'Off the Ball' quit Newstalk

kippy

.ak wrote: »

It's a lot easier for a radio station to monitor online listeners, so I would say yes, it does include those.

I wonder though......
I'd assume those figures are from some agency that works them out on a survey type basis and are in now way reflective of actual listenership across all methods of access (in a similar way to television viewing figures which don't take account of those that watch TV on a recorded or online session with the ability to skip adds if they so please)

totallegend

kippy wrote: »

How accurate are those figures I wonder?
Do they ever take into account (for example) online listener ship?
I would suspect that a large portion of the OTB listener ship would listen online or via some other medium?
I know I listened online or via pod casts most of the time and I know a good few people who would rarely have listened to the show via "traditional" means.

The figures aren't 'monitored' in the same way that TV viewership is. They do a quarterly interview of around 15,000 people and ask them which radio stations they listened to the previous day, so yeah, I'd imagine it includes online streams.

It's a decent sample size so I'd imagine the figures are pretty accurate.

GerM

totallegend wrote: »

Very simplistic way of looking at it (as would be expected from the Indo).

It ignores the fact that radio listenership is higher before 7pm than after across all stations, it's nothing to do with George Hook being a fantastic audience-magnet.

A much fairer comparison would be Off The Ball versus other stations in the 7-10 pm time slot; I'd say it's one of the few in which Newstalk is anyway competitive with RTE or Today FM.

Simplistic yes but also probably broadly accurate. Up until 7pm is drivetime radio with captive listeners throughout the country commuting. A huge proportion of the country couldn't give a fiddlers about sport and certainly not enough to tune in to a dedicated sports show. I'd be very surprised if OTB could have moved to 6pm and maintained the number of listeners that Hook currently has. Sport is far too narrow a focus for the general public who want to hear topical items. The 6pm - 7pm slot on Hook contains some of the most popular radio items in the country such as the travel spot and the movie/television spot that appeal to all demographics.

If OTB moved to 6pm, the real winner would be Matt Cooper.

artvandelay48

First off, I love OTB and will be saddened by the lads departure.

BUT

It seems to me that they have engineered this situation themselves on purpose. I don't think Newstalk would ever countenance them starting an hour earlier. 7 is a natural start time for a sports show especially wrt to the evening's football matches. To my mind, the 5 - 7 drivetime slot is more appropriate for news/current affairs. Also, consider that RTE recently announced that they were going to do an evening sports show starting at 7. I can't see RTE moving this to 6 either.

So, the OTB must have known Newstalk was never going to go for the earlier slot so I think they purposefully engineered their exit and will turn up at RTE, doing a show at the same time but making much more money.

Fair play to them but they are hardly victims here.

Rickwellwood

Heard a fair amount of Ger Gilroys presentation of the sports slot on Newstalk last night and thought he was quite good. He'll build it up again like he's done before - Murph got on my wick and the others were becoming sooooo predictable - slot needs freshening up at Newstalk big time hopefully this'll happen now.

So many opinions on all sporting topics coming from all sides which is great and I listen to them all at some stage to get another angle on things no matter what sport.

I couldnt listen to Marty Morrissey, Joanne Cantwell Des C and co along with the OTB transplanted to the state broadcaster but that'll probably be the way it is if that pans out.

Competition keeps 'em all on their toes

icdg

Its an odd one alright in that they must have known that Newstalk would never just ax an hour off their top-rating show just like that. It would drive the drive time listenership to, er, Drivetime and The Last Word. Their current slot allowed them to cover full times in football matches starting at 7.45pm which they would lose if the show ended at 9:00pm.

RTÉ is an option but its worth noting that they recently moved their sports show to 2FM. Putting an all-talk show on a music-driven station is a risk in itself even at just one hour, let alone extending it to the three hours that the OTB crew would want. Arguably as 2FM is operated by RTE it should be offering public service programmes of this nature but that's a seperate argument, the show does not sit well on the station as it stands. The humour driven nature of the show would not last on Radio 1 however. There's also the issue of how they would be received within RTÉ Sport of course.

totallegend

GerM wrote: »

Simplistic yes but also probably broadly accurate. Up until 7pm is drivetime radio with captive listeners throughout the country commuting. A huge proportion of the country couldn't give a fiddlers about sport and certainly not enough to tune in to a dedicated sports show. I'd be very surprised if OTB could have moved to 6pm and maintained the number of listeners that Hook currently has. Sport is far too narrow a focus for the general public who want to hear topical items. The 6pm - 7pm slot on Hook contains some of the most popular radio items in the country such as the travel spot and the movie/television spot that appeal to all demographics.

