I'm quite surprised/disappointed at the statistics mediaman quotes for this week in his original post. Earlier in the year, I could understand how GAA might not get top billing, but this is the biggest week of the GAA year, it probably is the one week you'd expect Gaelic games to get top billing. Poor.

While I like Thomas Clarke's suggestion of a GAA channel, I'm not sure if it would have the year round viewership to make it sustainable. I wonder could GAAGO be expanded to house a greater variety of GAA content, to include magazine features and alternative GAA programming, as well as Live and VOD games, and The Sunday Game of course. It would be interesting to know what kind of trade GAAGO does, what kind of viewership its getting.

Marlon_JD (Tipperary) - Posts: 1823 - 04/09/2015 20:14:36    1782392

Give them a chance The GAA and RTE it only took them till what was it 2013 to get GAAGO up and running In the US fans love physical sports with a lot of scoring Hurling and football have both

cluichethar (Mayo) - Posts: 454 - 04/09/2015 20:49:18    1782403

Great, rugby world cup coming up soon, we'll be getting saturation coverage of "the goys" in their attempts to "front up" and get some "go forward ball at the breakdown". Hopefully "the goys" will choke and get knocked out early as usual.

ballydalane (Kilkenny) - Posts: 1246 - 05/09/2015 09:53:20    1782506

Ballydalane are you actually serious? While there is a slew of rugby coverage because of the world cup, to wish your own country to not do well out of spite of a little less coverage on rte new and the papers about your own sport is down right ridiculous. Support your country!

meathguy123 (Meath) - Posts: 16 - 05/09/2015 11:04:15    1782614

To be honest lads i stopped watching rte sport news a long time ago. It was when the Irish rugby woman's world cup team got more coverage than the GAA. Summed it all up......

222 (UK) - Posts: 695 - 05/09/2015 11:29:49    1782651

It's a basic principle of Television Journalism that the item you feel is most important is shown first. So whatever item RTE puts first is obviously the one they feel is most important. Bearing that in mind here are the details of the last 35 RTE 6.01 News and Sport programmes, that is from August 1st to yesterday September 4th.
First Sports Item.
1. Rugby - 12 times
2. GAA - 8 times
3. Soccer - 5 times
4. Boxing - 4 times
= 5. Athletics and Showjumping - 2 times each
= 7. Golf and Horse Racing - 1 time each
During this time there have been 4 AI Football Q-F's, 2 AI Hurling S-F's, 2 AI Football S-F's and we are on the run-in to today's Football Replay and tomorrow's AI Hurling Final. All but one of these matches attracted attendances of 50,000+, 3 will be 80,000+. On the other side of the argument there have been 3 Rugby Union warm-up matches, the 2 in Dublin didn't even attract 80,000 between them. The facts don't lie. Even at the height of the GAA season RTE 6.01 News and Sport still feels that Rugby friendlies are more important. QED.

mediaman (Antrim) - Posts: 355 - 05/09/2015 12:01:09    1782686

Mediaman

The numbers are impressive. However, possibly the minutes given would be more accurate. For example, say, if they mention in the news that Munster have signed a new backs coach then that is a minor story and they may not even have footage- they just mention it. If they then move on to the GAA and visit say the Waterford team ahead of the Munster final and give it say one minute of coverage, both of these count as 'one time' but the GAA is getting more coverage.

I am not defending RTE coverage, I am just saying that the data that you have come up with (and it is impressive to be fair to you) is not conclusive. You also seem to focus on the 6.01 news. Perhaps, if you covered the entire coverage over the entire year then this would be more conclusive.

For their to be a bias (if it exists) then there would need to be a negative correlation between viewing figures and coverage - ie if rugby had much less viewing figures but more coverage then this would suggest that it was not as commercially viable as gaelic games and one could then possibly conclude that there was a bias. You need to show this over a period of time though. The data that you are choosing is biased by you in that you are meddling with the data to make your point (which is ok because this is a forum but others should not read any more into the data)

Incidentally, the GAA have shown approximately 40 live GAA games this summer. The Sunday Game has been on for an hour and half for 16 weeks plus league Sunday for about the same number of weeks. Rugby has had approximately 20 (possibly less) games this year. They have against the head on for an hour as well for half the year. These figures are off the top of my head-I have not counted and therefore I could be completely wrong.

bennybunny (Cork) - Posts: 3917 - 05/09/2015 12:22:10    1782696

To be fair to mediaman he was doing something similar to this back in March and the RTE defenders tried to rubbish his claims by saying that it was the main rugby season and when August came the RTE news would be dominated by GAA stories. Now he has shown that the main headlines are still dominated by fairly mundane rugby news and people are still attacking him. I got an email from RTE back in March where they admitted that the news on Patricks Day gave an unjustifiable bias to rugby and it would be something they would be looking to address but it seems things move slowly in Donnybrook.

