ratings - eircom League...

...FAI Cup Final drew a highest peak viewing of 285,000.

Last league game between Cork City and Derry got a highest peak viewing of 355,000.

Both figures are far in excess of figures for the Premiership, RTE's flagship programme for the English club game.

Maybe it's time for our national broadcaster to start sending more cameras to our own club games...

Big Nelly

Deleted User wrote:

...FAI Cup Final drew a highest peak viewing of 285,000.

Last league game between Cork City and Derry got a highest peak viewing of 355,000.

Both figures are far in excess of figures for the Premiership, RTE's flagship programme for the English club game.

Maybe it's time for our national broadcaster to start sending more cameras to our own club games...

Disguessed many a day on the soccer forum. Usually ending up with heated works. I did watch the Cork-Derry game but was on Sky Sports last week when Cup final was on. It showed the support of the game has developed when they had to move to Landsdown to fit in all the fans. Hopefully the game will continue to develop but not at the expense of GAA or Rugby.

YeatsCounty

Not bad figures for a country with the population of Ireland.

I agree with the OP on the point that perhaps RTE shouls send more cameras to more grounds for live games. I know TG4 showed a lot of weekend games this season, but how many games did RTE show in the same period? It's baffling that more games weren't shown live because this was the most exciting league season in years.

Big Nelly

Alot of games where on Setanta where they not?

Big Nelly

Big Nelly wrote:

Hopefully the game will continue to develop but not at the expense of GAA or Rugby.

More watched the Cork City - Derry City game than the Ireland - Australia rugby international. I apprciate the former was on at a better time.

As for how many games were shown, dunno about RTE. But do know that Cork City were shown live on telly 17 times this season, between RTE2, TG4 and Setanta showing the Setanta Cup, League, FAI Cup and UEFA Cup games. That's pretty good going. And certainly my experience is that the interest has increased due solely to that exposure - where I live friends went from complete non-interest to making a point of watching the games.

YeatsCounty

Big Nelly wrote:

Alot of games where on Setanta where they not?

Forgot about Setanta.

Deleted User wrote:

As for how many games were shown, dunno about RTE. But do know that Cork City were shown live on telly 17 times this season, between RTE2, TG4 and Setanta showing the Setanta Cup, League, FAI Cup and UEFA Cup games. That's pretty good going. And certainly my experience is that the interest has increased due solely to that exposure - where I live friends went from complete non-interest to making a point of watching the games.

Nice one! There's an interesting discussion about the number of live matches over at foot.ie. There was around 35 - 40 matches shown between RTE, TG4 and Setanta this season, that's more matches than RTE showed in the previous five seasons (at least)!

The good news is that Sligo Rovers will be on live TV more often next season.

YeatsCounty

YeatsCounty wrote:

The good news is that Sligo Rovers will be on live TV more often next season.

Saw them once this season, when they travelled to Cork for the cup game. Some really neat passing, was pleasantly surprised as lots of teams in that division rely more on hoofing and tackling. Sligo Rovers will provide much better spectacle than watching two English Championship teams kick each other around a pitch on Sky Sports of a Friday evening anyway...

I'm not, of course, suggesting that the game here is better than, say, the English Premiership. But our national boadcaster might be much better off fostering an interest in the game here, as the numbers above show there is an audience, rather than trying to join in the rat race with BBC, ITV, Sky etc. in showing ManU, Liverpool or Arsenal again and again and again.

Big Nelly

Deleted User wrote:

More watched the Cork City - Derry City game than the Ireland - Australia rugby international. I apprciate the former was on at a better time.

Ozzy rules is on at the worst time possible. I had to take the day off work to watch it. Was a joke. Has always been the same so cant complain

eirebhoy

There was 44 games shown live and another 3 had a deferred broadcast.

MrJoeSoap

Its great to see the live games get great viewing figures, but a lot more emphasis has to be placed on the highlights package. 30 (very poor) minutes on a Monday night at a ridiculous time should not suffice.

Surely Setanta alone show German football highlights ten times more than the Eircom League is shown over all three stations? Plus, there needs to be a camera at every single game. There was at least one occasion this season when there was no camera at Tolka (Hallowe'en vs Bray). Surely they can afford to at least send a few people over to film a bloody game! Shels scored 5 that night, some great football, but now its confined to the annals of memory. .

Elmo

As far as I know TG4 was going to show 11 live games. They didn't do as well as their GAA sporting output but they got on average 90,000 viewers. Which is good for such a minorty sporting association and a minorty TV channel.

I think RTE and setanta were showing 5 matches each.

This is the first year of a 3 year deal with RTE, TG4 and Setanta.

Pigman II

Those figures are good news. I think for the game in the ROI it's important for people to be talking about EL teams and getting to know players faces etc even if they never ever go to a game.