If OTB moved to 6pm, the real winner would be Matt Cooper.

Fair enough, but the thing about Drivetime on RTE1, Hook and Cooper is that they're all talking about the same stories. Running a sports show from 6pm onwards would give you a clear run at that portion of the market who are sick of hearing about public sector pay, mortgage defaults and riots in Belfast; that has to be a large number of people.

If they limited the 6-7 pm slot to sports news, rugby, GAA and soccer, I think they'd get a sizeable portion of the audience; obviously you couldn't run pieces on the more obscure sports in prime-time slots.

You could also look at it from the point of view that if OTB started a bit earlier, it would hook listeners who tune in at drive time and maybe keep them with Newstalk beyond 7pm. Newstalk is dying on its arse, I'd have thought it needed something bold.

With all that said, I don't think the OTB lads ever expected to be given what they asked for, probably just a ploy so they'd have a legitimate reason to leave.

Macy0161

totallegend wrote: »

Fair enough, but the thing about Drivetime on RTE1, Hook and Cooper is that they're all talking about the same stories. Running a sports show from 6pm onwards would give you a clear run at that portion of the market who are sick of hearing about public sector pay, mortgage defaults and riots in Belfast; that has to be a large number of people.

If they limited the 6-7 pm slot to sports news, rugby, GAA and soccer, I think they'd get a sizeable portion of the audience; obviously you couldn't run pieces on the more obscure sports in prime-time slots.

You could also look at it from the point of view that if OTB started a bit earlier, it would hook listeners who tune in at drive time and maybe keep them with Newstalk beyond 7pm. Newstalk is dying on its arse, I'd have thought it needed something bold.

With all that said, I don't think the OTB lads ever expected to be given what they asked for, probably just a ploy so they'd have a legitimate reason to leave.

RTE moved their sports show/ finished Drivetime at 6.30 last summer. It didn't last, and I assume it was driven as much by shorter summer commuting times meaning less advertising for drivetime. Wasn't enough of a success for them to continue it anyway.

totallegend wrote: »

Newstalk is dying on its arse, I'd have thought it needed something bold

Way off topic, but... imo it's been dumbing down every year since it went National. I don't think it was particularly profitable when the quality was better, but it had more chance of making a niche for itself. The niche it's tried to make for itself is (imo) a right wing station like a toned down US talk station in prime listenership times.

The play communicorp should be making for todayFM 1 & 2 - one music and one talk and sport, and tbh despite the licence conditions the BAI should probably be pragmatic about such a proposal.

totallegend wrote: »

With all that said, I don't think the OTB lads ever expected to be given what they asked for, probably just a ploy so they'd have a legitimate reason to leave.

Certainly smacks of it.

Podge_irl

Macy0161 wrote: »

Way off topic, but... imo it's been dumbing down every year since it went National. I don't think it was particularly profitable when the quality was better, but it had more chance of making a niche for itself. The niche it's tried to make for itself is (imo) a right wing station like a toned down US talk station in prime listenership times.

It actually did a lot of very good Dublin-centric programs which made it great, but they've all been canned since it went national.

KenCan2

Any ideas where the off the ball lads might end up. Apart from the dole queue

phog

lologram wrote: »

To each his own. I wholeheartedly disagree though. I have listened to it since before Newstalk went national and before Gilroy became sports editor and was replaced by McDevitt. Overall it has been consistently top notch and I will very much miss it. I hope the lads find a new location soon.

I will say though that I thought their rugby coverage could have been more incisive at times. Eoin would let Gerry Thornley and, to a lesser extent, Keith Wood ramble on with tired soundbites too frequently. That's a symptom of the somewhat toothless rugby journalism in this country as a whole though.

Their statement on twitterland seems to indicate that they too thought the programme needed to be freshened up. Not sure what they had in mind as they didn't go into detail.

prospect

I don't know why they would want to 'engineer' the situation so they could leave. Could they not have just said, right we have 'X' offer from RTE and we are off, unless you can match or improve on the offer, be it financial, content or terms.


