rte paid to show the world atletics

paddy cork

yes they paid for the rights(read it in the sunday times) and then they didn't bother to show them

lostexpectation

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article6850978.ece#

this is unbelievable!!!

The national broadcaster is refusing to say how much it paid for the broadcasting rights, but similar television packages for high-profile athletics events have cost up to €350,000.

RTE confirmed it had purchased the rights but defended not covering the event on the basis of the savings made from not sending commentators and technical staff to Berlin. It said that the games were included in a package bought in 2007 which included at least two other leading athletics events.

they didn't need to send anyone there just show the races live on rte, thats what people wanted, whatever it costs to show the races would have been worth having already bought the rights

Pisco Sour

MUPPETS!!!!!

Running Bing

Wow, a whole new level of incompetence. Who would've thought RTE could stoop any lower.

Clowns.:mad:

BeepBeep67

lostexpectation wrote: »

unbelievable!!!

04072511 wrote: »

MUPPETS!!!!!

Running Bing wrote: »

Clowns

+1

donothoponpop

I posted this here before, but in light of this nonsense (and the fact that the RTE response is mentioned in the article), here it is again:

My letter of complaint:

To whom it may concern,

I wish to express my disappointment at RTE's lack of television
coverage of the IAAF championships. At a time when children should be
encouraged into exercise by the exploits of our athletes, it was
disheartening that Derval O'Rourke, having run a National Record, and
coming fourth in the world, should have to give her interview to a BBC
reporter (whose coverage has been exceptional), instead of her
National broadcaster. The same evening, two of her fellow sprinters
excelled in the 200m and 400m semi's, in what was a golden night for
Irish running.

I understand budgets are being cut, but there seems to be a
disproportionate amount of coverage to ball sports from the RTE Sports
department (to say nothing of lowest-common-denominator "celebrity"
type programming across the board. Surely a trick has been missed by
RTE not having TV coverage at our most successful athletics
championships to date?

sincerely,

XXXXX

---

the head of Sports response:

Dear Mr. XXXXX,

I am in receipt of your e-mail.


Below is the response from the Group Head of RTÉ Sport to your comments regarding the 'World Athletics
Championships:

"Thank you for your comments on the World Athletics Championships. Our decision not to cover this year’s World Championships was made purely on the basis of the extreme financial difficulty RTÉ faces. You may have read that owing to a significant downturn in the advertising market, RTÉ is facing a deficit of €68m this year. In the context of these unprecedented financial circumstances, all programme areas were instructed to come up with cost saving measures in order to meet budget requirements.
RTÉ is statutorily obliged to budget for at worst a break-even scenario so running at a loss is not an option for us. As Head of Sport, a former television producer and a sports fan I have found the last number of months particularly difficult when having to reduce spend on output. Our first port of call was to come up with a range of initiatives to save money which would not impact on our coverage of events. These included a ban on mileage, car pooling, use of hire cars, restrictions on foreign travel, in short initiatives that would not be apparent on the screen. However, as the situation worsened it became clear that we would have to look at output areas. Unfortunately we had to make a choice in each sporting genre as to which events we can cover.

RTÉ like many other European broadcasters have had significant difficulties with the IAAF in terms of how they structure their World Championships. In the light of unfavourable scheduling from the organisers and our own financial difficulties we took a decision some months back to focus our attention on domestic and European athletic events where we felt our investment in athletics would be put to better use.

In terms of athletics, this year we have covered the National Track and Field Championships in highlights form (we chose highlights as live coverage against GAA Championship action has proved counter-productive, highlights allow for more viewers to watch the event), we have provided coverage of the European Indoor Championships and the National Indoor Championships from Belfast. Later this year we will be host broadcasting coverage of the European Cross Country Championships from Santry. This is a significant investment for RTÉ and will enable worldwide coverage of an event on this island. Next year we will be providing the same coverage of domestic athletics and full coverage of the European Athletic Championships from Barcelona.

