breakingnews.ie

**A face** · 14/12/2004, 1:42 PM

Sent a mail breakingnews.ie asking why in a two day eroid there were 40 articles on footie and only one of them was eircom league news related.
Just look at his signature and IMO ... it is a total fob off. Pathetic to be honest.

here is the reply ....

********************************************

Hi A face,

In response to your query regarding eircom League, we do endeavor to give the Irish domestic league its due coverage. We have always provided Premier Division match reports and First Division results. Then, a few months ago we commissioned a freelance journalist to provide news on transfers, managerial changes, suspensions, gossip etc on a daily basis. You may have noticed we were running about 20 eircom League stories a week, on top of match coverage during the season. This agreement ran until the end of November, admittedly leaving a noticeable gap in our service.

Budgetary constraints dictate that we cannot provide this level of service in the close season. However, we now have a freelance in place to make sure that we do not miss the major eircom stories during the close season, as happened two weeks ago. Our full eircom news service will resume at the beginning of March.

Hope this answers your query. Please contact me if you have any other questions.

Best regards,

----------------------------
Fergal Barry-Murphy
Sports Editor
Thomas Crosbie Media

Tel: 021-230 4013
www.rugby.ie
www.breakingnews.ie

**monutdfc** · 14/12/2004, 2:02 PM

Sounds like a fair enough reply to me. There's not much happening in the close season.
I'd say there won't be much more tansfer activity until January now.

**A face** · 14/12/2004, 2:13 PM

This was before the close season.

**pineapple stu** · 14/12/2004, 3:09 PM

Originally Posted by A face

Just look at his signature...

What's up with the signature?

Sounds fair to me - he says that they're reducing the service during the close season only and it'll be back in full in March. Can't complain about that surely?

**A face** · 14/12/2004, 3:29 PM

Originally Posted by pineapple stu

What's up with the signature?

It was the rugger and no mention of any other sport that p1ssed me off ... stupid i know but hey. Why not the TCM site and let people get to rugger one from there and promote everything else aswell .... again .. just me being small minded.

Sounds fair to me - he says that they're reducing the service during the close season only and it'll be back in full in March. Can't complain about that surely?

Lads ... it was during the season, not right now. Fair enough cutting back but when did it start ... there is not a whole lot to cut back on.

**atfconline** · 14/12/2004, 3:47 PM

They have always been fine to me with any press releases I have sent them. Always put online fairly promptly, as do everyone else once they receive the news. eL clubs just don't sent out enough releases.

**pineapple stu** · 14/12/2004, 3:50 PM

Originally Posted by A face

Lads ... it was during the season, not right now. Fair enough cutting back but when did it start ... there is not a whole lot to cut back on.

You mean you've been brooding over this for the last three or four weeks?!

How long between the e-mail and the reply?

Nice to see they've actually got someone working specially on the eL, and that they've expanded the coverage during the year though...

**dahamsta** · 14/12/2004, 4:24 PM

I had a few pints with the TCM gang not so long ago and proceeded to lart both the general editor and Fergal on the subjects of "lack of coverage of IrelandOffline and comms issues in general" and "lack of eL coverage" respectively, the latter at the prompting of you lot. They larted me right back, and won by a country mile.

At it's most basic, the problem is that of demand: The majority of people want Premiership news, and majority rules in news. They're not a charity and it's not up to them to set an agenda like "support your local team". That task is the FAI's, the club's, and yours.

It's up to the FAI to stop bickering and fighting like drunken hoors scrapping over a �10 john. It's up to the clubs to excel on the pitch and innovate off the pitch, to draw in the premiership traitors. And it's up to the fans to scream their little brains out at the match, and more importantly drag strangers off the street into matches.

I mean, jesus, if ye can only get me to two matches a year, what hope have ye?

[size=1]I promise to go to at least four next year. It's a progressive thing.[/size]

BTW, I though the rugby.ie thing was a real nitpick, like it made me think "jaysus, is that the best you could come up with to complain about?" It's just advertising and marketing, it's unlikely he's expressing a personal preference. Struck me as a big premiership fan tbh, maybe ye should drag him along to a few matches and the pub afterwards for free. It's the oirish way after all.

adam

**A face** · 14/12/2004, 5:19 PM

Originally Posted by pineapple stu

You mean you've been brooding over this for the last three or four weeks?!

Yup ... i know .. sad

How long between the e-mail and the reply?

a bit ... i didn't get round to it either though.

Nice to see they've actually got someone working specially on the eL, and that they've expanded the coverage during the year though...

I suppose !!

**A face** · 14/12/2004, 5:22 PM

Originally Posted by dahamsta

BTW, I though the rugby.ie thing was a real nitpick,

It was !!

like it made me think "jaysus, is that the best you could come up with to complain about?"

For now ... yes !!

It's just advertising and marketing, it's unlikely he's expressing a personal preference. Struck me as a big premiership fan tbh, maybe ye should drag him along to a few matches and the pub afterwards for free. It's the oirish way after all.

adam

No a bad idea !! .... and good points made there too !!