Soma (UK) - Posts: 2630 - 05/09/2015 12:50:48    1782720

To be quite honest lads in my opinion RTE has for years been taking our games for granted. Substandard coverage anchored by sub standard pundits. It's fairly obvious that the GAA comes down the list of priorities for RTE and the reason for that is they didn't have to compete with anyone.

They could basically say and do what they wanted when it came to the GAA as it wasn't going to be shown anywhere else. That's why I welcomed the introduction of sky and couldn't understand the opposition. Anything that makes out national broadcaster stand up and start to take out national games more seriously is a good thing in my opinion.

However unfortunately that doesn't seem to have had much affect on our national broadcaster.

tearintom (Wexford) - Posts: 1351 - 05/09/2015 13:31:29    1782744

No, meathguy, I'm not a fan of rugby and I won't be supporting "the goys". As for supporting my country, what national anthem and flag will "the goys" be using during the tournament? Because it certainly won't be Ireland's.

ballydalane (Kilkenny) - Posts: 1246 - 05/09/2015 16:08:08    1782820

Jonesboro. If the unionists don't likeAmhran Na Fhiann, they can get lost. Yes there will be fans who watch all games, we don't want a minority to tell us what anthem to play. Ireland's call is painful, maybe you like it.
GAA players endured a lot from the unionist state down the years, but they kept the flag flying , literally all through. Why don't you stick to your lrugby, Ireland were crap today vEngland, so I can see a short RWC for them unfortunately.

thelongridge (Offaly) - Posts: 1746 - 05/09/2015 21:58:52    1783086

Fortunately, says I :-)

flack (Dublin) - Posts: 1054 - 05/09/2015 22:04:02    1783092

Ormond more superiority and elitist nonsense from you.

The GAA is the only show in town this week. Over the last 2 weekend there have been 3 x 82500 in croker. It's toys out of the pram stuff from rte.

Of course though, we must bow down to the goys.

daytona11 (Kildare) - Posts: 4012 - 06/09/2015 10:53:12    1783146

05/09/2015 12:50:48 Soma
To be fair to mediaman he was doing something similar to this back in March and the RTE defenders tried to rubbish his claims by saying that it was the main rugby season and when August came the RTE news would be dominated by GAA stories. Now he has shown that the main headlines are still dominated by fairly mundane rugby news and people are still attacking him. I got an email from RTE back in March where they admitted that the news on Patricks Day gave an unjustifiable bias to rugby and it would be something they would be looking to address but it seems things move slowly in Donnybrook.What is the fairly mundane rugby news?
Ive attacked him as ive yet to see evidence of mediaman actually contacting RTE/doing something properly to get changes he wants and just pointing out stats wont change anything
05/09/2015 13:31:29 tearintom
To be quite honest lads in my opinion RTE has for years been taking our games for granted. Substandard coverage anchored by sub standard pundits. It's fairly obvious that the GAA comes down the list of priorities for RTE and the reason for that is they didn't have to compete with anyone.
They could basically say and do what they wanted when it came to the GAA as it wasn't going to be shown anywhere else. That's why I welcomed the introduction of sky and couldn't understand the opposition. Anything that makes out national broadcaster stand up and start to take out national games more seriously is a good thing in my opinion.
However unfortunately that doesn't seem to have had much affect on our national broadcaster.RTE have had a huge monopoly so never have had to bother improve and why would they spend money doing something they dont need to.
05/09/2015 16:08:08 ballydalane
No, meathguy, I'm not a fan of rugby and I won't be supporting "the goys". As for supporting my country, what national anthem and flag will "the goys" be using during the tournament? Because it certainly won't be Ireland's.I assume you are referring to the national anthem and flag of the republic of ireland. The tricolor is the national flag of the republic of ireland. However the republic of ireland are not competing in the world cup. Ireland as a 32 county side are and the flag/anthem used acknowledge that fact
05/09/2015 21:58:52 thelongridge
Jonesboro. If the unionists don't likeAmhran Na Fhiann, they can get lost. Yes there will be fans who watch all games, we don't want a minority to tell us what anthem to play. Ireland's call is painful, maybe you like it.
GAA players endured a lot from the unionist state down the years, but they kept the flag flying , literally all through. Why don't you stick to your lrugby, Ireland were crap today vEngland, so I can see a short RWC for them unfortunately.Unionists shouldnt have to get lost. Irelands anthem is painful but it has to be played.
6/09/2015 10:53:12
daytona11
Ormond more superiority and elitist nonsense from you.
The GAA is the only show in town this week. Over the last 2 weekend there have been 3 x 82500 in croker. It's toys out of the pram stuff from rte.
Of course though, we must bow down to the goys.now who's acting superior and elitist.....