RTÉ is providing extensive coverage of the upcoming World Boxing Championships, the European Hockey Championships and RTÉ provided similar levels of coverage of the World Swimming Championships in Rome this summer. We are attempting to stretch dwindling resources as far as we possibly can but regrettably we cannot cover every event where an Irish competitor is in action.

Unfortunately difficult choices have had to be made in all areas of output and all the staff of RTÉ Sport and I are very disappointed that we have had to make these cuts to our output. However we will be providing over 700 hours on television this year, a similar amount on radio and countless TV news bulletins and online column inches to fans of sport in Ireland. These other services are completely engaged with the World Championships and will be providing up to the minute news coverage of the event as it unfolds.

I hope I have gone someway to explaining our unprecedented situation.

Many thanks again for taking the time to write.

Regards

Glen Killane

Group Head of Sport

RTÉ"

figs

:mad: Maybe FÁS were due to air their TV advert during the commercial breaks of these championships... that would explain why €1m of our tax was wasted between the two organisations!

Mint Sauce

if they were so concerned of the costs covering travel, technical costs, etc etc, the fact they already had paid for the event, a few cometators giving comentry from a broom cubbord at rte was surly all that was needed

gerard65

The problem is our athletes don't run in Man UTD jerseys. If they did athletics would get wall to wall coverage.

Pisco Sour

RTE are actually pathetic! All that would be required was a highlights show. A couple of commentators in a small room in RTE commentating on the races involving Irish people, and the big finals. Heck they could even commentate on all the races after the races have been run if they really wanted to save time and costs. A 1 hour highlights show from 9.30-10.30 would have satisfied me.

Suppose they only want to cover sports that appeals to the masses (Rugby, GAA and Soccer). They obviously dont see Athletics in that bracket, and they would be correct. Sure I desperately want to go to the Athletics awards this year but I dont know a single person personally with more than a passing interest in the sport to go with me.:mad:

Of course when it comes around to the Olympics the whole country suddenly becomes an expert and feels qualified to criticise our athletes.

Sorry went a bit off on a rant there!!

robinph

Will they actually be able to claim back their petrol costs for the drive up to Santry in December though. They are going to have to rely on Dublin Bus to get the outside broadcast equipment there by the sounds of it.

paddy cork

covering the world boxing championships ,i don't think so. i watched the supposed programme and not only did they not show any action from the 11 finals on finals day,they didn't even name any of the winners!

lostexpectation

donothoponpop wrote: »

---

the head of Sports response:

Dear Mr. XXXXX,

I am in receipt of your e-mail.


Below is the response from the Group Head of RTÉ Sport to your comments regarding the 'World Athletics
Championships:

"Thank you for your comments on the World Athletics Championships. Our decision not to cover this year’s World Championships was made purely on the basis of the extreme financial difficulty RTÉ faces. You may have read that owing to a significant downturn in the advertising market, RTÉ is facing a deficit of €68m this year. In the context of these unprecedented financial circumstances, all programme areas were instructed to come up with cost saving measures in order to meet budget requirements.
RTÉ is statutorily obliged to budget for at worst a break-even scenario so running at a loss is not an option for us. As Head of Sport, a former television producer and a sports fan I have found the last number of months particularly difficult when having to reduce spend on output. Our first port of call was to come up with a range of initiatives to save money which would not impact on our coverage of events. These included a ban on mileage, car pooling, use of hire cars, restrictions on foreign travel, in short initiatives that would not be apparent on the screen. However, as the situation worsened it became clear that we would have to look at output areas. Unfortunately we had to make a choice in each sporting genre as to which events we can cover.

RTÉ like many other European broadcasters have had significant difficulties with the IAAF in terms of how they structure their World Championships. In the light of unfavourable scheduling from the organisers and our own financial difficulties we took a decision some months back to focus our attention on domestic and European athletic events where we felt our investment in athletics would be put to better use.

