Should TG4 have english audio for sports?

Johnboy1951

I would really appreciate it if TG4 had an English commentary on their sports programmes.

I do not expect them to do this, as it would cost an appreciable amount, which would suck monies from other projects.

Neither do I want to see an increase in the licence fee to fund an English commentary.

So, I accept the situation, and appreciate the fact that I can see sports on a FTA channel.
I much prefer the FTA Irish only commentary than having the sports behind a paywall with English commentary.

sligojoek

A redbutton option option would be nice but it's not the end of the world. Would that be possible on Saorview or is it just Sky?

The only sports I'd watch are hurling, an odd gaelic match or Irish international soccer. What I normaly do during the league match is download the local radio app for one of the counties involved and play it via bluetooth to a soundbar. The only problen is it's a few ceconds behind.

lertsnim

sligojoek wrote: »

Would that be possible on Saorview or is it just Sky?

RTÉ do it on Saorview and Sky so both would be possible for TG4. TG4 have also had an alternative rugby match on the red button on Saorview so they're not afraid to use the option if they want to.

sligojoek

Thanks I didn't know that.

copacetic

ThisRegard wrote: »

It's automated voice recognition software rather than a person isn't it.

edit: yes

That's not entirely correct, stenographers are widely used still. Voice recognition is the future most likely, but gives horrendous errors at times, as you often see posted on social media.

Elmo

copacetic wrote: »

That's not entirely correct, stenographers are widely used still. Voice recognition is the future most likely, but gives horrendous errors at times, as you often see posted on social media.

Still don't understand why they don't use the same text as the autocue with studio news readers and why news reports aren't pre-subtitled as they are not live. the only time a stenographer should be used are for live interviews and when newsreaders goes off script!

copacetic

Elmo wrote: »

If they are such big games then both TV3 and RTE need to give them as much coverage as TG4. Setanta did for a while and the amount of complaints from people without access to Setanta and the problems caused when it left terrestrial TV. RTE also took them for a while.

AFAIK RTE take their commentary from RTÉ RnaG. And RTÉ have only started providing that feature on a very few select games, why not get the option across all sport on RTÉ?

The Irish commentary generally doesn't come from RnaG, they aren't working off the pictures etc that would be on RTÉ, it would not make sense to viewer. The additional commentators, co commentator, commentary positions, technical infrastructure monitoring work, platform feeds etc are all relatively costly. Hence the major event only coverage.

It's hard to see where the mandate is for TG4 to go to such expense for what would be many more games, with small viewerships, which people would most likely watch anyway, possibly picking up a bit of Irish along the way.

copacetic

Elmo wrote: »

Still don't understand why they don't use the same text as the autocue with studio news readers and why news reports aren't pre-subtitled as they are not live. the only time a stenographer should be used are for live interviews and when newsreaders goes off script!

A lot of new reports are pre subtitled if copy is in system in time, often they aren't as they could be edited right up to air. They would still then be on the encoding delay so not in sync.

The stenographer could be anywhere in the world, so they don't generally have realtime access to the autocue feeds and there are security issues also. Obviously the same stenographer has to drop in any pre set copy they have, there isn't a team of people doing it.

AndrewJRenko

Earthhorse wrote: »

Can you get subtitles for live events? You'd need to be typing fast.

But it might be a missed opportunity to help people learn the language if it were possible.

These guys do live captioning of conferences - not sure it they can do sports events.

http://pcr.ie/#broadcast_captioning

Tin Foil Hat

artanevilla wrote: »

It's an Irish channel though. That's the whole point of the station.

That's all well and good for niche programs made especially for the gaelgoirs. But, when they get exclusive rights to events with a broad interest, then they should broadcast in the native (and only) language of the vast, vast majority of the audience for that event.

Elmo

Tin Foil Hat wrote: »

That's all well and good for niche programs made especially for the gaelgoirs. But, when they get exclusive rights to events with a broad interest, then they should broadcast in the native (and only) language of the vast, vast majority of the audience for that event.

They don't they are the only ones interested.

ThisRegard

copacetic wrote: »

That's not entirely correct, stenographers are widely used still. Voice recognition is the future most likely, but gives horrendous errors at times, as you often see posted on social media.

It came straight from the horses mouth, the BBC, that's how they do it and is who we were talking about at the time.

reason vs religion

I disagree with TG4 being allowed to compete with RTE for the rights to sporting events with a nationwide interest. The remit of promoting Irish shouldn't extend to nabbing the rights to shows/events from RTE (which has a much more onerous remit) and then changing the way they're broadcast such that only a tiny minority can actually comfortably understand it. Having Irish pre- and post-match analysis but with the option of English commentary might be an imperfect compromise.

Also, before anyone lauds TG4 any further, it's actually very well-funded. When you include the government subvention, license fee allocation and hour-a-day of news that RTE produces for the channel, it has a budget of almost two-thirds that of RTE 1, the flagship channel, despite having an audience share of <2%.

AndrewJRenko

reason vs religion wrote: »

Also, before anyone lauds TG4 any further, it's actually very well-funded. When you include the government subvention, license fee allocation and hour-a-day of news that RTE produces for the channel, it has a budget of almost two-thirds that of RTE 1, the flagship channel, despite having an audience share of <2%.

