Winter Olympics Coverage

The problem is RTE won’t allow themselves to do anything “cheap” on the main two stations.

Compare World Athletics coverage on Virgin and RTE over the past few years. Virgin used the world feed with no studio, one reporter on site

RTE had their own commentators, David Gillick on site, full studio coverage

I was fine with Virgin, but RTE clearly LOVE studio pundits. They would not (IMO) allow themselves to just show the footage with world feed commentators.

You can argue whether that’s the right decision or not but there’s no way it would be cheap if RTE showed this. I think they know too that anybody who’s interested already has access to it so it’s not going to be a huge success for them either way

Sounds like a typical jobs for the boys/girls in Montrose scenario. Most people would be happy enough with the world feed. In fact the world feed experts are normally more knowledgeable than those in RTE - a retired medalist is usually better than some RTE sports journalist.

Given that TNT has the majority of the live coverage, I think a lot of people dont have access and would appreciate seeing the world feed. BBC coverage isnt great and concentrates on British athletes.

I've really enjoyed the big air and half pipe events, the enthusiasm of the BBC commentators is great even if I don't have a clue what a 1080 left side triple (sic) is. It makes a change from the poo faced over analysing of mainstream sports.

I agree with you not the people I fake quoted so there is no need to spell it out for me.

I suppose I should say that the nature of events at the Winter Olympics does complicate scheduling for broadcasters.
A lot of the main events are drawn out \ interval events where you have competitors going in sequence, or take considerable time to play out eg curling, ice hockey.
Compared to eg Summer Olympics where you have a lot of prestige events that play out relatively quickly, races, rowing etc

Even the BBC with all their hours of coverage don't get this right for their broadcast coverage.

One of their channels was showing repeats of Nationwide when tne most prestigeous event in the entite games was on - and there was an Irish competitor (the Downhill). People may not follow these sports regularly, but, like the summer olympics, many sports fans do tune in when the bigger events are on. Even for the casual viewer, the downhill with Irish interest, for example, is way more attractive than repeats of Nationwide.

There"s also the public broadcasting remit. Giving viewers a wider array of progtammes including those attracting a niche or occasional audience. Where's the additiinality with repeats of Nationwide readily availble on the player anyway.

I doubt the Winter Olympics would even hold up that 3.6% share. It's extremely niche in a country like Ireland where we don't have ice and snow sports facilities and are therefore effectively (excuse the pun) frozen out of it. Is there even a dedicated thread anywhere on boards to the games?

The only Winter Olympic related story I've seen get any kind of wider traction is the two lads arguing with each other at the curling over whether one of them touched a curling stone. And most of the coverage of that has only been relating to what a weird sport curling is for people who were previously unaware of it.

Realistically, almost nobody cares, and the few that do will go and find the coverage they need elsewhere. The same as they would with basketball or cricket or other niche sporting events.

Great final. One of those sports you'll watch once in four years then forget about it till next Olympics but it's obviously a vibrant discipline. Lynch doing brilliant to finish eighth. It's a dangerous sport! Witness Goeppers fall and the NZ guy earlier. That isn't so much snow as hard ice.

Interesting snippet on BBC site about ratings:

The BBC audience for the GB men's curling semi-final win over Switzerland peaked at 3.4million.

If this is the case then why buy it? RTÉ2 is devoid of any programming, and has been for the last decade.

If even the highlights show was to attain 30k that would be better than most programmes on RTÉ2.

And I thought RTÉ2 was a public service broadcaster.

So its a good deal, why limit what you've been given?

I enjoyed the highlights.

Ski Sunday used to be popular in our house. I assume it was for others too. Been years since I watched it. Cut the cable etc..

They have “First Dates” but I can’t think of any other original home produced programming RTE2 currently broadcasts outside of sport.

I don't want to watch, I don't watch sport. RTÉ are a public service broadcaster.

Summer Olympics held up RTÉ2 audience last year, along with the Euros, with their 3.6% share in Jan how do they defend their line up of programming outside of sport?

I suppose they are right just look at their line up this week at 7pm

Monday - From That Small Island (Originally RTÉ1 2025, Repeat)

Tuesday - Your Home Made Perfect (Import, Repeat)

Wednesday - The Simpsons (Import, Repeat) leading into Champions League

Thursday - Bake Off: The Professionals (Import, Available on Channel4.com, Season 5)

Friday - Son of a Critch (Import, Repeat), followed by Rick Stein's Food Stories (Import, Repeat)

Saturday @ 6 The Shelter (Import, Repeat), followed at 7 by The Saturday Game Live.

Sunday - The Future of Nature (Import, Repeat)

This is a crazy line up of Repeats at 7pm only Saturday would you have to moved the highlights show to 6pm, why is RTÉ importing Bake Off, from 4 years ago which is available on channel4.com.

I mean defending their non-sporting programme line up. Can you defend any of those repeats? are they making money? are they up to the style that RTÉ feel is necessary to get an audience?

This is the same argument that I had regarding RTÉ and the electric picnic. At least there people there could say "well, they haven't got the rights to EP" in this instance however they have the rights.

Are you saying that RTÉ Winter Olympic Highlights for the Player aren't as well produced as the rest of their sports programming? Do you have information about the cost of these highlights package?

Are you suggesting that they would not have the same audience levels as the shows that the run at 7pm each night on RTÉ2?

Simply put, RTÉ2 doesn't have an audience outside of sport and it is a public service broadcaster.

Simply put if I had my way no sport would be on TV, but as suggested earlier "I accept that, just because I don't want to watch something, others do"