In terms of athletics, this year we have covered the National Track and Field Championships in highlights form (we chose highlights as live coverage against GAA Championship action has proved counter-productive, highlights allow for more viewers to watch the event), we have provided coverage of the European Indoor Championships and the National Indoor Championships from Belfast. Later this year we will be host broadcasting coverage of the European Cross Country Championships from Santry. This is a significant investment for RTÉ and will enable worldwide coverage of an event on this island. Next year we will be providing the same coverage of domestic athletics and full coverage of the European Athletic Championships from Barcelona.

RTÉ is providing extensive coverage of the upcoming World Boxing Championships, the European Hockey Championships and RTÉ provided similar levels of coverage of the World Swimming Championships in Rome this summer. We are attempting to stretch dwindling resources as far as we possibly can but regrettably we cannot cover every event where an Irish competitor is in action.

Unfortunately difficult choices have had to be made in all areas of output and all the staff of RTÉ Sport and I are very disappointed that we have had to make these cuts to our output. However we will be providing over 700 hours on television this year, a similar amount on radio and countless TV news bulletins and online column inches to fans of sport in Ireland. These other services are completely engaged with the World Championships and will be providing up to the minute news coverage of the event as it unfolds.

I hope I have gone someway to explaining our unprecedented situation.

Many thanks again for taking the time to write.

Regards

Glen Killane

Group Head of Sport

RTÉ"

so they decided not to mention that they'd already bought the rights,lie by omission, still don't know what scheduling difficulties there was.

PCPhoto

and yet they managed to show Bernard Dunne on two occasions ( a decision that would only have been made in the last number of weeks and no doubt would have cost some money)

I'm not a huge athletics fan but do consider it a disgrace that some sports get extra coverage .... even non important ball games are televised... European and World games should always be covered.

will they be covering the world cup in AFRICA next summer ?

Brianderunner

We got wall to wall coverage of the confederations cup instead of the worlds in Berlin. Enough said!!

robinph

Suppose they only want to cover sports that appeals to the masses ...

ChickenTikka

irish-stew wrote: »

if they were so concerned of the costs covering travel, technical costs, etc etc, the fact they already had paid for the event, a few cometators giving comentry from a broom cubbord at rte was surly all that was needed

+1

Maybe the appearance fees for the RTE athletics panellists would blow the €68m deficit too high ? :rolleyes:

Pherekydes

This whole debacle is a total disgrace.

RTE's head should fire RTE's head of sport, and he himself should then be dismissed by the relevant minister, who should then be sacked by an Taoiseach, who should then be...

...wait, how much are all these dismissals going to cost? :pac:

tunney

robinph wrote: »

99% of people in the Dublin marathon series couldn't give a toss about athletics.

thirtyfoot

tunney wrote: »

99% of people in the Dublin marathon series couldn't give a toss about athletics.

While I wouldn't say its 99% but I do agree a large percentage know very little about athletics (at present) and there is a huge disconnect.


I wouldn't say they don't give a toss as athletics has a very strange relationship with the public as it can be a very big TV spectator sports (the one hour highlights package of the national track champs got a 6 figure viewing on the monday night, not bad when you consider there was maybe over 100 times less at the actual event). Everyone knows Bolt, the majority of the those running would know of Paula Radcliffe, Derval O' Rourke, David Gillcik, Sonia. I'd say the majority would watch it if was on TV and like the old days when Friday was Grand Prix night on terrestrial TV. The fact that they are running and putting in a decent amount of training means they must have some gra for the sport in general and if they were nudged in the right direction could take a more broader interest. There are a few former recreational runners here who are now full blown runners (and talking crazy talk like doing 800's and 1500's:eek:) and turning into all round athletics nuts (even if they may not compete at the majority of the events). If 10% more of those Marathon series runners got into mainstream athletics, we'd be flying.

On the coverage, they could even have done a live stream even if there was no commentary. Strange decision.

donothoponpop

tunney wrote: »

99% of people in the Dublin marathon series couldn't give a toss about athletics.

But they would certainly have an interest in watching the Dublin marathon (live if they weren't running it), were it shown by RTE (a la the BBC with London). And I'd imagine the chap in RTE who spent all that money to not broadcast the IAAF champs, also controls any pursestrings when marathon coverage is mooted.

