Is anyone with Sky or Freesat actually watching RTE 2 Olympic coverage?

Onthe3rdDay

Is anyone with Sky or Freesat actually watching RTE 2 coverage of the Olympics? It's gone beyond a joke, they're constantly talking back in studio and missing events that are actually happening.

A brief survey of a few people I know are all watching on the BBC. They all turned on RTE 2 at some point and turned over within 15 minutes.

RTE Sport was great but it jumped the shark 5 or more years ago.

Fishooks12

I'd watch BBC but I'd probably puke with the "Team GB" love in. Plus they have Gary Lineaker, the worlds worst interviewer and presenter

ThisRegard

The team GB love in is fully justified at the moment though, they're doing pretty good, and it's their home games.

And nope, tend to flick from rte whenever they return to the studio.

Fishooks12

ThisRegard wrote: »

The team GB love in is fully justified at the moment though, they're doing pretty good, and it's their home games.

And nope, tend to flick from rte whenever they return to the studio.

True, doesn't mean I have to endure it though!

Onthe3rdDay

The Team GB could be considered annoying at times, but you at least get to see actual action. Bill and the boys don't pop up at the 25th minute of a soccer match. Treat other sports with the same respect.

Clareman

I tend to watch RTÉ's coverage when there's an Irish competitor involved, although not the boxing as Jimmy Magee really annoys me, or when I can't decide what to watch through the 24 HD channels

1 of the huge advantages of having a programmable satellite box is you can add the red button channels as channels and access them through the EPG rather than the cumbersome red button

gandalf

I have a theory that RTE are paying for use of the coverage per minute which is why we have to endure the tiresome back to studio with our obscure in most cases failed Olympians. I am actually finding this Olympics the least compelling to watch that I have ever remembered.

davocesque

I watch when their is an Irish athlete involved otherwise not a chance!

1 question for the Freesat viewers, i have a freesat box but the red button isnt working, only me?

Clareman

I'm really enjoying the 24 channel options, getting addicted to Water Polo and Handball, I think Atlanta was the first Olympics that I had another channel besides RTÉ to watch, this is the first time that the viewer can choose whatever sport they want to watch, I'm loving it

Roanmore

RTE are awful, too much analysis, that's great if there is only one event going on but this is the Olympics, loads happenng.
BBC red button is great, you can see all the events that are happening and chose what one you want.

Guy:Incognito

I havnt had RTE on once. Why bother when every event is on BBC and I can choose what I wasnt to watch instead of whatever RTE choose to let me watch in between chats.

If we won a pile of medals would the RTE Team Ireland love in be unbearable or is it the usual "bloody Brits" rubbish?

BlaasForRafa

Roanmore wrote: »

RTE are awful, too much analysis, that's great if there is only one event going on but this is the Olympics, loads happenng.
BBC red button is great, you can see all the events that are happening and chose what one you want.

Yeah there's way too much panel analysis on RTE. Thats fine for soccer because Gilesy, Brady and Dunphy are actually good and engaging whereas most of the Olympics panelists are dull as dishwater.

I know that boxing is pretty much our only hope at a medal but the amount of analysis of it is unreal, as someone else said there's plenty of stuff going on at the Olympics, lets see more of it. Also why do RTE need so many different boxing analysts?, there's Michael Carruth, Mick Dowling, Kenny Egan, Bernard Dunne and someone else I've forgotten. 5 feckin analysts for 1 sport, all you need is one and get rid of the other 4.

As well, why do they need at least 3 presenters? Bill O'Herlihy, Darragh Moloney and Tracy Piggott, I can't recall if Peter Collins is presenting as well but even 3 is ridiculous.

I watch BBC whenever possible because they show as much of the action as possible and when they do have analysis its usually by a much higher calibre competitor like Denise Lewis, Michael Johnson, Chris Boardman etc.

ednwireland

just back from the olympics (amazing time btw) bbc all the way, turned over to see some grey haired people giving out so went back to bbc. spent the afternoon watching cycling on 458.

gratuitous pic of cuddihy in the 400m qualifiers from my seat in the olympic stadium

xxyyxx

RTE for me tonight. There hasn't been much in the way of studio nattering so far.

Heroditas

BBC all the way. Switched over to RTE after Nevin's fight but switched over almost immediately because they were going into forensic levels of detail.
Also, loving the red button on the BBC. I can watch whatever I want.
Absolutely loving these Olympics. Certainly my favourite one to date and it's great seeing our closest neighbours doing so well.
Fair play to BBC, they always mention the Irish athletes in the events they're competing in.

