Should TG4 have english audio for sports?

zeebre12

Should people have the option of english commentary for sports on TG4, make like a red button option like they had for the other rugby game they were shoeing a few months ago? I think they should, I know its our native language and all but it seems stupid that most people watching dont know what the commentators are saying. Like last night the rugby match was on TG4 and my family have 0 Irish and never will so it seems stupid we like most people watching in the country have to listen to it in Irish. At least give an option.

artanevilla

It's an Irish channel though. That's the whole point of the station.

The only use I ever got out of the red button in sports anyway was to turn the commentary off completely.

Leroy42

I always assumed that one of the reasons that TG4 can get access to the live sports is that the price they pay must be significantly lower of the potential audience is much smaller.

Would that be right or just my silly notion?

Also, I watch the tour de France on it and over a few days you do get to pick up some of meanings and the type of sayings. SO much of it is lost on me but even on that small bit it adds to my knowledge

Elmo

zeebre12 wrote: »

Should people have the option of english commentary for sports on TG4, make like a red button option like they had for the other rugby game they were shoeing a few months ago? I think they should, I know its our native language and all but it seems stupid that most people watching dont know what the commentators are saying. Like last night the rugby match was on TG4 and my family have 0 Irish and never will so it seems stupid we like most people watching in the country have to listen to it in Irish. At least give an option.

No TG4 was set up to promote the language, the should use on screen graphic to help those with limited Irish or no Irish. Why you need a commentator to explain scores doesn't make much sense.

I don't know if you where thought Irish in school or not.

Elmo

Leroy42 wrote: »

I always assumed that one of the reasons that TG4 can get access to the live sports is that the price they pay must be significantly lower of the potential audience is much smaller.

Would that be right or just my silly notion?

Only for RWC 2011 when they won deferred rights in Irish only. But Sport brings in large audiences to TG4 regardless of the language barrier, the only exception was soccer.

dudara

Broadcasting in Irish is their mandate, so no, I don't believe they should provide English commentary.

I actually enjoy listening to the commentators who are clearly not native speakers, but are making a decent effort at it. It's encouraging to see rugby being used to improve Irish

zeebre12

Elmo wrote: »

No TG4 was set up to promote the language, the should use on screen graphic to help those with limited Irish or no Irish. Why you need a commentator to explain scores doesn't make much sense.

I don't know if you where thought Irish in school or not.

But most people dont know what they are saying they might as well be speaking Latin. Irish shouldnt be forced on someone so you should be given the option, especially for big sporting events like rugby matches with mass appeal (it should serve the people). Then if you want to listen in Irish you can.
And you do need commentators to explain things particularly in rugby when there are stops every 2 minutes.

dudara

Irish is not being forced on you, you don't have to watch it. This is not mandatory Irish classes in school

Zaph

Well in that case should RTE be forced to have an Irish audio option for people when they're showing Ireland soccer matches? TG4 was set up with a particular remit and it performs it well. The fact that they have the rights to the rugby is incidental, would you be as concerned about the Irish commentary if they were showing a sport you had no interest in?

reubenreuben

dudara wrote: »

Broadcasting in Irish is their mandate, so no, I don't believe they should provide English commentary.

I actually enjoy listening to the commentators who are clearly not native speakers, but are making a decent effort at it. It's encouraging to see rugby being used to improve Irish

If broadcasting in irish is in their mandate then what about commercials and programs originally in english? Should they not be dubbed to irish?

moleyv

S4C give the option of Welsh or English for rugby matches.

Doesn't bother me TG4 broadcasting in Irish only, I know enough and know what I'm watching.

Put the game on mute and use the audio from radio if you need to.

ThisRegard

No, it's an Irish channel. It would be nice to have, but it's not a case of it should have, it's there to promote Irish, not give people a way out of hearing it.

Elmo wrote: »

No TG4 was set up to promote the language, the should use on screen graphic to help those with limited Irish or no Irish

They did that for a while with the rugby.

zeebre12 wrote: »

But most people dont know what they are saying they might as well be speaking Latin. Irish shouldnt be forced on someone...

You have the option of not watching or listening, and on occasions watching on another channel. You're not forced to watch or listen.

icdg

Okay before this thread goes forward, the obligatory warning.

