Online hasn’t killed the TV star
IN ALL FAIRNESS
We live in an era where there are more ways to watch sport than ever before, but there still aren’t enough it would seem. Covid times where a lot of sport was made easier to watch as people were prevented from attending, particularly through streaming but also on mainstream television, opened the bottle but it is very hard to put the contents back inside when normalcy resumes.
That is where we are at the moment, particularly in Ireland as our small number of television stations, RTE, TG4 (linked to RTE) and Virgin Media, are tasked with trying cover the growing demands by organisations and their followers that their sports deserve more airtime.
Earlier in the year we had it with the GAA Championships where 31 live games (not including the games shown on BBCNI) on free-to-air television (television licence fee) weren’t enough to keep the masses happy, who wanted more, particularly the high profile ones which ended up on GAAGO.
For all its faults, the League of Ireland in soccer is the only sport here that has its own dedicated online viewing platform in this country. Unlike GAAGO who only show selected games each weekend in the championship, LOITV shows every game in both the premier division, division 1, and FAI Cup, and is hugely popular among what is a very niche supporter base, almost like a boutique offering for those who support local more than the big names across the water.
They do have a certain number of games shown on RTE and Virgin Media over the course of the season, and there was a lot of criticism recently over the decision by both stations not to secure the rights to show games by Shamrock Rovers and St Patrick’s Athletic in Europe.
The clubs do have an argument, particularly when champions Shamrock Rovers are in action. Okay, the viewing figures might not be great, but would they be any worse than some of the club GAA games shown on TG4 which really only interest those in the competing counties.
Soccer fans also have an argument that if you can’t see, you can’t be. We keep hearing about the growing popularity of the League of Ireland and that is great. You have a former Ireland manager in Stephen Kenny managing St Pat’s while former Ireland great Damien Duff has a great chance of guiding Shelbourne to league glory.
Yet, we don’t get to see or hear much of what is going on. The majority of the games are played on Friday and Monday nights, primarily to avoid clashing with higher profile games in both soccer and other sports on the weekend, yet we only get intermittent coverage. Would RTE showing a live game every Friday night and Virgin Media on a Monday night, or vice-versa, be that hard of an ask?
Virgin Media have stepped up their sporting output, particularly in terms of athletics and showing the Diamond League meetings, where some of Ireland’s rising stars are regularly in action. That extra profile certainly benefits our athletes as we know more about them heading into big events such as European & World Championships, and an Olympic Games, rather than just tuning in at those events and discovering who they are.
Rugby is certainly a sport that has benefited from more visibility in terms of television coverage. Every Ireland men’s and women’s game can now be watched, as well as all provincial games each weekend in the URC. Then you have the tie-in with the rights to show the showpiece men’s Six Nations games that a station must show games in the Women’s competition, as well the Men’s Under 20’s. They might not get the same number of viewers, but they still will have more people watching than if they were not on television altogether.
The interesting aspect when it comes to the GAA is that there is universal acclaim for the service Clubber is providing across the country in the counties is it showing hurling and football club championships. It isn’t a free service, it is €12 per game or via an annual subscription. Yet, when the GAA tries to do the same at inter-county level for the games RTE do not want to or are unable to show there is an uproar for what is essentially the same concept. It will be interesting to see if it becomes more acceptable over time as it isn’t going anywhere unless a new station comes into the Irish market to pressurise RTE.
We keep hearing that the era of television is dying and online platforms are the future, yet when a sport doesn’t have the ease of being accessed by a remote control, the criticism is very loud so there is life in the television dog yet!