Cantona's Collars

BBC wins hands down,if they cut to studio just pick a different sport to watch.The red button option also gives a handy timeline of what's on live,on RTE you nearly have to guess what time certain sports or competitors are on.

SprostonGreen

Too much waffle and some commercials on rte. So its bbc for me. The red button is very good two.

enfant terrible

Picture seems to be better on RTE HD than BBC HD.

spank_inferno

Its been the BBC all day every day here too.

BBC Show all events in HD via the red button.
This has proven to be fantastic!
I've been enthralled by sports I would never have otherwise watched.

Plus, if people think the BBC are parochial, they have nothing on our boys in RTE

el dude

I appreciate the Irish coverage tbh. I know I can switch over to them and if we are involved you know they'll be covering it.

The BBC coverage is pretty grating at the best of times, but with them doing so well it's pretty unbearable with all the self congratulations and smugness.

Oscar Bravo

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDD8UbN4WCI

ejmaztec

I haven't watched any of it anywhere, on the grounds that it all bores me sh1tless.:D

mike65

RTE have done about as badly as its possible to do while covering the worlds biggest show in the same time zone as them.

Quite why they imagine anyone bar the most anal would wish to watch two or three people who achieved little (or maybe nothing) of note 20 years ago talking at length about athletes who are coming up well short of standard now sure beats me. "and we'll be back shortly after this break" just about puts a lid on it. So much happening live and yet RTE feed its viewers scraps.

The second week should be better for RTE land as everything focuses in on the track and field.

Clareman

I've decided to watch RTÉ this morning, everyone that's on the panels seem to have a political agenda for their own sport.

vicwatson

No way to RTE, dirt - ads ads ads, crap commentary, Jimmy Mcgee does my nuts in.

BBC HD 24 channels free on Freesat - the only way to go.

CastorTroy

Watched the Katie Taylor fight on RTE since BBC wouldn't show it on their main program. They showed the fight before but then showed something else during the fight, even though one of Team GB was involved. Probably because they believed Katie would win and didn't want to show one of Team GB losing.

xxyyxx

Good impartial coverage from the BBC then. Not really.

kneemos

Katie got great support on the BBC,don't know what channel it was on (not the main channel)but the commentators were very knowledgeable and gave katie thier full support even with a british opponent.

xxyyxx

kneemos wrote: »

Katie got great support on the BBC,don't know what channel it was on (not the main channel)but the commentators were very knowledgeable and gave katie thier full support even with a british opponent.

I agree. The boxing I have seen on the Olympic channels had excellent commentary throughout.

Clareman

The boxing commentary on the beeb is far better than Jimmy Magee, at least they don't mention Ali during every flight

OctavarIan

Clareman wrote: »

The boxing commentary on the beeb is far better than Jimmy Magee, at least they don't mention Ali during every flight

The thing is with Jimmy, he spent 95% of that fight gushing and waffling like Katie Taylor was the second coming of Christ, and about 5% actually commentating on it. I wasn't expecting RTÉ to be unbiased, but it was fairly cringeworthy stuff.

kneemos

OctavarIan wrote: »

The thing is with Jimmy, he spent 95% of that fight gushing and waffling like Katie Taylor was the second coming of Christ, and about 5% actually commentating on it. I wasn't expecting RTÉ to be unbiased, but it was fairly cringeworthy stuff.

Did he name all her family and half her relations like he normally does?

hotmail.com

Jimmy is just awful. Why hasn't he been "retired"?

Skid

CastorTroy wrote: »

Watched the Katie Taylor fight on RTE since BBC wouldn't show it on their main program. They showed the fight before but then showed something else during the fight, even though one of Team GB was involved. Probably because they believed Katie would win and didn't want to show one of Team GB losing.

Nonsense. They showed the fight soon afterwards and were very complimentary to Katie during and after the contest.

Guy:Incognito

CastorTroy wrote: »

Watched the Katie Taylor fight on RTE since BBC wouldn't show it on their main program..

What difference does it make that they didnt have it on BBC1 or 2? It was live on one of the feeds (If you've freesat its all on seperate channels so no need to go through the red button) with full commentary. Commentary that all talked about Taylor. You'd struggle to know she was fighting a Brit.

kneemos

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

What difference does it make that they didnt have it on BBC1 or 2? It was live on one of the feeds (If you've freesat its all on seperate channels so no need to go through the red button) with full commentary. Commentary that all talked about Taylor. You'd struggle to know she was fighting a Brit.

