Monkey Night Soccer (End of season MNS)

[hedderman]

I must say I got bored with MNS mid season (priorities adjusted with Examinership) but MNS works best when it doesn't take itself too seriously.

RTE's Premiership highlights and coverage of Ireland matches hasn't changed in 10 years & they take themselves far too seriously. Only the occasional addition of Apres Match lighten the mood.

RTE should get Apres Match to do an MNS sketch. Could even do a Premiership/MNS hybrid.

I'd love to see an Apres match sketch on MNS. If they can send up Dunphy, they'd bound to be able to take the p*** out of Roddy. On their live at the Olympia video, they do a sketch on Trevor Welch, someone else and Noel King. Possibly sending up Eircom League Weekly?

[cestlavie]

Well done RTE, you deserve credit for getting something right, It took you all a while but well done. Roddy Collins is a disgrace for what he said about Heary yesterday. Any player who see's a tackle coming will ride the tackle and take the freekick if possible. He is a pure muppet at times, I would love to practice "martial arts" on him but I dont know If that would be a good enough excuse in court. lol

[Rovers1]

i love Keith Foy!
The piece with O Donoghue and Sadlier was genius!

[Duggie]

the show was brilliant last night, very well put together and so funny. gartland should get a regular spot on it, very funny. and as for jacqui....tasty or what ?! great finish to a good show. looking forward to it coming back already.

[Duggie]

by the way the team of the year was a bit dubious. how did crowe get in the team in front of mark farren?? no sligo rovers players, jay o'shea. what do you guys think. dont think crowe was great all season.

[razor]

by the way the team of the year was a bit dubious. how did crowe get in the team in front of mark farren?? no sligo rovers players, jay o'shea. what do you guys think. dont think crowe was great all season.

Can't understand the hype about Crowe, thought he's been terrible, not even the best striker at Bohs, Farren had a great finish but I hate the way Dave Mooney has been forgotten when he hit 20 goals in half a season.
Hats off to the MNS team, great show last night, thoroughly entertaining.
I love the way they are not afraid to laugh at themselves.

[Sheridan]

Crowe has been brilliant this season. He makes Bohs play. He's not the lethal finisher of old but Fenlon has turned him from a washed up lardarse into a sharp and intelligent user of the ball.

[Dodge]

Crowe has been brilliant this season. He makes Bohs play. He's not the lethal finisher of old but Fenlon has turned him from a washed up lardarse into a sharp and intelligent user of the ball.

Agree with this. Very clever player

[Duggie]

ya i think we all agree crowe is a good player but didnt deserve to be in ahead of farren IMO. not this season anyway.

[passinginterest]

Really enjoyed the show last night. I was watching it with a mate who only has a slight interest and our girlfriends and I think even they enjoyed it, it was definitely the kind of show to make people take notice, highlighted the skills, goals and general air of fun that makes the league interesting. The Sligo lads were brilliant as was the 60 section, great that they could take criticism on board and have a laugh about it. Hopefully next year will be even better as they learn what's popular and take on board feedback from fans. I have a feeling the time slot might slip back a little next year, maybe to about 10, don't think that would be bad as long as it's no later than 10.

[galwayhoop]

liked the way they weren't afraid to talk about the bad points (financial problems / examinership etc) and weren't afraid to say quite possibly the worst season for the league, i know they couldn't ignore it but they definitely weren't afraid of it.

not like bbc/sky tosh of best season - every season.

such an improvement from TV3's effort that it's hard to think that was all we had just one short year ago. kudos RTE on a job well done.

[Duggie]

tv3 - jeez on at about 3.30am in the morn. such a time it used to be on. ya'd be knackered waiting for it. trevor welch ah here dnt get me started, cant even read.

[bigmac]

Don't hold your breath for next year's timeslot though

RTÉ'S FLAGSHIP League of Ireland highlights programme, Monday Night Soccer (MNS) faces budget cuts and the possibility of being shifted out of its prime-time slot for next season although RTÉ's Group Head of Sport, Glen Killane, insists that the broadcaster remains "absolutely committed" to the programme and says that any changes will be discussed with the FAI over the coming weeks.

Viewing figures for the programme are widely acknowledged to be disappointing with the 60,000 or so achieved on occasions earlier in the season slipping to an average of just 43,000 or three per cent of the available audience during its time slot in recent weeks.