The scope of this forum extends to Broadcasting only. This is NOT the place to debate linguistics, language policy, the education system or anything to do with the Irish language.

As a general rule read your post before you hit reply. If the word "TG4" and "Sports" aren't both in it, it's probably off topic. If I see any more than three off topic posts after I post this warning, the thread gets closed.

El_Duderino 09

Yes they should give the option. I don't speak Welsh but I tuned I to th Welsh stations SC4 and BBC Wales to watch the rugby. Native speakers have the default option so it would make sense to give people an option they actually understand

Should the ads be in Irish too?

errlloyd

I watch games on TG4 all the time and I've no Irish. I'm just glad they're getting broadcast tbh. The fact it's broadcast in HD is even better. Whenever anyone in my family complains I remind them we wouldn't be seeing the game otherwise.

My one issue is that I think it prevents the sport reaching new non Irish speaking fans. I know what is going on, commentary is unimportant to me. From that point of view I am somewhat surprised the league selling the rights hasn't forced TG4 into some sort of arrangement for English.

Elmo

reubenreuben wrote: »

If broadcasting in irish is in their mandate then what about commercials and programs originally in english? Should they not be dubbed to irish?

TG4 like most Irish TV channels cannot afford a full service of home produced programmes thus they buy in a few international titles for adult audiences.

By introducing either irish language dubbing on English live action TV/Film or providing English language commentary on sport... even news and documentary would reduce its funding to produce programming.

As pointed your not being force to watch TG4 for sport, imagine TV3 just launched Racing on its service with no Irish commentators or providing a job to Irish people for its ITV coverage. It took similar generic coverage for some RWC Matches.

mjp

Its an IRISH language TV station. You can watch it and listen to the commentary in Irish or else switch to one of the soaps on something else on the other TV stations. Your choice !!! Nobody is forcing you to watch it.

The station was setup originally to give a platform for the Irish language and for people who have an interest in the language and help them improve their command of the language.

zeebre12

reubenreuben wrote: »

If broadcasting in irish is in their mandate then what about commercials and programs originally in english? Should they not be dubbed to irish?

Exactly. Then they shouldnt be allowed to pick and choose. Ye are all going on about their mandate, they why are adds in English and some programs. How does this help the Irish language? They pick and choose as it is, so big sporting events with mass appeal should be in in English and Irish.

snubbleste

No.

Harry Palmr

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Should the ads be in Irish too?

Ah now down with this sort of consistency

zeebre12

mjp wrote: »

Its an IRISH language TV station. You can watch it and listen to the commentary in Irish or else switch to one of the soaps on something else on the other TV stations. Your choice !!! Nobody is forcing you to watch it.

The station was setup originally to give a platform for the Irish language and for people who have an interest in the language and help them improve their command of the language.

But what if you have no interest in Irish and dont want to improve your irish. Big sporting events like these shouldnt be solely in Irish. It shouldnt be allowed. Why does S4C then have an option for English commentary. Would anyone then mind if the Euros last summer were only on TG4 in Irish?

Elmo

zeebre12 wrote: »

But what if you have no interest in Irish and dont want to improve your irish. Big sporting events like these shouldnt be solely in Irish. It shouldnt be allowed. Why does S4C then have an option for English commentary. Would anyone then mind if the Euros last summer were only on TG4 in Irish?

Firstly they aren't big sporting events that's why they are on TG4. Secondly a language shouldn't upset you so much when it comes to sport. (Kind of in general).

S4C has over €100m in funding.

IMO ads should be as gealige particularly when most ads carry on screen graphics in English, but again costs associated with dubbing.

zeebre12

Elmo wrote: »

Firstly they aren't big sporting events that's why they are on TG4. Secondly a language shouldn't upset you so much when it comes to sport. (Kind of in general).

S4C has over €100m in funding.

IMO ads should be as gealige particularly when most ads carry on screen graphics in English, but again costs associated with dubbing.

Rugby games involving Irish teams are big sporting fixtures. They are not niche like netball games. Even the casual sports person would watch them. They are big fixtures and appeal to a lot of people therefore they should be in English for people who dont speak Irish (most of the country) and if possible like the GAA are doing now with an option for games in Irish. Im not saying we should not have Irish or Irish shouldnt be promoted but as these games attract a large audience who speak predominantly English, they should at least be given an option.