Fully agree.

Downlinz

I could never watch BBC, the brits in general do my head in.

I stream NBC when RTE isn't showing what I want.

Doodah7

Downlinz wrote: »

I could never watch BBC, the brits in general do my head in.

I stream NBC when RTE isn't showing what I want.

Gosh, quite a few issues there!

According to friends in the US, NBC's coverage is absolutely appalling, when you add in RTE... not a good way to view the Olympics.

Personally it has been the BBC on Freesat the whole way. As others have siad, 24 HD channels and getting to see sports in full: Archery, Velodrome Cycling, Sailing, Hockey etc. has been fantastic.

RTE: grey presenters in a grey studio droning on. They don't realise that most people are not interested in the talking heads opinion, its the sports they want to see!!

spank_inferno

Downlinz wrote: »

I could never watch BBC, the brits in general do my head in.

I stream NBC when RTE isn't showing what I want.

Really?

By all accounts NBCs coverage has been far from a success.

xxyyxx

NBC has been an absolute disaster. They didn't even show the men's 100 meters final live along with most of the olympics.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31749_162-57487480-10391698/ioc-defends-nbcs-tape-delayed-olympics-coverage/

kneemos

spank_inferno wrote: »

Really?

By all accounts NBCs coverage has been far from a success.

just concentrating on the American athletes apparently.

Downlinz

BBC isn't even something I'd considered watching in truth, I usually stick with RTE and switch to american coverage if I find ours lacking. Had too many bad experiences with british coverage in the past that I don't watch their coverage anymore in anything,it'd make sense for their own games that they'd put a strong effort into it but its just not something I had thought about.
Between RTE and NBC I've been able to watch every event I've wanted to watch live so I haven't had any problems.

mike65

Downlinz wrote: »

BBC isn't even something I'd considered watching in truth, I usually stick with RTE and switch to american coverage if I find ours lacking. Had too many bad experiences with british coverage in the past that I don't watch their coverage anymore in anything,it'd make sense for their own games that they'd put a strong effort into it but its just not something I had thought about.
Between RTE and NBC I've been able to watch every event I've wanted to watch live so I haven't had any problems.

24 channels of HD bliss (if you have a HD box) all live, all of the time and you watch RTE and NBC? :eek:

vicwatson

mike65 wrote: »

24 channels of HD bliss (if you have a HD box) all live, all of the time and you watch RTE and NBC? :eek:

If I could thank you twice here I would

Downlinz

I'm sorry the thread asked what I was watching, I wasn't aware any answer but BBC was unacceptable.

Like I said I'm happy with RTE/NBC combo, it has every streams of everything I want live with better commentary covering events more relevant to me. Dog crap in high definition with someone with an irritating accent focusing on people I'm not interested in is just that. I'm glad you enjoy it though.

Clareman

I don't know, I'm really enjoying the BBC coverage, I normally check the "Extra" channels to see if there's antyhing on that I'd like to watch, right now I'm going between Water Polo, Hockey and Handball, if there's nothing on that I could be bothered with I'll check RTÉ and the BeeB to allow them make my mind up for me.

I watched a couple of hours of shooting and other sports that you'd never get a chance to see on the main channels, Jimmy Magee, George Hamilton and the guy on the Basketball (who wants to be Sid Wadall I think) are making me turn off straight away,

As for the Beeb commentators being a bit too British, it's the British Broadcasting Corporation, we should feel lucky that we have access to it in the first place, NBC will be be too American, also, that link complaining about the NBC's coverage is from CBS

xxyyxx

Clareman wrote: »

that link complaining about the NBC's coverage is from CBS

It is one of many. I thought it would have been pointless to list them all.

SuperInfinity

Just out of curiosity Clareman, how are you getting NBC? I'm not envious of your "24 HD channels", just wondering about NBC.

hmmm

I live just off Thomas street in Dublin - I see women beating the heads off each other every second day, I don't want to watch it in the Olympics.

Clareman

SuperInfinity wrote: »

Just out of curiosity Clareman, how are you getting NBC? I'm not envious of your "24 HD channels", just wondering about NBC.

'tis not I who is getting NBC, I find it awful difficult to watch live US TV, way way way too many ads, makes RTÉ look like the BBC

Maggie McGaggie

Think RTE's coverage of the big events are far better than the BBCs. Having been flicking between the two but will stick with RTE from now on. Most ridiculous moment on BBC was Gary Lineker interviewing John McEnroe before 100m final.