RTE will show each and every GAA game they possibly can, which is great if you're into GAA. But the increasing number of people pounding the pavements, trails, and tartan, deserve better than what RTE are giving.

tunney

donothoponpop wrote: »

But they would certainly have an interest in watching the Dublin marathon (live if they weren't running it), were it shown by RTE (a la the BBC with London). And I'd imagine the chap in RTE who spent all that money to not broadcast the IAAF champs, also controls any pursestrings when marathon coverage is mooted.

RTE will show each and every GAA game they possibly can, which is great if you're into GAA. But the increasing number of people pounding the pavements, trails, and tartan, deserve better than what RTE are giving.

B0ll0cks. I love running and marathons but my h0le I'm going to watch the dublin marathon, maybe 2% are actual runners. The rest? If I want to watch similar I'd go to my local gym when weight watchers are using the threadmills.

Elite sports yes - show it, I'll watch it, but the average marathon participant has little interest in the sport, just in telling people they do it.

donothoponpop

tunney wrote: »

B0ll0cks. I love running and marathons but my h0le I'm going to watch the dublin marathon, maybe 2% are actual runners. The rest? If I want to watch similar I'd go to my local gym when weight watchers are using the threadmills.

Elite sports yes - show it, I'll watch it, but the average marathon participant has little interest in the sport, just in telling people they do it.

Who was referring to you , I was referring to the 99% of runners who do the marathon series...

The BBC have great viewing figures for their London marathon coverage, and again for the repeat in the evening.

tunney

donothoponpop wrote: »

Who was referring to you , I was referring to the 99% of runners who do the marathon series...

The BBC have great viewing figures for their London marathon coverage, and again for the repeat in the evening.

and these 99% are actually going to watch a marathon on telly? Come on.

Where are these fantastic BBC viewing figures?

donothoponpop

tunney wrote: »

Where are these fantastic BBC viewing figures?

Generally, in Britain.

robinph

http://www.bbcstudiosandpostproduction.com/about/archive/050517_marathon.html

BBC Sport’s coverage of the London Marathon 2005 reached a peak of 5.5 million viewers. Coverage was seen in nearly 200 countries, with live coverage of the race shown across Europe, Asia and Africa.

Irishathlete_1

Are you guys seriously trying to compare the London Marathon with the Dublin Marathon? I would suggest that the London Marathon is still a larger event in Ireland then the Dublin Marathon is in terms of media interest.

On the RTE matter, I'm saying this as a passionate athletics lover, I have to say I commend RTE on their decision. Lets say they spent 250k on the rights to show the champs as part of a package they bought for their 07 coverage. Even if their analysts/commentators were in Donnybrook, they would still need to send technicians and directors to Berlin. Then there is the fees to be paid to their analysts and the rest in Dublin, as well as studio and production costs.

So lets say their extra cost would have been 100k. I'd say that not spending that additional 100k was the right move. In 07 they were at the height of the boom and being locked into a 2 champs package was probably worth the investment. After a very poor Olympics and in the current climate I would say that it was the sensible move for an organisation that is trying to save millions of pounds. As much as I hate to say it, but re-runs of friends/corrie/eastenders or whatever other imported crap was shown in its place, would generate more advertising revenue then the World track and field champs.

How many people do you really think would have tuned in for these events? I would say if you got 100,000 you'd be doing incredibly well.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Pisco Sour

Irishathlete_1 wrote: »

Are you guys seriously trying to compare the London Marathon with the Dublin Marathon? I would suggest that the London Marathon is still a larger event in Ireland then the Dublin Marathon is in terms of media interest.

On the RTE matter, I'm saying this as a passionate athletics lover, I have to say I commend RTE on their decision. Lets say they spent 250k on the rights to show the champs as part of a package they bought for their 07 coverage. Even if their analysts/commentators were in Donnybrook, they would still need to send technicians and directors to Berlin. Then there is the fees to be paid to their analysts and the rest in Dublin, as well as studio and production costs.