Elmo

zeebre12 wrote: »

Rugby games involving Irish teams are big sporting fixtures. They are not niche like netball games. Even the casual sports person would watch them. They are big fixtures and appeal to a lot of people therefore they should be in English for people who dont speak Irish (most of the country) and if possible like the GAA are doing now with an option for games in Irish. Im not saying we should not have Irish or Irish shouldnt be promoted but as these games attract a large audience who speak predominantly English, they should at least be given an option.

If they are such big games then both TV3 and RTE need to give them as much coverage as TG4. Setanta did for a while and the amount of complaints from people without access to Setanta and the problems caused when it left terrestrial TV. RTE also took them for a while.

AFAIK RTE take their commentary from RTÉ RnaG. And RTÉ have only started providing that feature on a very few select games, why not get the option across all sport on RTÉ?

An Ciarraioch

zeebre12 wrote: »

Exactly. Then they shouldnt be allowed to pick and choose. Ye are all going on about their mandate, they why are adds in English and some programs. How does this help the Irish language? They pick and choose as it is, so big sporting events with mass appeal should be in in English and Irish.

In the TnaG era, all the ads were in Irish, but presumably only a limited number of companies were prepared to do so.

Elmo

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

In the TnaG era, all the ads were in Irish, but presumably only a limited number of companies were prepared to do so.

A few ads were in Irish not all half the channel was QVC at that point

lertsnim

It would be nice if they offered an alternative commentary track but I'd rather they sorted out HD on Saorview first.

Earthhorse

Can you get subtitles for live events? You'd need to be typing fast.

But it might be a missed opportunity to help people learn the language if it were possible.

ArmaniJeanss

Earthhorse wrote: »

Can you get subtitles for live events? You'd need to be typing fast.

BBC try to do it anyway, but it's really tricky. You should switch it on the next time they have an FA Cup tie.
It understandably tends to get way behind, then you can see that the typist has just given up and decided to skip a bit and start again. Also sometimes the typist is clearly not a football fan and gets the lingo badly wrong.

ThisRegard

It's automated voice recognition software rather than a person isn't it.

edit: yes

However, live subtitling, as seen mostly on the news, sporting events and other programmes which are going out live, requires an entirely different skillset - a person with good ears, a clear speaking voice and specially 'trained' voice recognition software.
These live subtitlers sit in a soundproofed room, watching the TV feed and 're-speak' the words from the programme clearly and deliberately into a microphone. The computer, which over time has come to accurately recognise the live subtitler's voice, then translates their spoken words into text on screen.
Problems usually arise with complex jargon, or unusual names of people and places - Manchester United footballer Adnan Januzaj famously became Janet Jazz Jazz Jam for example.
The BBC is working on new automated subtitling technology - but for now, re-speaking, while not infallible, is still the best method available.

Harry Palmr

Earthhorse wrote: »

Can you get subtitles for live events? You'd need to be typing fast.

But it might be a missed opportunity to help people learn the language if it were possible.

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

BBC try to do it anyway, but it's really tricky. You should switch it on the next time they have an FA Cup tie.
It understandably tends to get way behind, then you can see that the typist has just given up and decided to skip a bit and start again. Also sometimes the typist is clearly not a football fan and gets the lingo badly wrong.

I'd have thought a speech to text programme would have been employed, maybe they are not quick enough yet.

Johnboy1951

I would really appreciate it if TG4 had an English commentary on their sports programmes.

I do not expect them to do this, as it would cost an appreciable amount, which would suck monies from other projects.

Neither do I want to see an increase in the licence fee to fund an English commentary.

So, I accept the situation, and appreciate the fact that I can see sports on a FTA channel.
I much prefer the FTA Irish only commentary than having the sports behind a paywall with English commentary.

sligojoek

A redbutton option option would be nice but it's not the end of the world. Would that be possible on Saorview or is it just Sky?

The only sports I'd watch are hurling, an odd gaelic match or Irish international soccer. What I normaly do during the league match is download the local radio app for one of the counties involved and play it via bluetooth to a soundbar. The only problen is it's a few ceconds behind.

lertsnim

sligojoek wrote: »

Would that be possible on Saorview or is it just Sky?

