RTE's continuing laughable sports'coverage'

A station that has fallen to new lows year after year ,shambolic and full of egomaniacs , I doubt ANY of the presenters are involved in sport of any kind by the look of them...

Everything one now hears or reads of racing on TV or in print has to be taken with a big pinch of salt.

Ger Gilroy and others affects a knowledge and interest in racing but hands the racing slot over to a private tipster on "Off The Ball" and the usually execrable bookies rep then comes on with an "informed" opinion.

As for our only weekly publication in Ireland dealing with Irish racing (Irish Field) its coverage is so haphazard as to defy reasonable explanation. The same OTB guest is offered two pages every week and, afaik, one of the other journos on UK racing is also a private operator. KB has virtually disappeared from the pages without explanation - in similar vein to the entertaining whacko time guy - and, sad to say, the paper now seems to target single individuals/families/groupings to help bolster weekly sales. The once admirable p2p section is now a mere shadow.

The international correspondents are sadly depleted and the editor is now writing more copy that an embedded organised crime journalist in Sheriff Street. The changes for the worse are legion in recent years and it must be a struggle.

I am assuming recession, technology trends, lack of advertisers, poor rates on offer to free-lancers etc. are all contributory factors and wonder what relevance it now has to the many different markets it tries to target. This is ironic as it is constantly "bigging up" the great industry that it represents and that in certain quarters is awash with cash at present. I am never certain what the paper's objectives are without thinking of terms like "pandering" and "tolerating".

As for the recent piece on "Nighttime" and her €1m foal I fear if I expounded my views on that article I would be sued.

Valid points vubiant . Since the initial heady days and exploits of Michael Vincent ( plus a few others ) in NH and then flat , along with Tom Dreapers feats ( exclusively NH ) there has been a steady flow of world standard horse men ( and women ) emanating from these shores .  Currently Willie Mullins and Aidan are in the front line  , and our jockeys records are there for all to see .

Likewise for a small nation , our golfers have been keeping the flag flying in all sorts of places world wide , and any people who travel regularly will know the effect their publicity generates . Again this dates way back to James and Fred and Harry and Joe and himself , fuelled partly by the oldest Golfing Union in the world .

That RTE ( and their likes , viz BBC ) have ceded coverage of these sports to commercial stations essentially is a fact , whether it could have gone a different direction is a matter of conjecture , but would have required government intervention I suspect . Golf slightly different as it is a summer game ( allegedly so is hurling ) , and most of it is geared to warm climes elswhere in the world .

The BBC is now confined to occasional sorties into the sporting world , few and far between compared with TV coverage elsewhere . So I would not expect RTE to be much different .  They do cover GAA quite well , and I suspect that is proportional to the fan base . Rugby also gets a good bit of coverage on RTE , no one complaining in that respect , but there is no club rugby as far as I know ( not that I spend a lot of time browsing through RTE output ) .

The cost of attending sporting occasions is way out of hand , particularly for families , so national broadcasting is possibly more important than in the past .  Radio does fill in a lot of gaps , but most people prefer pictures to sound .

As touched on by other posters , presenters tend to be pigeon holed , which is a waste of talent possibly , surely there must be people out there who are knowledgeable and interested enough to be able to deal with sports other than their specialist field .

Presumably there is someone somewhere who directs what and when the viewers see , but over the years I have always had the impression ( looking from the outside ) that the person(s) in charge has their own agenda rather than having regard for the broader picture . You can never satisfy everyone , but there must be some lowest common denominator surely .

All rte are interested in now is producing ripped off reality tv and cookery shows. Where does the licence fee go. Rumours that a million pound was spent on the Mario Rosenstock show. This show is a pile of manure. Same impression's done for years. Terrible writing and new impressions that don't sound anything like the person in question.

I really think questions need to be asked where is the money been spent. The salaries at RTE are crazy. For a station that takes in commercial revenue their is little value for money i think. Whatever about the sports coverage which is dwindling by the year its the general output that need's to be questioned.

Republic of telly has been going on well past it's sell by date. Cookery shows seem to make up a large portion of their output. Love to see an audit of where the money is going. Expenses and salaries i'd say.

Bbc sport online is still ok to catch up on sports,rte sport online is another embarassing display of croneism

didn't they recently lose 6nations rugby coverage ? Its OK though , they have replaced it with vogues wild girls

Easy on the eye all right Ozy, I see Brian McFadden and Vogue  are 'leaning towards' a reconciliation.

Brian McFadden's "It Can Be Done" available in all good bookshops this Christmas.

Look at the difference between TV3 Champions League coverage and RTE CL coverage.  TV3 do a decent job with an anchor and 2 pundits + match commentator + 1.  The remaining matches are covered by syndicated commentary which I assume is cheap.  RTTE have Dara and 3 of the overpaid stooges. We get commentary from George +1 and Tony O'Donoghue on the sideline and post match interview. They also have Joanne Cantwell standing by with the roundup of the other matches.  We then get Ger Canning with commentary of the second match. Further commentary of the remaining matches from the likes of Stephen Alkin and Adrian Eames.  Thats 11 people on the payroll on one night when a proper commercial outfit (TV3) produce similar output with 5.  That is where your licence fee is going.

They have lost the six nations I believe now to add to the loss of the rugby world cup. So in effect they will be spending less money on programmes which in turn will enable them to increase the wages of the overpaid presenters and I may add their relatives. The time to take away the licence fee is long overdue.

Not a normal practice but I just happened to hear the 10.00 a.m. 'news' bulletin on Newstalk (Newspuke more like)this morning. Then the sports news segment informed me that Navan races were on .I was pleasantly surprised.
A few hours later I discover that this was not the case. I checked the Turf Club website to establish the timeline.
8.26 a.m -Inspection called for 9.30 a.m.
8.59 a.m. -meeting cancelled.
So clearly then the sports dept.at Newstalk did not do their job and they broadcast erroneous information on their 'national' service.
With storms raging over the country any sports editor with an interest in racing or even a functioning brain cell would have either phoned the Curragh or looked up the website to get the facts -knowing that a sports bulletin was coming up. But of course the sad fact is they don't care about racing
It is truly infuriating to see the way Irish racing is mistreated with such carelessness and negligence by both national broadcasters.
It is also an indictment of the Irish Turf Club ( to whom I have written before about this matter)who should be making it their business to be aware of what's happening and who should ,accordingly,be kicking up stink to get even minimal standards of service to obtain.

About 10-11 on for the champions league coverage tonight when tv3 do it with about five. Why is there the need for the extra staff covering the games. Just cover them from the studio. Jobs for the boys. Waste of public money.