So lets say their extra cost would have been 100k. I'd say that not spending that additional 100k was the right move. In 07 they were at the height of the boom and being locked into a 2 champs package was probably worth the investment. After a very poor Olympics and in the current climate I would say that it was the sensible move for an organisation that is trying to save millions of pounds. As much as I hate to say it, but re-runs of friends/corrie/eastenders or whatever other imported crap was shown in its place, would generate more advertising revenue then the World track and field champs.

How many people do you really think would have tuned in for these events? I would say if you got 100,000 you'd be doing incredibly well.

Just my 2 cents worth.

I can only disagree. If 100,000 (at the very least) tuned into watch our national championships then the World Championships would draw in FAR more viewers than that. I know many people who havent got much of an interest in Track & Field and they were watching it on the BBC and talking about it, so clearly theres a market there.

If you put a major sports event on RTE 2 at prime time (9.30-11 perhaps), people are going to watch it. There are many people in this country who are big sports fans and would watch whatever is on. If somebody who has an interest in sport tunes in to RTE 2 on a wednesday night and see's top class athletics on theres a good chance that person will watch it.

This isnt the World Badminton, Sailing or Weightlifting Championships (no disrespect to those sports), but the World Athletics Championships is one of the top 5 most viewed sporting events worldwide.

robinph

Whatever sport they decide to show costs them exactly the same to have a pundit in the studio watching a TV and chatting about it as that is all they seem to do for all sports anyway. Its rare to see any RTE presenters actually on location for any sporting events. The TV feed itself is just whatever the local channels decide to provide to their international customers, so nobody needs to be sent directly to the event, you just need someone in Dublin pressing the button to either show the event or the pundit.

Does the cost of the pundit, someone to point a camera at them and someone else to press the button to turn the live feed on or not cost that much different than what they will be paying the US channels for the re-runs of whatever they decided to put on instead?

As much as people may not "care" about athletics, RTE would never be critisied for showing any live sport ahead of a re-run of Friends.

donothoponpop

Irishathlete_1 wrote: »

Are you guys seriously trying to compare the London Marathon with the Dublin Marathon? I would suggest that the London Marathon is still a larger event in Ireland then the Dublin Marathon is in terms of media interest.

I was the only one comparing the two marathons, and nobody is in any doubt that the LM is vastly bigger than the DM. The basic issue here is still RTE, and their paying money for the rights to show a major athletics final that they subsequently didn't show, and giving budget reasons for not showing it.

Irishathlete_1 wrote: »

On the RTE matter, I'm saying this as a passionate athletics lover, I have to say I commend RTE on their decision. Lets say they spent 250k on the rights to show the champs as part of a package they bought for their 07 coverage. Even if their analysts/commentators were in Donnybrook, they would still need to send technicians and directors to Berlin. Then there is the fees to be paid to their analysts and the rest in Dublin, as well as studio and production costs.

So lets say their extra cost would have been 100k. I'd say that not spending that additional 100k was the right move. In 07 they were at the height of the boom and being locked into a 2 champs package was probably worth the investment. After a very poor Olympics and in the current climate I would say that it was the sensible move for an organisation that is trying to save millions of pounds. As much as I hate to say it, but re-runs of friends/corrie/eastenders or whatever other imported crap was shown in its place, would generate more advertising revenue then the World track and field champs.


How many people do you really think would have tuned in for these events? I would say if you got 100,000 you'd be doing incredibly well.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Ok, I know I am coming over too strong here, and I just backspaced over my point-by-point "someone-on-the-internet-is-wrong" rebuttal, so I'll just surmise: doesn't anyone fight the power any more? Would it be too wrong to expect a public service obligation from the license fee funded RTE?

wizwill

I think the Dublin Marathon should be on RTE, even if it is a 3 hour programme covering just elites, i think there would be enough interest. I mean how can they justify putting greyhound racing on a number of saturday nights during the year and not put the DCM on a bank holiday monday once a year.

myflipflops

wizwill wrote: »

I think the Dublin Marathon should be on RTE.