Matters may not have been helped by the off-field problems encountered by many league clubs this year or by the fact that the title race was effectively over so early but the audience share figure is only a little a quarter of what the station, RTÉ2, averages and Killane admits that its place in the schedules will have to be looked at.

"It isn't great," he says, "although I'd have to say that we always saw this very much as something to grow over time, not an overnight thing. Still, we would have been hoping for around five or six per cent and we'll have to sit down and have a look at it.

"In some way, though, it's actually a difficult slot that it's in because it's up against the soaps and the like and particularly in one television households, there's only going to be one winner there. An off-peak slot might actually help it but we'll have to think about it and talk it all over with the FAI.

"The main thing is we remain totally committed to the show and there'll be nothing knee jerk about our reaction to how it's done so far. It's not a money spinner for us but public service broadcasting and we want to grow the audience, that's part of the deal."

Carrying the programme is indeed part of the broadcaster's wider contract with the FAI for the coverage of football, including senior international games, which runs until 2013 and there appears to be no question that it could be cut before then.

On the question for the budget for next year, Killane says that the review is merely part of the general process currently under way at the station of identifying ways of cutting costs.

"Things are tight," he says, "and we have to look at how best to use the resources available but we're really happy with the quality of the show and we're certainly anxious that we don't do anything to compromise that."

The figures achieved by MNS are put into perspective by the numbers that tune in for English and European club football. Live Champions League coverage on the channel has been averaging some 269,000 so far this season and the World Cup qualifier between Ireland and Cyprus last month attracted an average figure of 517,000.

Televised League of Ireland and FAI Cup games have, inevitably, proven somewhat less popular with RTÉ's games producing mixed figures - from 44,000 for the Finn Harps-Sligo Rovers game up to the 103,000 for the FAI Cup final at the weekend.

RTÉ Radio's Friday night League of Ireland coverage is also under review, meanwhile, and seems likely to be axed for next season. "Nothing has been decided yet," insists Killane, "but long wave doesn't tend to deliver big audiences and again, we're looking at how to make best use of the available resources."

He said that if the programme is cut then some of the money would be diverted to alternative coverage of the league, either in the form of more updates into existing programmes on Friday nights or additional content during weekend sports shows.

[Réiteoir]

If they axe Friday Sportsnight I'm going round to RTÉ with a petrol tanker

[Dodge]

BTW I'd like to see MNS moved to 10pm. For plenty of weeks this year it clashed with live football. Also don't think the comparison with live CL games is fair. A far better indicator would be RTE's premiership highlights

[tiktok]

If they axe Friday Sportsnight I'm going round to RTÉ with a petrol tanker

I'll bring the matches.
Can't believe they'd consider axing that show.

The point has been made previously that when MNS moved to the late night timeslot for the Olympics it lost practically no viewers. I can't see it being on at 8pm next season, 10pm-11pm would be a fine timeslot for it, up against Questions and Answers and not clashing with any Monday night football be that in Ireland or the UK.

[thischarmingman]

Really enjoyed the show last night. I was watching it with a mate who only has a slight interest and our girlfriends and I think even they enjoyed it, .

That's it right there. That's the litmus test- it has to appeal to us, who talk about the league on foot.ie all day but also be entertaining and appealing to casual viewers. Even people who have no intention of going to a match that week, as long as it's being registered. Who knows, the might mention it at work and someone else might have seen it, or look out for one of the players they know next time there's a match on.

liked the way they weren't afraid to talk about the bad points (financial problems / examinership etc) and weren't afraid to say quite possibly the worst season for the league, i know they couldn't ignore it but they definitely weren't afraid of it.

+ 1.

[Duggie]

as someone else said the monkey skit had me in stitches. brilliant come back to whoever sent in the stupid email.

[pete]

I agree Champions League is a unfair comparison. Premiership figure last week was 179k but I feel that is the higher end for RTE.

Figures for Live matches & MNS have been really poor this year no matter what excuses (last week at the same 8pm slot 500k people watched Eastenders on RTE 1) we make.

I feel we will be lucky if MNS is on before the Late Night RTE 2 News. 10pm would be a good slot but I feel RTE may not consider that off peak.

[KevB76]

Great show, I hope its like that every week next year