Numbers please

reason vs religion

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Numbers please

There are politer ways to ask.

I misspoke when I said budget; I meant that TG4 gets approx. two-thirds the funding. Of course, that excludes the much higher commercial revenues at RTE. The numbers...off the top of my head, €22m state subvention, €10m license fee contribution, and €7m indirectly due to the news arrangement with RTE, which totals about two-thirds the €60m RTE 1 gets from the license fee. TG4-aired programmes also get €5-10m in Sound and Vision funding, which is a subsidy and can be considered indirect funding of TG4.

Elmo

No one disagrees that TG4 isn't well funded. however last figures I saw for sports programming was €3million so TG4 don't overly exert their money on Sport. Remember BAI don't support Support though the sound and vision fund so none of that money goes to Sport TG4, RTÉ do not buy in any sport for TG4 the mainly supply News, a few kids and entertainment shows.

Remember BBC 4 have a smaller share of the audience than TG4.

TV3 could have easily bought the rights to GAA league games, had they been interested. Ladies GAA football brought in 250,000 viewers.

reason vs religion

Elmo wrote: »

No one disagrees that TG4 isn't well funded. however last figures I saw for sports programming was €3million so TG4 don't overly exert their money on Sport. Remember BAI don't support Support though the sound and vision fund so none of that money goes to Sport TG4, RTÉ do not buy in any sport for TG4 the mainly supply News, a few kids and entertainment shows.

Remember BBC 4 have a smaller share of the audience than TG4.

TV3 could have easily bought the rights to GAA league games, had they been interested. Ladies GAA football brought in 250,000 viewers.

I think many people are unaware of that, tho, and are overly-charitable as a result.

I'm not criticising TG4 spending money on sport. Just saying that they shouldn't compete with the national broadcaster. If no one else wants to air it, I've no problem with them doing it through Irish.

The S&V mention isn't strictly relevant to the topic of this thread, I accept. But subsidising drama and documentaries could allow funding to be allocated elsewhere, e.g. sport.

BBC Four's share is distorted by it only airing for six hours or so and should been seen in the context of a much wider media market. As well, its content is very niche, which would suppress the share, whereas TG4 has a whole spectrum of shows.

Elmo

reason vs religion wrote: »

I think many people are unaware of that, tho, and are overly-charitable as a result.

I'm not criticising TG4 spending money on sport. Just saying that they shouldn't compete with the national broadcaster. If no one else wants to air it, I've no problem with them doing it through Irish.

The S&V mention isn't strictly relevant to the topic of this thread, I accept. But subsidising drama and documentaries could allow funding to be allocated elsewhere, e.g. sport.

BBC Four's share is distorted by it only airing for six hours or so and should been seen in the context of a much wider media market. As well, its content is very niche, which would suppress the share, whereas TG4 has a whole spectrum of shows.

You could say the same for TG4 as it airs mainly children's programming during the day.

TG4 are not competiting with any of the other broadcasters RTÉ, TV3 or eir for sport. The other broadcasters don't go after the same sport e.g why do you think TG4 got Wimbledon? And why eir took it a few years later, doubt eir was in a massive battle with TG4 for those rights.

I still think TG4 do a better job than RTÉ and TV3 in general.

AndrewJRenko

reason vs religion wrote: »

There are politer ways to ask.

I misspoke when I said budget; I meant that TG4 gets approx. two-thirds the funding. Of course, that excludes the much higher commercial revenues at RTE. The numbers...off the top of my head, €22m state subvention, €10m license fee contribution, and €7m indirectly due to the news arrangement with RTE, which totals about two-thirds the €60m RTE 1 gets from the license fee. TG4-aired programmes also get €5-10m in Sound and Vision funding, which is a subsidy and can be considered indirect funding of TG4.

Thanks for the details. I didn't realise they were that close in funding, though as you say, RTE's commercial income is in a different league.

Capt'n Midnight

reubenreuben wrote: »

If broadcasting in irish is in their mandate then what about commercials and programs originally in english? Should they not be dubbed to irish?

When it comes to advertising The Golden Rule applies.

- The people with the gold make the rules.

reason vs religion

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

When it comes to advertising The Golden Rule applies.

- The people with the gold make the rules.

Do they even have any ads in Irish?

Jpmarn

I haven't heard any Irish language in commercials on TG4 in quite a while.

reason vs religion

Jpmarn wrote: »

I haven't heard any Irish language in commercials on TG4 in quite a while.

Which seems preposterous. Is there really no (perhaps Irish-oriented) business that sees benefit in taking advantage of the novelty of having their ad in Irish?

reubenreuben

reason vs religion wrote: »

Which seems preposterous. Is there really no (perhaps Irish-oriented) business that sees benefit in taking advantage of the novelty of having their ad in Irish?

Exactly, but who it would limit who can understand them. The advertisers wouldn't condone that.

An Ciarraioch

Must say their player has much improved lately: now able to view full-screen, pause programming and remove English subtitles, should you so wish.