no, not if that is what irish tv viewers want to watchOriginally Posted by A face
No - because they are showing what the vast majority of the viewing public consistently expresses a desire to watch....
I would love to see them have it taken from them, but this isn't North Korea. You can't force government-snactioned programming onto TV channels, in contraversion to public demand. It's completely undemocratic, and would be financial suicide for RTE.
These are not workable solutions to the problem of limited media exposure for our league !!
Well why cant other stations who provide the exact same service have some of it then ??
Given you point .... If RTE do not fulfill the role of a National Broadcaster .... then why should the get the licence fee for claiming to do exactly that ??
They are getting paid to provide a specifc service, and then dont provide it .... would you argee that it doesn't add up ??
The SFAI are the governing body for grassroots football in Ireland, not the FAI. Its success or the lack of is all down to them.
What if the programming we see on RTE is forced on the public ??
What if the programming that is actually now being shown, is not actually what the public want .... the Public Charter was meant to resolve that ..... but did any of us ever see it not to mind contribute to it ??
I still contest that it is actually what the public want to see given the viewing figures the RTE actually publish themselves.
Do the figures lie ??
The SFAI are the governing body for grassroots football in Ireland, not the FAI. Its success or the lack of is all down to them.
Lads,, the comment made on the tv wasn't that bad, at least he mentioned the EL at all, he could have chosen to ignore it. I agree that he could have phrased it better, the one about not lookingout of his depth was a good suggestion.
Unfortunately Daryl didn't look too bad going forward but he was at fault for Henry's goal where he never tracked back with Lauren down the touchline, allowing him plenty of time to get his cross in.
Foot.ie's entire existence is predicated on the average idiot's inability to ignore other idiots
That was a few pages back bigmac .... the debate is different now !!
The SFAI are the governing body for grassroots football in Ireland, not the FAI. Its success or the lack of is all down to them.
RTE will argue that they are fulfilling their obligations to Irish sports. GAA, Six nations rugby, International football matches, horse racing, athletics, Eircom league, Special Olympics, Summer Olympics etc etc - they show all of these. Maybe not as much as we'd like, but they could certainly mount a robust defence to any allegation that they don't fulfill their responsibilities towards Irish sport.
In what specific ways/shows are they going against viewing figures ? You need to give examples to back up your allegations here A Face. There will undoubtedly be times when they back shows that get disappointing viewing figures - but that's part and parcel of TV. You don't gete everything right every time. Are you suggesting that they are deliberately not seeking to optimise their viewing figures within their budget on an ongoing basis ?
A point on that so.
Public broadcasting means broadcasting things that aren't commercially viable, that's why we pay a licence fee. Things like the RTE orchestra, Lyricfm, some services as gaeilge etc. I don't mind paying my licence fee for things like that, but I object to paying a licence fee so that RTE can outbid TV3 for champions league or english football.
The whole point of having a national broadcaster is similar to Arts councils, state funded theatre, opera etc. none of these things would be available if they were forced to subsist on their own. In that event, RTE are not obliged to show just what the majority of people want, they are also obliged to show programmes that are in the public interest. They are getting paid to provide a service, but at the same time the public service is indistinguishable from their commercial operations, and this is where the real problem lies.
Foot.ie's entire existence is predicated on the average idiot's inability to ignore other idiots
Not me at all .... Some pencil pusher in Europe, saying RTE are reneging on their responsibility as a National Broadcaster .... its not like it has gone unnoticed.
The viewing figures, they only provide figures for a week so i cant get them, i only have noticed it when it actually happens ... its threads on here aswell, comparing premiershi* games figures to in the same week an eL game is on, sometimes these were big game in both leagues and eL game has won on figures.
Lads ... help me out here, there have big alot of dicussions on this over the last few years, here and on Johnny Wards. I'm no stato but i remember what i have seen.
All that is including the fact that RTE dont 'promote' or 'highlight' that fact that they are actually showing the eL game yet flood the station with the fact the English game is going ahead. That is a clear advantage .... why ?? Why would RTE bother advertising the English game if it didn't actually mater or have an effect ??
RTE do actually give a robust defence Steve ... they fight it tooth and nail !!
Still have to say though that if eL was give even 50% of the resources the English league gets we'd be alot better off (I am NOT saying devote more time resources, just even up the balance of the existing resources)
The SFAI are the governing body for grassroots football in Ireland, not the FAI. Its success or the lack of is all down to them.
If RTE was solely funded from the public purse - like the BBC - then you'd be spot on.
However - RTE is a weird b@stardised-mix of public and private. This therefore makes their funding and their responsibilities a bit wooly.
They can argue that the public money goes towards commercially-unviable minority things like classical music, Irish-language programming etc etc. And then they can also argue that they are using their advertising revenue to secure the commercially-viable stuff that they need to attract viewers and survive as a channel. So no crime there.
Their public service is indistinguishable from their commercial operations because that is exactly how RTE is structured - a public-private mix.