Those listener-ship figures mean nothing, G.Hook has higher figures because of the time-slot. Ironically, the only time during the day that I switch from Newstalk to TodayFM is during Hooks show. If OTB was on during my commute I would certainly have tuned into it.

finlma

Any news on their reappearnace yet? They announced last week that they would be back shortly but didn't say where.

athtrasna

finlma wrote: »

Any news on their reappearnace yet? They announced last week that they would be back shortly but didn't say where.

Word was that one of them (Eoin McDevitt I think) I think is on gardening leave til May so nothing can be announced til then. Saw something about it on twitter last week

Losty Dublin

There was a small piece in a Sunday that Nova were claiming interest in them and that's been it. Whereever they show up, it's very unlikely that all of them will be on the same station, let alone the same show given the big chunk they will add to a stations wage bill.

Podge_irl

Nova doesn't really do talk shows though so I don't see that happening.

durkadurka

I heard something about 4fm.

Which I have frankly never listened to.

backgreen

durkadurka wrote: »

I heard something about 4fm.

Which I have frankly never listened to.

came across 4fm on the car radio recently..crazy stuff no limits

Gary ITR

Podge_irl wrote: »

Nova doesn't really do talk shows though so I don't see that happening.

Nova seem to target a lot at 'the lads' so it would make sense. Nova tend to have decent sports coverage when games are on so who knows.

Won't hear a thing until the Garden leave has run its course

Podge_irl

Gary ITR wrote: »

Nova seem to target a lot at 'the lads' so it would make sense. Nova tend to have decent sports coverage when games are on so who knows.

Yeah, but its more updates in between songs. I dunno if they'd be willing to put on a proper sports talk show and that's what the lads would want surely?

ormond lad

Was by chance talking to Joe Molloy of Newstalk for a short while tonight and he was saying the lads will be back(all together) on air very shortly when their release period from Newstalk is up. From what he has heard(all rumours) the lads will all be on air together and that tonight was Joe's first full night off since the lads quit as Newstalks sports department was divided in half by OTB lads quitting.
They prob will not be in the same timeslot but prob will not be in the 5pm-7pm timeslot that they wanted with Newstalk and which was the cause of their quitting newstalk

irishbucsfan

Podge_irl wrote: »

Yeah, but its more updates in between songs. I dunno if they'd be willing to put on a proper sports talk show and that's what the lads would want surely?

Maybe they would if its what their demographic want though.

finlma

Surely going to a Dublin only station like Nova is a step backwards for them. Hopefully they'll be on a national station for us culchies

Beery Eyed

To be honest, if they set up their own station & just broadcast from 5-9 about sport I'd probably just listen to that channel & never have any reason to change the dial! They could do it from the back of a rusty shed, as long as the content was the same as they had before I'd still be tuning in

CatFromHue

That's the problem I see, if the content/guests are different.

Will their possible new employer want to pay the same guests that are now on Off The Ball i.e. Thornley, Wood, Giles, Hunter, etc?

Glenbhoy

Beery Eyed wrote: »

To be honest, if they set up their own station & just broadcast from 5-9 about sport I'd probably just listen to that channel & never have any reason to change the dial! They could do it from the back of a rusty shed, as long as the content was the same as they had before I'd still be tuning in

Same here, maybe I'm in the minority, but I have long since stopped with the radio on my daily commute. Hooky (by far the worst), Talbot or Mary hold no attraction to me and the commute has become podcast catch up time for me.

awec

I wonder how the listenership of internet radio stacks up against standard radio outside of the breakfast and drive time slots.

escape m1

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/former-off-the-ball-team-returns-to-the-airwaves-on-irishtimes-com-1.1384956

Apparently they are starting to come back to us.....

Larbre34

escape m1 wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/former-off-the-ball-team-returns-to-the-airwaves-on-irishtimes-com-1.1384956

Apparently they are starting to come back to us.....

Would you really be ar5ed with all that palaver online, I just wanted them to be on my car radio, not have to get an app for that, and podcast it, download it, stream it, buffer it, drop it out and miss half the chat.

Just someone give them a job on a radio station I can receive, please.

CGD

Larbre34 wrote: »

Would you really be ar5ed with all that palaver online, I just wanted them to be on my car radio, not have to get an app for that, and podcast it, download it, stream it, buffer it, drop it out and miss half the chat.

Just someone give them a job on a radio station I can receive, please.

Exactly!