Full article - https://archive.li/DTwW7
Gilroy as grating as ever, an undue optimism and poor analysis not seen since the OTB 2019 Abu Dhabi golf tour failed to get off the ground.
I enjoy their rugby content and occasionally GAA and soccer and I would be willing to pay something but the pricing is outrageous for my usage which is like 2 or 3 shows/podcasts in a week.
To go from free to charging something in line with a disney+ subscription price is a bit of a nuclear move that'll lose most of the audience they worked so hard to build over the years.
It feels like they don't understand their audience at all if they think anyone is listening to 60 podcasts on about 12 different sports each week.
You must not know many golf fans then. I've played 18 holes with some very rich people and some not so rich people. It has quite a broad population of players.
Most people can afford the 9.99 if they want. The difference is, most dont think it's worth it. I can see them getting 25%. Golf Weekly is very niche and very small so a different use case.
I've never met a poor golf fan. 25% isn't surprising. I wouldn't be expecting the same conversion rate from fans of other sports.
https://www.businesspost.ie/news/off-the-ball-aims-to-convert-25-of-listeners-to-paid-subscription-model/
I presume golf is niche, so golf weekly might just be a few hundred people. But I think football is the audience you need to target/ be great at to attract a big audience.
I only ever listened to the play back pod of OTB AM in work late mornings for background noise and skipped through all the faff to get to football.
Never listened to a pod of the evening OTB show.
Never missed Golf Weekly after it went behind paywall. Again it was only ever background noise to me.
I'll miss the pod of The Sunday Paper review though. That was good.
Golf Weekly got 25%? That's insane especially with No Laying Up out there for free. Granted, I eventually signed up for it when travelling.
Funny, I was thinking that since I don't listen to OTB that much these days, maybe I'm out of touch. So I thought I'd have a listen to the football show this evening, given the week that's in it.
Two prerecorded interviews (one with Rene Meulensteen mostly about Man Utd circa the year 2000), followed by two bits of Nathan listing off what on OTB over the next few days. That was it.
It's just not very strong at all.
Also, I've no idea what percentage of OTB listeners listen to radio show vs podcasts vs Youtube (last time I watched on Youtube there were at most a couple of hundred people watching), but surely the strongest material is used on the actual radio show?
Here’s another reason not to touch this sub, Clíona Foley, that horrendous cackling laugh at her own gags, her relentless interruptions and when she’s not at that she’s on some mundane monologue about some **** nobody cares about. She also seems to be on the paper review every second week. I stopped listening because of her. A geebag if ever there was one, painful.
Otb
According to the article 10% is industry standard but golf weekly got 25% when it went behind the paywall, Gilroy said if they get anywhere between these 2 it will be worthwhile.
Seems very rushed alright, I wonder who or what was the driver behind it?
They surveyed 1000 people according to Gilroy in the clip above and that gave them confidence and 'Green Light' to go ahead with it? I wonder what their profit subscription level target is?
But Jayus they would want to do one of three things seriously up their game overall. Bring in a raft of fresh blood having profile and expertise in all areas. Or become a niche station focusing on a few sports that draw in the subs? It would mean few minority sports, less women's sports focus and so on. That just would not be profitable.
Was going to turn it on this evening on the phone to listen in and after a minute I just turned it off.my heart wasn’t in it to listen to their inane crap banter especially from banner boy McCarthy.it’s amazing how one decision to change the way u listen to a show can alter ur feelings towards it.
I find it all very bizarre, price point wrong, lack of notice big mistake, there USP was basically the convenience of it and they've flushed that down the toilet, maybe business wise it will work out for them but expecting people to fork out €100 a year for content alot of which is available for free on the radio seems very ambitious.
I am all very amused my this whole thing to be honest. Maybe there is a market for it I don't know?
I went off OTB years ago plenty of much better content elsewhere for free or better options for better value IMO.
If you look at it objectively the OTB background is not journalistic first and foremost, they are mostly English Degree graduates, (one legal background as far as I know) who fell into sport.
How many of the presenters on the show do people honestly think they deliver quality?
How many people think this is worth paying for?
How many are likeable characters that people enjoy listening to and would pay for the privilege?
I will watch with interest from afar to see if this works and maybe it is just me. But I think there could be a hasty changing of strategy, if this tanks.
However, perhaps I am the one completely out of touch?
Maybe there are 20 somethings who do not know any different who would pay this subscription? I assume they only need a certain percentage to return a profit?
Also, in order to get more subs I assume they will have to be more sensationalist 'hard hitting' to get clicks and so on? More 'Bantz' aimed at college students?
Tommy Rooney is very good too in fairness to him, I listened to them a good bit as I'm working from home but any consideration of paying €10 a month was gone with the 14 hour notice, for lads who i presumed were savvy in terms of what flies and what doesn't it was extremely naive.
And rightly so.
Giles was the only OTB podcast I was subscribed to, but (as is/was the case with the GoLoud app) it wasn't exactly relaible in my regular podcast app. Sometimes there, sometimes...nope.