ormondbannerman (Clare) - Posts: 13473 - 06/09/2015 17:13:13    1783370

Good point Soma - there were plenty on here a few months saying that at the business end of the GAA season the coverage for GAA would be ahead of/more than Rugby. Seems my fellow County man isn't too far off the mark.

Offside_Rule (Antrim) - Posts: 4058 - 06/09/2015 17:23:46    1783383

Throughout the Winter and Spring all complaints about RTE News coverage of football and hurling were dismissed by those who argued that come the Summer football and hurling would dominate RTE's TV News and Sport. It hasn't quite worked out like that. The main daily TV news and Sport the 6.01 programme seems not to share the public's Summer enthusiasm for 'our games'. Between June 1st and September 8th there were 100 RTE TV 6.01 programmes. Here's the breakdown of the number of times the top 4 sports featured on the programme.
No.1. Soccer - soccer items featured on 93 of the 100 programmes
No.2. GAA - football/hurling items featured on 83 of the 100 programmes
No.3. Golf - golf items featured on 58 of the 100 programmes
No.4. Rugby - rugby union items featured on 43 of the 100 programmes
Remember this was not a Soccer World Cup or European Championship year and with all due respects to the League of Ireland it hardly compares to the football and hurling championships. The golf coverage is understandable but again there were no competitive rugby matches during this time. Even RTE described some of the recent rugby friendlies as merely part of a 'phoney war'. So in spite of what we were told RTE does not give the GAA top billing even at the height of the football and hurling seasons.

mediaman (Antrim) - Posts: 355 - 10/09/2015 19:25:08    1785803

Yes I agree RTE don't seem to care about Gaelic games or anything else Irish, you should try living in Donegal, there'd have to be an atomic bomb go of up here before it gets any news coverage, I think it's time Donegal declared our independence anyway, shut the border with Leitrim,it's only 6 miles long or so.
And I won't be supporting the rugby goys either, I reland's call my a**.

TirChonaillabu2 (Donegal) - Posts: 344 - 10/09/2015 20:13:33    1785828

Why the reference to "goys" when talking about rugby supporters - why the need to be derogatory. as for the why dont you stick you your rugby comment ....childish

would like to see suggestions to improve gaa coverage on this thread rather than whinging e.g. id like to see more coverage of qualifier matches on sunday game (and less talk) OR bring back the monday game as per the 90s Or let Tg4 show them on their monday show and maybe show an hour of thank gaa its friday

janesboro (Limerick) - Posts: 1502 - 11/09/2015 09:13:56    1785892

'I assume you are referring to the national anthem and flag of the republic of ireland. The tricolor is the national flag of the republic of ireland. However the republic of ireland are not competing in the world cup. Ireland as a 32 county side are and the flag/anthem used acknowledge that fact'

So tell me this Ormond, what flag is my flag?

Im from Uladh and Amhránn na bhfiann is my anthem or does my opinion not count with the IRFU as much as someone from a unionist background.

bumpernut (Antrim) - Posts: 1852 - 11/09/2015 09:44:20    1785922

11/09/2015 09:44:20
bumpernut
'I assume you are referring to the national anthem and flag of the republic of ireland. The tricolor is the national flag of the republic of ireland. However the republic of ireland are not competing in the world cup. Ireland as a 32 county side are and the flag/anthem used acknowledge that fact'
So tell me this Ormond, what flag is my flag?
Im from Uladh and Amhránn na bhfiann is my anthem or does my opinion not count with the IRFU as much as someone from a unionist background. I don't know what your flag is but the flag and anthem of the IRFU is Irelands Call and the flag on this link link

ormondbannerman (Clare) - Posts: 13473 - 11/09/2015 10:29:53    1785951