RTÉ do it on Saorview and Sky so both would be possible for TG4. TG4 have also had an alternative rugby match on the red button on Saorview so they're not afraid to use the option if they want to.

sligojoek

Thanks I didn't know that.

copacetic

ThisRegard wrote: »

It's automated voice recognition software rather than a person isn't it.

edit: yes

That's not entirely correct, stenographers are widely used still. Voice recognition is the future most likely, but gives horrendous errors at times, as you often see posted on social media.

Elmo

copacetic wrote: »

That's not entirely correct, stenographers are widely used still. Voice recognition is the future most likely, but gives horrendous errors at times, as you often see posted on social media.

Still don't understand why they don't use the same text as the autocue with studio news readers and why news reports aren't pre-subtitled as they are not live. the only time a stenographer should be used are for live interviews and when newsreaders goes off script!

copacetic

Elmo wrote: »

If they are such big games then both TV3 and RTE need to give them as much coverage as TG4. Setanta did for a while and the amount of complaints from people without access to Setanta and the problems caused when it left terrestrial TV. RTE also took them for a while.

AFAIK RTE take their commentary from RTÉ RnaG. And RTÉ have only started providing that feature on a very few select games, why not get the option across all sport on RTÉ?

The Irish commentary generally doesn't come from RnaG, they aren't working off the pictures etc that would be on RTÉ, it would not make sense to viewer. The additional commentators, co commentator, commentary positions, technical infrastructure monitoring work, platform feeds etc are all relatively costly. Hence the major event only coverage.

It's hard to see where the mandate is for TG4 to go to such expense for what would be many more games, with small viewerships, which people would most likely watch anyway, possibly picking up a bit of Irish along the way.

copacetic

Elmo wrote: »

Still don't understand why they don't use the same text as the autocue with studio news readers and why news reports aren't pre-subtitled as they are not live. the only time a stenographer should be used are for live interviews and when newsreaders goes off script!

A lot of new reports are pre subtitled if copy is in system in time, often they aren't as they could be edited right up to air. They would still then be on the encoding delay so not in sync.

The stenographer could be anywhere in the world, so they don't generally have realtime access to the autocue feeds and there are security issues also. Obviously the same stenographer has to drop in any pre set copy they have, there isn't a team of people doing it.

AndrewJRenko

Earthhorse wrote: »

Can you get subtitles for live events? You'd need to be typing fast.

But it might be a missed opportunity to help people learn the language if it were possible.

These guys do live captioning of conferences - not sure it they can do sports events.

http://pcr.ie/#broadcast_captioning

Tin Foil Hat

artanevilla wrote: »

It's an Irish channel though. That's the whole point of the station.

That's all well and good for niche programs made especially for the gaelgoirs. But, when they get exclusive rights to events with a broad interest, then they should broadcast in the native (and only) language of the vast, vast majority of the audience for that event.

Elmo

Tin Foil Hat wrote: »

That's all well and good for niche programs made especially for the gaelgoirs. But, when they get exclusive rights to events with a broad interest, then they should broadcast in the native (and only) language of the vast, vast majority of the audience for that event.

They don't they are the only ones interested.

ThisRegard

copacetic wrote: »

That's not entirely correct, stenographers are widely used still. Voice recognition is the future most likely, but gives horrendous errors at times, as you often see posted on social media.

It came straight from the horses mouth, the BBC, that's how they do it and is who we were talking about at the time.

reason vs religion

I disagree with TG4 being allowed to compete with RTE for the rights to sporting events with a nationwide interest. The remit of promoting Irish shouldn't extend to nabbing the rights to shows/events from RTE (which has a much more onerous remit) and then changing the way they're broadcast such that only a tiny minority can actually comfortably understand it. Having Irish pre- and post-match analysis but with the option of English commentary might be an imperfect compromise.

Also, before anyone lauds TG4 any further, it's actually very well-funded. When you include the government subvention, license fee allocation and hour-a-day of news that RTE produces for the channel, it has a budget of almost two-thirds that of RTE 1, the flagship channel, despite having an audience share of <2%.

AndrewJRenko

reason vs religion wrote: »

Also, before anyone lauds TG4 any further, it's actually very well-funded. When you include the government subvention, license fee allocation and hour-a-day of news that RTE produces for the channel, it has a budget of almost two-thirds that of RTE 1, the flagship channel, despite having an audience share of <2%.

