Philip Reid in Irish Times

lala88

HOLD THE BACK PAGE: BOSSES AT TG4 might have spluttered into their coffee mugs last Sunday morning if they happened across Neil Francis’s views in the Sunday Independent about the station’s right to broadcast such in-demand contests as the Leinster-Munster match in the Pro12 League.

The former Irish international had a real cut at the station, writing: “I just think it is ridiculous that a match of such importance is broadcast live only in Irish. I have no idea what the commentators or the analysts are saying and I have no idea whether they are any good or not and I suspect 99.5 per cent of the people who had to watch the match on that channel didn’t either.”

The rant continued “If it was a case of TG4 having the money to pay for the rights, well why not sell them to Al Jazeera who would have been able to come up with far more money for the Celtic League-Pro12 coffers – at least there would be more people in Ireland who would understand what was being said in Arabic.”

Well, the TG4 chiefs definitely had the last laugh on Francis. The match pulled in TG4’s highest audience for a rugby match with the official Nielsen figures showing 635,000 people tuned in at some stage, with the audience peaking at 338,000 viewers towards the end of the game.

And given that TG4’s expanding rugby coverage includes a three-year deal with the ERC to exclusively broadcast highlights of the Heineken Cup and Amlin Challenge Cup – outmanoeuvring RTÉ to the rights – Francis might just have to brush up on the cúpla focal.

LeeroyJones

This has been discussed before and if I remember correctly it was a touchy issue!

The way I see it is;
One of TG4's primary objectives is to promote the Irish language so I see no reason why they would voluntarily damage this objective by offering English analysis. As their shows are generally live and not digital it is difficult, and more costly, to provide an English "red button" option - if not impossible.

Also, TG4 are in the market as much as any other bidder and have the exact same right to win the rights to showing the RaboPro12.

justsomebloke

ye already been discussed and already locked so closing this