Completely digressing from the thread topic but....

I'm a complete athletics geek but if RTE spent good money on 3 hours of live coverage of the Dublin marathon, I would recommend the whole sports dept should be fired.

I'd love if every athletics event in the world was shown live on RTE for my pleasure but you have to be realistic about these things.

I have great respect for the job done developing Dublin over the last 5 years or so but the reality is that the competition at the top is poor. It's not a dig at the organisers (they do a fine job with what they have to work with) but 5th rate Africans and half decent Eastern Europeans competing for the money isn't that entertaining to a general viewing public. Sokolov used to do it to pick up some fairly handy cash and he remains comfortably the best athlete to ever take part.

Setanta (or maybe TV3??) showed a highlights package last year and it was more than adequate.

myflipflops

wizwill wrote: »

I mean how can they justify putting greyhound racing on a number of saturday nights during the year and not put the DCM on a bank holiday monday once a year.

This one is easy - money. Bookmakers want the greyound racing on and are happy to pay for it either directly, through sponsorship or indirectly through chunky ad slots.

I'm not saying it's right but it's the reality.

robinph

pwhite587 wrote: »

Setanta (or maybe TV3??) showed a highlights package last year and it was more than adequate.

Setanta had a highlights program last year which covered enough of both the "elites" and the rest of the goings on of the day to not bore too many people. They completely missed the concept of how sporting events work though and gave the results of the races in the first five minutes of the program and then went on to show the winners running round the course and commentated on it as if they hadn't just told us the results?!?

They did make up for that slight oversight though as they then showed me warming down at the finish.

Irishathlete_1

donothoponpop wrote: »

Ok, I know I am coming over too strong here, and I just backspaced over my point-by-point "someone-on-the-internet-is-wrong" rebuttal, so I'll just surmise: doesn't anyone fight the power any more? Would it be too wrong to expect a public service obligation from the license fee funded RTE?

going back to my point before about viewing figures for athletics, I think it would be wrong for RTE to waste more license fees on athletics.

How many people would attend a Friday night at Shelbourne Park for greyhound racing? 3/4k? The national championship (outside of athletes, officials and coaches) 250?

MrCreosote

Irishathlete_1 wrote: »

How many people do you really think would have tuned in for these events? I would say if you got 100,000 you'd be doing incredibly well.

Just my 2 cents worth.

The BBC regularly averaged 2-3 million for their coverage and peaked at over 7 for the 100m final. A lot of that wasn't at peak time either. I'd say you'd have got well more than 100,000 in Ireland, especially for a highlights package.

Pisco Sour

MrCreosote wrote: »

The BBC regularly averaged 2-3 million for their coverage and peaked at over 7 for the 100m final. A lot of that wasn't at peak time either. I'd say you'd have got well more than 100,000 in Ireland, especially for a highlights package.

If at least 100,000 people are watching our national championships, then surely you could double or triple that for the world championships.

thirtyfoot

Irishathlete_1 wrote: »

going back to my point before about viewing figures for athletics, I think it would be wrong for RTE to waste more license fees on athletics.

Can you elaborate on why it would be wrong for RTE to waste more money on athletics? While I agree RTE have to be prudent and its simply not a case of covering athletics events, I can't understand how an 'athletics person' could advocate RTE not 'wasting' money on athletics. That opinion, in my opinion, would be the similar to that of the lads who roll out at Olympics time complaining about elite athletes wasting tax payers money.

Do you not think the Irish public would have been glued to Derval's final if RTE had the coverage. I think they would. Ladies football seems to be a much bigger sport than athletics in Ireland yet their domestic showpiece event (in fact their showpiece event as they don't have international aspect) only garnered double the same viewing figures as athletic's domestic showpiece event (the nationals), 200k vs 100k. You say maybe only 250 might attend the nationals outside of coaches/athletes etc yet the highlights package got over 100,000 viewers. Can you explain that one considering there is such an apathy to athletics in Ireland. It probably shows the unique position athletics has as a TV sport. Its always been like that.

