Tg4

TG4's excellent coverage of Irish sport has received justifiable commendation in recent years, thanks to it the Irish language channel's innovative targeting of niche competitions.

While box office events like the Six Nations and the All-Ireland series will remain beyond the station's budget, the sports department have not given up by being left with merely sloppy seconds.

For example, their coverage of competitions such as the Celtic League and Schools' finals in rugby, not to mention the GAA club finals and the Ladies Football championship - which they now proudly sponsor - is superlative.

Indeed, this year alone they expect to have broadcast live coverage of 66 games in both codes - 40 GAA and 26 rugby.

Their viewing figures of 184,000 for the recent All-Ireland ladies' football final was a record for the station this year.

With the FAI eager to stick their fingers in as many televisual pies as possible, it wouldn't be surprising if they weren't more than a little intrigued at the possibility of forging a mutually beneficial alliance.

Naturally enough, when Laurence St John - TV rights advisor to both the IRFU and FAI - was discussing rugby with TG4 recently, he lobbed in a curve ball about the Eircom League.

Except he presumed they'd only be interested in covering Galway, Finn Harps and Sligo Rovers - the ones in the West where most of the Gaelgóirs are.

TG4 dismissed such a presumptous, condescending approach. But imagine their surprise when the conversation appeared verbatim in a business supplement last Sunday. Leaks and the FAI? Shurely shome mishtake?

"If we were going to do something, we would do it properly," says Ronan Ó Coisdealbha from TG4 Sport, confirming that a conversation did indeed take place with the FAI's man on the telly case.

"But the way it appeared made it look as if we would be covering the western seaboard just because we're based in Galway. We're not a regional station, we're a national station.

"And anyway, there would have been no exclusivity involved because TV3 and RTE are also involved."

Pity the FAI's rather bumbling advances weren't a bit subtler as TG4's commitment and innovation would have been a welcome approach as RTE and TV3 still haven't got it quite right.



Is their Gealteacht areas in Cork, Waterford, Kerry,Meath as well.
Their are plenty all Irish speaking national schools dotted around the country as well.
I like the way TG4 said they we're a national station.
TG4 would give far better time slots to the EL.
Fingers crossed we will see EL soccer on TG4 very shortly.
I'm sure EL soccer could break their veiwing figures.
Wouldn't it be great too see 20 live EL matches a season.

that wud be great even for those of us abroad cos for 8 euros a month u can watch tg4 online. im gonna email them and tell em that it wud get me to sign up

Well I've posted about them before. I think it would be an excellent move by the eL to hook up with TG4, they take a proper professional attitude to everything they do, and Friday night live soccer would be fantastic throughout the summer. TG4 would not throw together some half arsed attempt at a highlights show, and stick it on during the middle of the night.....
Come on, eL, get your act together and give a real proper TV station a chance at promoting our league.

TG4 is a really excellent station who dont get enough credit for what they do.

A company in Waterford called Nimeton (i think) do most of their OBU stuff for them.

IT would be worth TG4 while doing it, because, as Estar said there are Gaeltachs in Meath, Waterford, Cork, Mayo, Kerry, Donegal, Galway, Sligo and many other pockets. Not only that but there are more people outside the Gaeltach who use Irish as a part of their everyday lives than there are in it. Dublin has the highest percentage of Irish speakers in the country, if you add this to Dublin having the most clubs the deal would make sense.

According to the last cenus 1.2 Million people can understand a reasonable amount of Irish.

Even people who dont have a word of Irish would tune in to watch matches.

Lets hope it comes through, they'd do a better job of it than other other Irish TV station if they got their chance.

I could probably count on one hand the amount of words I know in Irish, but it'd be absolutley excellent to see TG4 cover the Eircom League. As far as I know, TV3 have no exclusive rights, only that they get first pick on matches, so TG4 could show as many live matches as they like and even do a proper highlights program and stick it on at a decent hour.

