]

http://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/championship/2009/0213/nflpreviews.html

Have to say, very poor of RTÉ to only preview the Division 1 and 2 games. You'd think that given the length of the previews they could stick up something for the other 8 games in 3 and 4.

[Tyrone Dreamer]

you could always complain ziggy like these people

BBC Northern Ireland, Sport scheduling, 15 June 2008
Publication date: 16 June 2008
Complaint

We received complaints from viewers in Northern Ireland who were unhappy that the coverage from the Artois Championships at Queen's Club concluded early on BBCNI in order to show an alternative sporting event.

The BBC's response

BBC Northern Ireland aims to provide audiences with a diverse range of sports output, which includes a mix of local and network programming. Unfortunately the fixture dates for external events occasionally coincide which means we sometimes have to make difficult scheduling decisions. We try to minimise the disruption caused to our audience and in this particular instance we moved away from the network schedule to provide coverage from the GAA's Ulster Senior Football Championship Quarter Final at Breffni Park, a fixture that involved Cavan and Armagh.

We accept that some viewers would have wanted to continue watching events at Queen's Club and we used an on-air announcement and accompanying screen captions to indicate that the tennis coverage could be accessed on the digital platforms and online at bbc.co.uk/sport. We realise not every viewer will have been able to obtain these services and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. It was unavoidable in the circumstances and resulted from scheduling decisions that were outside our control. Our GAA coverage attracted increased viewing figures in Northern Ireland (the audience more than doubled) and was delivered as part of an enhanced BBC commitment to programming in this area.

We work hard to balance region-specific and network elements within the schedules on BBCNI and our local output is produced in line with the Charter and Service Licence requirements. In seeking to reflect the diversity of community life and experience, the scheduling of local programmes can sometimes displace network output. This reflects the constraints of analogue television, but the wider availability of BBC services on digital platforms means viewers are increasingly able to access other BBC network or regional schedules as an alternative to BBCNI programming.

Shane Glynn Editor - BBCNI Sport

http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/response/2008/06/080630_res_ni_sport.shtml

Did they not use poor viewing figures as a reason for not having little or no coverage of the championship in the past?

[bridgegael]

think it was 2fm last night lads.  but giving out the scores from the evenings matches,  they said the '2009 cork hurling team' and then whoever they were playing.  is it not just cork??

[fred the red]

Interesting to see what coverage the gaa will get on newsline tonight.

[Maguire01]

Very poor is the answer. Plenty of coverage of the visit of Glentoran players to Healy Park and clips of the 2 Kerry goals. I can't even remember them giving out the result. A small showing of the handbags at the end, although this was played down. They didn't show McMenemin hitting on Galvin though (although maybe they'll keep it for a slow news night during the week).

No mention of any of the other Ulster counties, but plenty of highlights of soccer played in empty grounds.

[Tyrone Dreamer]

There was over 11,000 in Omagh - I'd say that wouldnt be far away from the combined Irish league attendances from the weekend.

[ziggysego]

There was over 11,000 in Omagh - I'd say that wouldnt be far away from the combined Irish league attendances from the weekend.

More people came up from Kerry than probably went to Irish League games.

[AFS]

Very poor is the answer. Plenty of coverage of the visit of Glentoran players to Healy Park and clips of the 2 Kerry goals. I can't even remember them giving out the result. A small showing of the handbags at the end, although this was played down. They didn't show McMenemin hitting on Galvin though (although maybe they'll keep it for a slow news night during the week).

No mention of any of the other Ulster counties, but plenty of highlights of soccer played in empty grounds.

That's because they didn't. Not a mention of the other 5 North of Ireland counties either. Nor the hurling. Nor the McRory Cup.