So, do you really believe they shouldn't waste tax payers money as a national broadcaster or are you just be controversial for the sake of it? I must admit I am confused with that opinion.

Irishathlete_1

04072511 wrote: »

If at least 100,000 people are watching our national championships, then surely you could double or triple that for the world championships.

Were these the viewing figures from RTE for the National Champs? If they were, then I'm sorry for getting it wrong.

I'd be very surprised if they were though

stujey

I'm originally from Uk and now living in Dublin and I was extremely dissapppoitned that RTE did not have any coverage of the World Athletics Finals - I've found most of the sports commentary and programming over here much better than anything in the UK in terms of its enthusiasm and honesty. I have UPC over here so managed to watch most of the Championships on the BBC (which has not adverts!) and wonder how much of the actual money spent on advertising on RTE was wasted with other people in Ireland watching the BBC feed instead of putting up with the reruns and imported trash.

That said, I am most impressed that things like Lost and 24 appear on non-subscription TV over here. In the UK you have to get SKY for that type of thing, they only have 1 Champions League game on non-subscription. I think RTE may have just missed the boat on this one - Usain Bolt is world news alone, never mind the achievements of the Irish athletes. Perhaps if it had been in Lisbon it would have got more coverage .

As for the London Marathon, I don't think that it is about the elites so much. There is a great emphasis on the personal reasons for running and the immense amount of good that comes from the significant charity element to the event. Also there is an emphasis on the mass participation of the event. The BBC also cover the Great North Run. I think it is as much about promotion of the sport and perhaps a way to increasing particiapaitin through a sense of 'If they can do it, fit it in to their life, then so can I.'

Just a few thoughts.

If anybody could explain the remit of RTE with regard to sport, that could be very interesting.

tunney

Irishathlete_1 wrote: »

going back to my point before about viewing figures for athletics, I think it would be wrong for RTE to waste more license fees on athletics.

How many people would attend a Friday night at Shelbourne Park for greyhound racing? 3/4k? The national championship (outside of athletes, officials and coaches) 250?

I think its a little unfair to compare the RTE to the BBC, the BBC is a proper national broadcaster, RTE is, well, a showcase for a few "stars" that are stupidly overpaid at the expense of actually being a national broadcaster.

Bill2673

Did anyone see that show on Rosanna Davison last night, about her ancestry or whatever.....all about her roots....

In the show they brought her to Argentina, to France, to Britain....with expert historians and technical staff along for the ride.

How the hell can they say they can't afford to fly a small team out to Berlin when they are sending Rosanna Davison out to Argentina to find out where her great grandfather lived for a few years....

Anyway, doesn't surprise me that they should do this with Athletics. RTE just a massive junket shop as far as I can see. Berlin not very exciting, South Africa more interesting....lets go over there and don't mind about the viewers.

ps I can't see any debate about the popularity of athletics....look at how many races are on around the country every months, look at how many participate in the likes of the half marathon....plus the fact that for anyone over 30 we grew up on the epic sporting success of Coghlan, Treacy and O'Sullivan.

Bill2673

"I'm a complete athletics geek but if RTE spent good money on 3 hours of live coverage of the Dublin marathon, I would recommend the whole sports dept should be fired."

RTE is a state owned channel funded by taxes and the licence fee.

The marathon is on between half nine and half twelve on a Monday. Most Monday mornings RTE is showing a combination of infomercials and re-runs of Dallas (or equivalent viewing). This is not what a state run channel should be showing, there are a hundred other channels showing the equivalent. I would say if the marathon does not cost much to show, (which I can't imagine it would) then why not show a major local event, or at least show part of it. (they run past Monrtose for chrissake!!! how easy can it get). It would surely cost less than some of the dead duck champions league games they show.

thirtyfoot

Irishathlete_1 wrote: »

Were these the viewing figures from RTE for the National Champs? If they were, then I'm sorry for getting it wrong.

I'd be very surprised if they were though

Figures are from RTE, you'll have to take my word on it. No linky.