**patsh** · 15/12/2004, 7:22 AM

Originally Posted by dahamsta

At it's most basic, the problem is that of demand: The majority of people want Premiership news, and majority rules in news. They're not a charity and it's not up to them to set an agenda like "support your local team". That task is the FAI's, the club's, and yours.

Chicken and egg scenario.
There is a whole question there about who created this demand. When SKY took over soccer first, the demand was minisicule compared to now. By spending BILLIONS they have created huge hype and the idea that the Premiership is a must see, got to be involved, experience. The rest of the media in this country, newspapers, TV and radio, is on the one hand simply responding to the demand that was created, but on the other hand, contributing to the ongoing hype, thus creating more demand etc. etc.
SKY promote every match like itsa major event, and slowly but surely, this overkill is lessening the interest and making people jaded.

**dahamsta** · 15/12/2004, 7:31 AM

Sky and BreakingNews.ie are totally different chickens and eggs. Sky is the only media platform - because it's a platform - that could achieve what they achieved. But yes, the rest of the media contributes, and that's why fans must continue to do what face did. With a mite less of the righteous indignation.

adam

**Sheridan** · 15/12/2004, 8:13 AM

Originally Posted by patsh

Chicken and egg scenario.
There is a whole question there about who created this demand. When SKY took over soccer first, the demand was minisicule compared to now. By spending BILLIONS they have created huge hype and the idea that the Premiership is a must see, got to be involved, experience. The rest of the media in this country, newspapers, TV and radio, is on the one hand simply responding to the demand that was created, but on the other hand, contributing to the ongoing hype, thus creating more demand etc. etc.

Indeed. If ever you get cornered by this non-logic again, Adam, produce the infallible trump card. Ask your opponent to name another country, particularly another country with first-world pretensions and a national team ranked in the world's top 20, where a situation analogous or identical to the one that governs the relationship between Premiership and the Irish media exists. The question is both rhetorical and unanswerable, but the only remotely valid comparison is with Hong Kong. Hong. Kong. That's the level of sporting and cultural sophistication we're dealing with here.

Also, this that's-what-the-market-dictates line is bullsh*t. If anyone has to be told by now that the media brings its own values to the table, they haven't been listening for the past fifty years. Remember, an Irish sports journalist is a just a barstool buffoon with a spellchecker.

**patsh** · 15/12/2004, 8:22 AM

Originally Posted by dahamsta

Sky and BreakingNews.ie are totally different chickens and eggs.
adam

I wasn't comparing Sky to Breakingnews. Sky "created" the interest, Breakingnews is responding to it, but also no adding to the interest.
The chicken and egg I referred to was which came first: The public demand for Premiership coverage, or the Premiership hype which created this public demand?
I also think that more and more eL fans do inquire/demand coverage from various media outlets, and I personally think eL coverage has increased in the last few years, from a period of few years when it became almost non-existent.

**dahamsta** · 15/12/2004, 9:24 AM

Sheridan, are you seriously trying to suggest that there's a bigger market for domestic league football than the premiership? Are you seriously trying to tell me that the media holds a majority of blame for this situation?

As I said in a previous post, I take the point that the media holds a small amount of blame. So your response is redundant.

adam

**Jim Smith** · 15/12/2004, 9:42 AM

The truely sad thing about this is that, compared with the rest of the media, about 20 eL stories a week is quite a high degree of coverage

I wonder how proactive the clubs are when it comes to supplying news?

**dahamsta** · 15/12/2004, 9:48 AM

Originally Posted by Jim Smith

The truely sad thing about this is that, compared with the rest of the media, about 20 eL stories a week is quite a high degree of coverage

The thing to remember about BreakingNews.ie, though, is that they have enormous story turnover because they're sitting there ploughing news into the system constantly. You'd wonder how visible those stories are.

I wonder how proactive the clubs are when it comes to supplying news?

If they're anything like City used to be, not very, and extremely ineffectively. And that's another thing about BN.ie: If they get a press release, a story is almost guaranteed, so not sending the release is just plain idiotic.

adam

**Sheridan** · 15/12/2004, 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by dahamsta

Sheridan, are you seriously trying to suggest that there's a bigger market for domestic league football than the premiership?

Well, I'm inclined to answer "no", but the viewing figures for TV coverage of domestic football won't let me do so without certain nagging reservations.

Are you seriously trying to tell me that the media holds a majority of blame for this situation?

Yes and no. When confronted with a situation which is unique in the whole of Europe (outside the British Isles anyway) -- namely, widespread ignorance and outright denigration of the domestic national league --it makes sense to examine factors which set that situation apart from all others. Lack of media coverage is the obvious starting point.

Unless you want to go down the post-colonial route, it's the only interpretation that makes sense. I certainly wasn't born with any inherent antipathy towards domestic football. As a football-mad kid, I took my cues from the media, and the message I picked up was that League of Ireland football might possibly exist, but that if it did, that it wasn't worth bothering with.

I'd apportion the blame as follows - 60% media, 20% national team, 20% public at large.