6 hour Nollaig na mBan special tomorrow with Kathleen McNamee in the hot seat
Joe was like "You can deliver this Ger, my future is beyond these 4 walls......."
Ger was about as crass and flippant as the TD on the Late Late Show in the 1990's talking about how hard it was to have 3 or 4 houses.....
Has anybody figured out how to get the 3 free listens?
I can't imagine paying for the service and then having to use such a useless app to listen!
Having such an awful App while the likes of Patreon make everything so easy to navigate is another problem for them.
Clearly it's also frequented by somone who either works on the show, or has a very close connection in some way.
Perish the thought a thread on the show would be frequented by people who enjoy it. It seems some people either can't figure out where is the second captains thread on here, or just like to complain, all. the. time.
Which do you think it is?
Yeah, you said it, you'd 'guess'.
Yeah maybe small wasn't the right word but getting 1 from every 10 listeners to subscribe doesn't seem unachievable. Their biggest problem is the price.
Second Captains currently have 15K subscribers on Patreon. They seem to be growing too as a couple of years ago it 12K.
As someone mention earlier in the thread the pro otb fanbois are deployed like automated bots
Wow, that's fair enough. You can defend him and not say anything negative about ger. But I'd guess 90% of listeners/subscribers would say ger could have handled the situation better that night. You're like a trump supporter that will defend everything he does and says, and jump through hoops doing so. Sales person? Completely disagree
Molloy was rightly very disgusted by him
Can you just admit that ger was arrogant when he announced this nonsense?
Why can't you just admit it. Be honest, ger was a complete d1ck about the whole thing.
Because I don't think he was. I'm not being pedantic here, I take what anyone is saying with a grain of salt when they are asking for money. The same could be said for any sales person trying to make their product sound appealing (oh look at how smug they sound).
Saying he was being 'a complete d!ck about the whole thing' is a very strong statement and I haven't seen any rational justification for how his behaviour constituted this. Again, you don't have to like him, but saying this should be based on something beyond just a subjective opinion that all of us have as individuals.
They’re pretty big numbers to get imo.
Golf Weekly a different case. A passion project for a few years by the lads who did it in their own free time. A very modest listenership. The point being, it doesn’t scale for OTB.
SC have not reached 10% have they?
When they first brought it in they were talking about the industry standard of listeners subscribing to a paid model was 10% but they hoped they could get up to 25%, which is what they got with Golf Weekly. I don't know the time frame to get to those numbers but they're small enough to be achievable.
I’ve no idea how you know that or if it’s true. However, nice to see something different to “lol, when will they stop embarrassing themselves and admit failure on this model”
I'd imagine like any other platform you had people singing up who forgot to cancel. That kind of thing.
I literally haven't spoken to anyone who is paying.
It's so annoying. I think it's the only app I have that requires me to type my email and password every time I try to use it. And then gives me ads before I actually hear any of the programme I want to listen to (on top of the millions of ads that already fill up significant time on every Newstalk show).
Go Loud app is an absolute sh!t show
What's the story with the 3 free pods? Anyone accessing these? I've tried to sign up a few times for the free ones and keep getting errors.
Why can't you just admit it. Be honest, ger was a complete d1ck about the whole thing. He has been successful for years and years. He is good at what he does. He wouldn't be my fav presenter outta all the otb gang but he is good at what he has been doing.
I always listened on youtube, but not anymore. I rarely listen in radio nowadays.
I'd hate for otb to fail but what will happen if the subscription numbers just isn't there?
They expected 25% of OTB YT followers (165K) to subscribe (based on a questionnaire of Golf Weekly enrollees intent, taking it to be typical of all listeners).
Which amounts to 41,250 @ €99.99 per annum = €4,124,587.50 minimum annual projected revenue!