Bill2673

Re the National Champs coverage.....from memory this was a highlights show at some obscure time and it wasn't promoted; I think it was run as part of the OB Sports show (though not sure on this point).....one way or another, if you are showing a highlighs show a few days after the event at an obscure time and then don't promote it, then you can hardly expect good viewing figures - personally I don't think it counts for anything but obviously you can see why it would be handy for them to roll it out as an excuse.

thirtyfoot

Bill2673 wrote: »

Re the National Champs coverage.....from memory this was a highlights show at some obscure time and it wasn't promoted; I think it was run as part of the OB Sports show (though not sure on this point).....one way or another, if you are showing a highlighs show a few days after the event at an obscure time and then don't promote it, then you can hardly expect good viewing figures - personally I don't think it counts for anything but obviously you can see why it would be handy for them to roll it out as an excuse.

I am using it as a point to show the popularity of the sport as a TV spectacle.

If 1,000 people (if even) at the Nationals can convert to 100,000 on TV, then 80,000 at All-Ireland Final could convert to 80,000,000 on TV:D

My point being, actual attendance at athletic events don't reflect the popularity of it as a TV sport.

The fact that we have BBC coverage which is usually superior to RTE's probably doesn't help RTE. If, for example, we all spoke Irish and didn't have access to BBC, then the case for RTE showing these events might be stronger. As things stand, we can watch on BBC and they even interview Irish athletes afterwards, its not like we are totally missing out on the events. Its RTE's role as national broadcaster that does it for me, I think its fair enough to expect them to be fair to all sports and not just the ball sports and pony races. World cycling champs another example, 3 Irish guys in Roche, Duignan and Martin competing. No coverage (as far as I am aware).

robinph

If the costs of sending people out to watch the events is what they are complaining about then why not do what a lot of other English speaking countries do and just use the BBC feed. You'd often hear Foster and Cram mentioning Oz/ Kiwi/ Canadian and other athletes as certain events and saying "hello" to those countries viewers. Admittedly they are all in vastly different time zones so the events will be on at obscure times of the night. RTE then just get to put their own adverts on whenever Sue Barker appears on screen, or revert to chatting in a broom cupboard back in Dublin if they need to make the show more "Irish".

Bill2673

thats fair enough.

An additional point:
I only have 4 stations, lots of people I know only have 4 stations, so personally I didn't get to see any of the Worlds except when I popped into a neighbours house to watch Dervla.

Pisco Sour

Sure how many times have we seen RTE at the very last minute buy the BBC coverage of the World Snooker Final (Final session) when Ken Doherty was playing.

I remember in 2003 he was 11-5 down going into the 3rd session and then suddenly got back to 12-12. Didnt take RTE long to go knocking on BBC's door for coverage of the final session that evening.

The same could easily have been done here. Just pay BBC for their commentry.

Pherekydes

The cost is often mentioned as a stumbling block, but they sent a team to "cover" the world swimming championships in Rome earlier in the summer. Their "coverage" amounted to one of those OB shows, with warmups, races and post mortems with the Irish swimmers, and no other coverage whatsoever. That's no way to cover a sport, and how much did that cost?

Another reason frequently trotted out is that our athletes bombed at the previous Olympics. I wonder will that be trotted out next year as an excuse to not show the World Soccer cup? Well, we did crap in 2006, not even qualifying.

Regarding the cycling world road race alluded to above: the race wasn't even mentioned on Sunday's 6.1 sports news.

Hey, but next year we'll have coverage of the Europeans. Won't the recession still be on? Won't there be a ban on junkets? Won't it cost too much to sent a team of technicians and commentators to Barca, while paying big money to have Gilesy and Dunphy Kiernan and Coghlan providing the studio analysis? I wait with baited breath...

Pherekydes

Pherekydes wrote: »

I wait with baited breath...

Actually, I won't. I don't watch sport on RTE (unless it's specific to RTE, like GAA). RTE has failed athletics fans, and has been doing so for years.