Newstalk: Off The Ball

What was going on?

Having thought more about this, the timing of the paywall being introduced makes no sense at all. I don't have any interest in soccer so I'm going on what others are saying, but it appears that there are multiple alternative podcasts available for free so soccer fans are well catered for anyway.

My sporting interests would be GAA, rugby and horse racing. The inter county GAA season is now over so I'm not missing out on anything there. I actually think this is where they could have had an impact as they put out more hours than any other podcast. I wouldn't have listened to it all, I seem to be in minority but I can't stand James Skehill so anything with his name in the description was automatically deleted. The biggest urge for me to subscribe will be next Jan/Feb as the alternatives all have flaws such as a paywall (Examiner/Smaller Fish/Second Captains), poor quality (GAA hour/RTE) or only one hour per week (Independent/Gaelic Games statsman). Newstalk had a club hour last year but as each county has their own championship in both codes it's impossible to cover enough so there was no way that could be all things to all men.

I enjoyed the rugby coverage but all attention over the next two months will be the world cup and that will be covered by plenty free UK podcasts who do not ignore Ireland either. Personally I like BBC rugby weekly (which is now daily for the world cup) and The Rugby Pod. RTE rugby is ok, not as good as it was but worth a listen. Again the timing is strange as fans can make up for any world cup coverage.

Friday night racing was quietly dropped a while ago so I'm not losing out on anything there.

What Newstalk could do was cover the sports that get less coverage traditionally, such as athletics. But that's not enough to warrant a subscription.

Left Wing from the Indo is good for Rugby if you want Irish coverage. Ruadhri O'Connor and Cian Tracey would be on OTB a lot of the time anyway

Good shout. Irish times used to have a sports podcast too with G Thornley a regular on it. They might do a World Cup run of it.

What’s the story with Richie phoning it in constantly from home? Very strange actually seeing him in a studio now. Agree with previous poster, I thought the programme yday evening was absolutely awful.

Second Captains will probably have a free rugby pod every Monday during the World Cup.

Personal opinion but I don't like the sound of the Second Captains lads voices. I think they scream arrogant south Dub for me, even though I'm sure they aren't. I don't know why, I could never quite put my finger on it but I never warmed to them.

I feel everybody is viewed in a different prism once they are expecting me to pony up cash to listen to them - not one podcast has the quality or USP to make me feel "this is worth paying for" over the quality available for free.

Like who in OTB towers thought people would pay €10 a month to listen to well over half of the garbage they package up and put out there, and thought that people would bite at that cost? It just boggles the mind. 60 hours a week of content is all well and good but very few people have that sort of time to listen so its a moot point. Maybe a better model would have been to have most of the "missable, but listenable" content (e.g. Newsround, A Slight Tangent, Football Show, etc) for free to keep their profile out there, and then have subscription content (e.g. live shows, exclusive interviews with really top people) behind a paywall, and have a few of these per week (e.g. Joe Molloy has a 1.5 hr interview with Dele Alli, arbitary example since he is in my head) and try get people to subscribe €5 a month for that? I'm much more likely to subscribe for that than I am for half of the nonsense that they put out there, and I feel I'll get a good long interview from a top interviewer (Joe being streets ahead of the rest of them) and a good long listen where he can get in to the weeds with some people.

Thank god the Crappy Quiz is behind a paywall, the only way I'd listen to it is if the paywall was reversed.

Eoin Sheahan back on OTB AM from next week. Great news for those of us who watch live for free on youtube!

According to himself, Shane Hannon is going to be doing Friday mornings with Adrian Barry and Saturdays & Sundays on the radio.

Hard not to

I listen to an odd bit of them still on the radio but wouldnt be too pushed about missing then

One of the three is from Galway, the other is from Fairview and I'm not sure where the third is. I can't really make sense of what you mean by arrogant South Dub in this context.

He's not really one of the main guys every day though.

Ken's from Greenhills Templeogue, Simon Skerries-North County Dublin area.

Eoin is from in/around Stillorgan/Kilmacud

From Skerries