Gilroy’s head could very well roll over this debacle
It's the follow through on O'Brien's loss-making Communicorp inflating the balance sheet for sale. Appear to float off OTB as a semi-autonomous 2nd Captain's 2.0 with extra online Breakfast AM and bantz podcasts offering ready cheap 24/7 'Go Loud' content, with negligible - if any - YouTube revenues to finance this expansion. Sponsored roadshows with third sector DEI. Pay-in Gaiety events and corporate focused golf vacations making up some of the shortfall, but a premium on-demand service was always on the cards - the Bauer UK style
They characterise OTB in their June '21 announcement as a separate digital station in contrast to the national stations:
Why would Bauer finance OTB AM and Podcasts if the subscription model fails significantly?
A shrink back to old OTB and self-financing Golf pod seems likely at best.
Hard to know for sure.
Could be some of that, could also be them looking at the Second Captains subscription success and thinking that there's definitely a market there, (and maybe justifies their price point given the additional content).
Think their biggest hurdle is the content formerly being entirely free and that's something that a lot of people just wouldn't get over as long as they can still hear a lot of it on the radio.
If they shut down and went entirely subscription model (ala Second Captains) they'd probably have decent sign up figures, but that would obviously be a huge jump which Newstalk wouldn't even want to see. They've much higher costs than Second Captains as well of course.
I can't speak for all podcasts out there but on the Irish ones I think their rugby coverage is the best. Their soccer can be quite good too but I'm not really a soccer fan so don't know what the other podcasts out there are like
It must be very hard for Media companies to monetize clicks and listenership.
I think they went for a subscription model due to decline in advertising.
But the arrogant way Ger delivered his message on that first night had me swearing I'd never pay for their content. It was so cocky and he thought the masses would be signing up at "only a tenner a month" just because they have hours and hours of content. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
Ger could read out next weeks lotto numbers and some people wouldn't write them down they seem hate him so much. That's fine, no law against it, but lets at least acknowledge that at this point. He's been around OTB pretty much since the start, and say what you want, it's been hugely successful.
Aside from that, the same thing being said about the impending failure (forecast or prayed for by some) was said about them introducing OTB AM and that's been there for what heading for 7 years now?
Since it started, it's tried new things and expanded in different ways, and I don't think it has done much that has been a complete swing and a miss. If they tried nothing, they'd be accused of being too comfortable and lazy and stuck in their ways, try something new and they're said to be cocky and arrogant. Haters gonna hate (not you per se, just something that appears a lot in here).
I never wish bad luck on anybody and good luck to them if it is a roaring success I say.
But the arrogant way Ger delivered his message on that first night had me swearing I'd never pay for their content. It was so cocky and he thought the masses would be signing up at "only a tenner a month" just because they have hours and hours of content. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was asked if I wanted a subscription for a Christmas present and said no thanks.
As somebody said above, I too have looked elsewhere for content and can't say I am missing their stuff. The only shows I miss are A Slight Tangent, The Newsround and Sunday Papers. But I can tune in live for the first 2 and sure I'll be OK without Sunday Papers.
The reality is, there isn't one sport where they cover it better than others cover it for free. Like - GAA, Soccer, Golf, Rugby, etc all have free content which is at least as good if not better.
But if its a roaring success and we are all eating our words when we said it was doomed to failure at €10 a month, good on them!
It’s because Ger thinks he’s as worthy of a sub model as others that got there before him.an example of how they got it wrong is today on the overlap on sky the lads are doing an interview with Rory McElroy.it’s brilliant in my opinion cause you actually get to see the real Rory.I wouldn’t be his biggest fan and that’s cause of the way the otb guys wet themselves at the mention of his name.Rory this that and the other from them.the interview on the overlap he’s himself and actually answered the questions he was asked and didn’t hide away from anyone including Roy who told him to get lost as a 12 yr old looking for an autograph
You’re easily shocked
The bang off this thread and people wetting themselves with excitement at tthe thought that the show might not be getting the subscription numbers it aimed for is genuinely unreal.
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