Numbers please

reason vs religion

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Numbers please

There are politer ways to ask.

I misspoke when I said budget; I meant that TG4 gets approx. two-thirds the funding. Of course, that excludes the much higher commercial revenues at RTE. The numbers...off the top of my head, €22m state subvention, €10m license fee contribution, and €7m indirectly due to the news arrangement with RTE, which totals about two-thirds the €60m RTE 1 gets from the license fee. TG4-aired programmes also get €5-10m in Sound and Vision funding, which is a subsidy and can be considered indirect funding of TG4.

Elmo

No one disagrees that TG4 isn't well funded. however last figures I saw for sports programming was €3million so TG4 don't overly exert their money on Sport. Remember BAI don't support Support though the sound and vision fund so none of that money goes to Sport TG4, RTÉ do not buy in any sport for TG4 the mainly supply News, a few kids and entertainment shows.

Remember BBC 4 have a smaller share of the audience than TG4.

TV3 could have easily bought the rights to GAA league games, had they been interested. Ladies GAA football brought in 250,000 viewers.

reason vs religion

Elmo wrote: »

No one disagrees that TG4 isn't well funded. however last figures I saw for sports programming was €3million so TG4 don't overly exert their money on Sport. Remember BAI don't support Support though the sound and vision fund so none of that money goes to Sport TG4, RTÉ do not buy in any sport for TG4 the mainly supply News, a few kids and entertainment shows.

Remember BBC 4 have a smaller share of the audience than TG4.

TV3 could have easily bought the rights to GAA league games, had they been interested. Ladies GAA football brought in 250,000 viewers.

I think many people are unaware of that, tho, and are overly-charitable as a result.

I'm not criticising TG4 spending money on sport. Just saying that they shouldn't compete with the national broadcaster. If no one else wants to air it, I've no problem with them doing it through Irish.

The S&V mention isn't strictly relevant to the topic of this thread, I accept. But subsidising drama and documentaries could allow funding to be allocated elsewhere, e.g. sport.

BBC Four's share is distorted by it only airing for six hours or so and should been seen in the context of a much wider media market. As well, its content is very niche, which would suppress the share, whereas TG4 has a whole spectrum of shows.

Elmo

reason vs religion wrote: »

I think many people are unaware of that, tho, and are overly-charitable as a result.

I'm not criticising TG4 spending money on sport. Just saying that they shouldn't compete with the national broadcaster. If no one else wants to air it, I've no problem with them doing it through Irish.

The S&V mention isn't strictly relevant to the topic of this thread, I accept. But subsidising drama and documentaries could allow funding to be allocated elsewhere, e.g. sport.

BBC Four's share is distorted by it only airing for six hours or so and should been seen in the context of a much wider media market. As well, its content is very niche, which would suppress the share, whereas TG4 has a whole spectrum of shows.

You could say the same for TG4 as it airs mainly children's programming during the day.

TG4 are not competiting with any of the other broadcasters RTÉ, TV3 or eir for sport. The other broadcasters don't go after the same sport e.g why do you think TG4 got Wimbledon? And why eir took it a few years later, doubt eir was in a massive battle with TG4 for those rights.

I still think TG4 do a better job than RTÉ and TV3 in general.

AndrewJRenko

reason vs religion wrote: »

There are politer ways to ask.

I misspoke when I said budget; I meant that TG4 gets approx. two-thirds the funding. Of course, that excludes the much higher commercial revenues at RTE. The numbers...off the top of my head, €22m state subvention, €10m license fee contribution, and €7m indirectly due to the news arrangement with RTE, which totals about two-thirds the €60m RTE 1 gets from the license fee. TG4-aired programmes also get €5-10m in Sound and Vision funding, which is a subsidy and can be considered indirect funding of TG4.

Thanks for the details. I didn't realise they were that close in funding, though as you say, RTE's commercial income is in a different league.

Capt'n Midnight

reubenreuben wrote: »

If broadcasting in irish is in their mandate then what about commercials and programs originally in english? Should they not be dubbed to irish?

When it comes to advertising The Golden Rule applies.

- The people with the gold make the rules.