Slight question outside the announcement this week, does anyone else find the OTB content they are always, always plugging just hard to find/glitchy/inconsistantly available?
Never mind that the GoLoud app's latest update seems to want me to type my email address and password every single time I open it.
Infairness, Joe did ask questions and was slammed online for "preaching".
Why do you feel the need to defend everything OTB do? I'm not even in the thread very often but every time I am you are in it defending the OTB lads against any perceived criticism.
Caught the tail end of the opening segment of the show tonight and the lads banter was in full flow. I have no idea what that McCarthy lad adds to anything but he has an incredibly annoying laugh and seems to find everything hilarious.
Anyway 'lads bants' aside good to hear John Giles weekly words of wisdom. I really hope his Thursday night slot doesn't go behind a paywall. But even if it does i have decided i won't be spending any money on a subscription.
Yep I would have gone
€3 a month for your chosen sport (i.e. GAA, football, rugby, golf, whatever),
€5 a month for your chosen sport + Daily (e.g. Newsround, Lunchtime Wrap, A Slight Tangent, etc)
€5 a month for 2 sports
€6 a month for everything.
The fact that they think their content is worth more than Netflix, Prime, Disney, etc is quite frankly laughable and delusional in equal measure.
I wonder if Ger "Its only a tenner a month" was the genius behind it or if it was foisted upon them by their overlords? I think he was so confident on the show the other night, it is more likely to be the former.
Joe was very forceful in saying that the allegations made towards Vera warranted a suitable response from the FAI in suggesting that they were going to look in to the allegations appropriately.
He was very critical that the FAI came out with PR type statements very quickly to respond to the various breaking stories from the US. And he said the show reached out to the FAI asking detailed questions. I really don't think they could have done any more on that story to show that they felt Pauw had questions to answer.
Also, 50% of the people on the planet are women, dismissing that as something people have no interest in only once again makes me feel sorry for any daughters any of you may have.
Their dismissal of the allegations made against Vera Pauw in an official report from the US also tells you a lot about them. Obviously they realise that their is a serious dearth of interest in womens sport so aren't bothering to paywall that.
Second Captains must be rubbing there hands together. They will surely eat into the market share now further as their prices are far more competitive. The narrow vision they have is incredible the more you think about it. Trying to pedal the line that they have a massive amount of content for the tenner a month. Surely those lads must realise that people are only interest in probably 20 or 30 percent of their content. Why no come up with a model to focus on that.
I'd have paid 5 a month for football and GAA. I don't want Rugby or anything else.
It’s amazing how they keep pushing women’s sports down everyone’s throats for free and now charge for everything else. Dopes
They should have gone for two tiers: 5e a month for one sport, but 10e a month for everything. A fiver is standard for a specialist podcast, the tenner would seem like good value for all the other content then
How Shane Hannon is given a lost on anything is beyond tragic.
Mick McCarthy is like the annoying lad you went to school with who's opinion is the be all and end all of the debate.
It's decent enough to listen to for free but paying for it? It'd be like paying for tap water to be honest.
I like Off The Ball but won't be paying a tenner a month for the privilege either.
I am a long term OTB listener and even remember the night the Second Captains guys abandoned the ship. I thought it was like the end of the world at the time but developed an affinity for the new OTB team, or some of them.
I like Will O'Callaghan (the only one of the whole team with a deep interest in hurling), Joe Molloy and Adrian Barry. I can't stand Ger Gilroy (arrogant, "its only a tenner a month", smug, thank god they shipped him off to the AM show), Nathan Murphy (the big obnoxious thicko from Mayo thinks he's some hero and everybody shut up and listen about life growing up in Ballyhaunis), Dave McIntyre (guy who threw his kids scooter over a ditch in a park according to an episode of the Dadcast....) and don't really like Shane Hannon very much (for the 40,000th time I'm from Monaghan) even though I liked how he pushed Kellie Harrington for an answer that time. Arthur is good and considered and doesn't speak much until he thinks, Mick McCarthy is like the guy whose good craic in the pub. The weekenders like Dan McDonnell are good.
Some of the shows on Spotify are good - Hurling Pod is excellent, Sunday Papers is great depending on who is doing it and I like the Newsround for the wrap-up of everything and a bit of craic sometimes. A Slight Tangent is great for the variety and that you don't know where the discussion will go. But all are dependent on Joe Molloy or Will O'Callaghan presenting them because the others are not very good. I think they know their limitations too because they didn't even have A Slight Tangent when Joe was off recently.
So in summary, on no planet am I paying a tenner a month for it. There's enough good free content out there and I'll find something else to listen to - its a saturated market already. If they can't make money out of it with advertisement revenue then its time to scale it back and go for quality over quantity. I'd never want to listen to a sports show at 7am in the morning and only listen back if there's something on Spotify that piques my interest.
My main sport is GAA anyway so its season over until April really as far as podcasts are concerned. I do like the individual interview with a sports star now and then but can get plenty of them elsewhere. I'm not big in to rugby, golf or football so can take or leave them so that's 80+% of the show for the next 8 months anyway.
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