The ratings from the semi final replay show a market is there, so it would benefit everybody if they started showing matches regularly really, and I'm sure nobody would be put off by it being on TG4, even if they can't understand Irish.

The one sticking point with TG4 is exclusivity. They will only take if they get exclusivity as it's the bigger games that bring in the bigger advertising revenue. That's why they cover so extensively, developing a loyal audience that watch the climaxes of all these competitions. If RTE (effectively the same company) had the rights to the Ladies Football final and/or the climax to the Celtic League TG4 would go ape and rightly so. That's why in order for a deal to work we would have to sever all league (but not Cup) ties with TV3 and (if they even exist) RTE.

they've put a lot of time, effort and money into the Celtic league games which they screen on the friday nights, and the comments about how professionally they approach it is well made, but would they nudge this to accomodate the EL or would we have saturday games screened (which to be fair would generate bigger audiences so many EL games are on friday nights)

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Originally posted by Estar
Wouldn't it be great too see 20 live EL matches a season.

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But wouldn't commentary be in irish?

Don't they show rugby on fridays already.

A few points about TG4:

1. The fact that it's in Irish isn't that much of a problem. My Irish is $hit but I can still pick up most of the commentary in the Celtic League matches. Most commentary isn't great anyway so you're not missing much if you don't understand it.

2. There'd be no need to just cover Gaeltacht area teams as the Celtic League rugby is watched by lots of people who aren't Irish speakers and I'm sure the same would be true for the EL.

3. With the EL seasin finishing up in the middle of the Celtic League, I'd say that they'd want to have live games on Saturdays or Sundays. This would be a good move for them too because a lot of people watching the games would likely be at other games on the Friday.

4. The quality of their coverage of the rugby (don't watch GAA so can't comment on that) is very good. They have a good few cameras at the live games and the camerawork is as good as anything RTE do.

5. Exclusivity would be a problem. I doubt RTE would have much problem as they haven't shown a league match in years and as far as I know are involved with TG4 in some way. TV3 are another matter as I'd imagine that the highlights programme gets good ratings for the time of night it's on and the amount of money it costs. Maybe TG4 showing live games and TV3 showing highlights would work?

If commentary is a problem do the old trick. Turn down the TV and put on the radio, can be funny at times.:cool:

Their are plenty of slots for live coverage.

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Originally posted by Schumi
Exclusivity would be a problem. I doubt RTE would have much problem as they haven't shown a league match in years and as far as I know are involved with TG4 in some way. TV3 are another matter as I'd imagine that the highlights programme gets good ratings for the time of night it's on and the amount of money it costs. Maybe TG4 showing live games and TV3 showing highlights would work?

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That's quite feasable. It's how it's done in England - people put in seperate bids for highlights and live games, and in the end, SKY win them all. :)

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Originally posted by Estar
If commentary is a problem do the old trick. Turn down the TV and put on the radio

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Estar .... you'll never learn any Irish that way my boy. You should be turning up the volume on the telly and put the radio in front of it :)

TG4's rugby coverage is excellent - would do a decent job on football too I imagine - they have had Scottish and Spanish football in the past.

It appears to be a really decent station and they deserve to succeed.

Celtic league runs from September throught to Spring so not a great overlap on friday nights. Anyway when the rugby is on the football could be shown on sundays or Saturday nights.

TV3 have failed to show games and have issues with OB units. RTE were never interested and only showed games when forced to do so. Now that the government have screwed up the national team rights RTE probably won't show much domestic football when they can show Celtic and Manyoo.

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Originally posted by gspain
TG4's rugby coverage is excellent - would do a decent job on football too I imagine - they have had Scottish and Spanish football in the past.

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Do they still cover the Liga? I might watch that.

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Originally posted by John83
Do they still cover the Liga? I might watch that.

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I don't think so. I remember watching that in Irish classes in 5th year. 'Twas great. :D

TG4 are one of the only good things about national television in Ireland. They are a credit to their budget and they actually believe in showing Irish sport, something which RTE have forgotten and Tv3 never had.