No-one has yet come-up with an arguement against RTE that the channel coudln't easily defend itself against. They have enough enemies in the world already - do you really think that if they were so obviously failing in their obligations that they wouldn't have been picked-up on this already ?
To tackle our lack of media exposure, the energies of Irish football fans should be directed at the FAI. Nothing else will deliver any change in the situation in the short-to-medium term.
bigmac, i agree totally ... but i dont know if you are agreeing with me or not .... but that argument supports exactly what i am saying.
I dont mind if RTE take a licence fee, as long as the fulfill the role of a National Broadcaster, and you are right .... outbidding TV3 for CL is mad ... given that when FAI went to Sky with a TV deal because RTE actually lowered their bid for Irish football, there was blue murder. They made a bid lower than the existing one at the time ??? .... lads, that is not supporting Irish interests. I dont mind the fact they advertise even though they are a national broadcaster but when they take the licence fee .... they basically have a contract with the punter to be a National Broadcaster .... there is no excuse for not doing so !!
Last edited by A face; 08/11/2005 at 4:25 PM.
The SFAI are the governing body for grassroots football in Ireland, not the FAI. Its success or the lack of is all down to them.
I have been keeping a spreadsheet of Live Irish football games on TV over the last 2 seasons (don't ask.....). The game, the viewing figures, and the ranking.
It's not complete - particularly for recent games - but it's the best stats I have to-hand.
A quick glance on there shows that the only live domestic game to have out-performed a live English/foreign game was the Longford v Waterford FAI Final last October, that easily out-ranked an Arsenal v man U game on at the same time. (186,000 v 134,000). But it took the blue-riband of Irish sport to beat an exciting but none-the-less rather early in the season game between 2 teams who were expected to not win the English Premiership.
I'll forward you the spreadsheet if you want (would be good to get some other people involved in keeping it up-to-date/complete). Perhaps we could have it as a sticky on the site along with attendances etc ?
Anyways - my point is this. If were going to vent about the lack of media coverage for our league, whi is that venting best directed at ? I say the FAI, as that is the most approriate receptacle, and the one most likely to deliver results.
Agreed !!
I wouldn't mind see that Steve ... ifgrounds@o2.ie
I actually started and stopped almost immediately something similar. Basically all the European countrys with a population of 25,000,000 or less, the amount of channels (that show domestic sport), the amount of hours for sport per week, against the hours of football, how much of that football was domestic, if there was a licence fee, how much was it, etc. ..... i was at it for about a month but was going from pillar to post, being asked what the figures were for, what would happen as a result, etc. ... along with the language barrier.
When i have more time, i might take that up again !!
The SFAI are the governing body for grassroots football in Ireland, not the FAI. Its success or the lack of is all down to them.
I can’t believe your still going with your skewed analogy. By the way, I watched and indeed laughed at many Friends episodes and I still don’t know why they have a skinny greyhound thing, but I still enjoyed the shows! Most TV programs are designed so that people don’t need to be watching the thing since it started, especially shows like coronation street and eastenders which are on 40 years or so! Also, I remember standing in the new stand in tolka park when the Brigiod dearg decided to change the lyrics in one of the songs to “Barry Ryan is flying high…” during a Dublin city match, I nearly ****ed myself laughing. Then there is all the booing of Hawkins, Crowe and Ryan at Shels matches. You’d get all this if you were not a follower of the league, right? Similarly Friends lost non of its humour just because I didn’t know about some skinny dog! I’m sure you could watch one episode of any series and still get enough enjoyment out of it to maybe watch it again. So that’s why I’m not continuing this pointless debate about the league being a series or not! We could be here for the rest of next season debating whether they are the same or not. My opinion is they are more similar than not and you skewed analogy is…well…skewed. I don’t need a retort to this honestly I wont read it.
This I will though…..
I was not suggesting that if RTE show Shels play cork then RTE should promote Waterford Vs Longford on the same night! I’m saying that if you show EL matches then it’s in the interest of RTE to promote the LEAGUE in general! I don’t think our commentator friend did this in any way at all! This is what I think is the problem!
The EL is making good progress and achieving a bit more every year, especially in Europe and with the support for football in general in this country its got to have great potential too! So that’s why I ask, why couldn’t the stupid commentator say something a little but more positive since RTE do show the EL on its station!
Since the real debate now is are the obliged to show more EL as our national broadcaster then I can only say this. They do fulfill their self appointed obligations in that paper I quoted (which isn’t hard by they way since it written such a way that they can do what they want!), I don’t know how much they are obliged to show as according to higher laws of licensing and whatever. I guess to fulfill these obligations further they could cut EL time and show more fishing and other similar bull**** (sorry fishing fans) but that’s not going to happen, even if Jack Charlton himself wanted to go back into TV. But we’ll have no control over this as someone pointed out already that RTE is like some mongrel ******* station.
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