Record Irish audience watch GAA online

HelterSkelter

http://www.rte.ie/sport/2006/0719/webcast.html

A record audience logged on to RTÉ.ie's first live GAA webcast as almost 10,000 fans watched Cork beat Kerry in the Munster SFC final replay on Sunday.

This was the first time that RTÉ.ie has streamed a GAA match live on the web and, aside from attending the match, it was the only opportunity for fans to experience live pictures of the action.

With over 32,000 streams to the webcast, and 9,954 unique visitors to the site during the match, the figures show an extremely positive response from GAA fans.

RTÉ.ie is looking forward to delivering more live sports events and has already confirmed that it will be streaming simultaneous live coverage of this season's Champions League, along with RTÉ Television.

Commenting on the success of the web-cast, Múirne Laffan, Executive Director of RTÉ Publishing, said: 'We are delighted with the success of our first GAA match live on the web and we are committed to providing even more choice to our audiences by actively seeking out other events which we can stream live.'

RTÉ cleared the rights for the Munster final with the GAA for the island of Ireland. However, there were a small number of difficulties for some users who were unable to access the webcast during the event.

In response to this, Marcus O'Doherty, Technology Manager of RTÉ.ie said: 'Unfortunately, the outsourced service provider's geo-blocking system did not correctly identify all users as being on the island of Ireland. This is an issue that we have taken up with our service provider and will be addressed before our next live match.'

Ruu_Old

I hope rte do more of this, looking forward as I am overseas right now.

WhatsGoingOn

Ruu wrote:

I hope rte do more of this, looking forward as I am overseas right now.

I doubt that they will show any of the streams outside of Ireland as Setanta have the righst to GAA matches outside of Ireland. There would also be broadcasting rights issues with Champions League games. You might be able to play around with the proxies though.

MOH

Just to be pedantic: if it was the first live GAA webcast, surely any number of viewers would have been a record?

Unless RTE are claiming it's a record compared to something else?

Foxwood

MOH wrote:

Just to be pedantic: if it was the first live GAA webcast, surely any number of viewers would have been a record?

Unless RTE are claiming it's a record compared to something else?

It may be RTEs first GAA webcast, but it's not the first webcast of a GAA event. Setanta have a webcast service, though I don't know for sure if they have done live webcasts.

RTE have done live webcasts of other sports in recent months. The interesting factor in this case is that the webcast was the only way to follow the match live, as it wasn't live on TV or Radio.

Ludo

And quite excellent it was also. I piped it from my laptop into the tv and the picture was excellent for a streamed video. No interruptions either or buffering. Hope this continues.

For the Champions league, will they be streaming only the match they are actually showing on Network 2 or will they be streaming all the other matches which are no on the tv I wonder?

goonthedan

how do u connect it 2 your tv

Skyuser

goonthedan wrote:

how do u connect it 2 your tv

S-Video or VGA connection, whichever your laptop has.

Ludo

Yep...I used a S-Video cable and a mic cable connecting in to a scart adaptor. The set cost about a fiver in Power City. Always use them for watching (free and legal) videos I download from the web

ardmacha

Are RTE likely to stream any other GAA matches this year, concurrently with the TV? I am abroad for a couple of weeks and Setanta only have services in US, Canada and Australia as I understand it. I might be able to do something with my Irish server to give me access to RTE.

fisab

How would I find out if Galway/Westmeath was going to be streamed live on Sat night next?
I cant access Setanta broadband 'cos my ISP comes up as Irish (not NTL).