Newstalk: Off The Ball

incorrect. I’d estimate I've listened to about 10-15 minutes in total this year as I just switch off as soon as the scutter starts which doesn’t take long and I now avoid it like the plague. I used listen years ago regularly, it’s been on a very steep downward trajectory in the last 5 years. Ger Gilroy is becoming more obnoxious and arrogant everyday with an ego inflating as fast as his waistline. Shane “Mong” Hannon the nail in the coffin. The fact that you place some value in these “awards” speaks volumes about your understanding of good what good radio or broadcasting standards are.

My comment was poorly worded, but she won in 2020 and 2021, and was 3rd in 2022. So I wouldn’t put much stock in radio award winners basically.

Sports Programme of the year won by the only sports show on the radio.......who'd have known!

I don't mind listening to them at all. In fact I enjoy some of the evening show. I enjoy zero of the morning show because of the presenters and I'm just not giving them €10 a month.

"Continued without missing a beat" is a serious stretch given the (lack of) quality of presenters who stepped in when SC lads left.

"comprehensive review of the weekends football." in the context of the Stand is fairly laughable. It is essentially the same thing every week, and rarely very well informed on the teams/players/managers

Unless I am mistaken, they continued without missing a single show. Possibly they did with Tom Dunne starting early on the day the guys left but given they walked out just before they were due to go on air, I don't think you could hold that against them.

If that is the case, it is the definition of not missing a beat really, no?

And as for the people who stepped in one of them was Joe Molloy, probably the best sports broadcaster in the country. And wasn't Colm Parkinson another who came onboard after the walkout? Again, as said above, he has shown to be capable of success in his own right so I don't think you could say he was a massive drop in quality either.

Just tuned in to OTB at 13.00 for a few minutes. Presenter was talking to Aisling O Reilly in Paris congratulating her on a silver medal for sports reporter of the year only coming second to Joe Molloy. Must say i don't know much about her. I don't watch or listen to any rugby coverage so maybe she covers that mostly. If the Saturday Football Panel are on later i'll tune in if not it will be no OTB this week once again.

Is Joe Molloy really a great presenter? Or does he simply have a great presenters voice?

I don't agree with this to be fair.

We all have our personal opinions on various presenters. I never listen to Joe Duffy, watch Late Late or Prime Time, etc for a start. Anything which is Irish misery porn is not for me.

Straight up, I don't like either Ger Gilroy or Nathan Murphy. Both seem to want to shout and talk over everybody, they never give guests a chance. I don't like their bolshy, know it all, arrogant style of presenting.

I do have a lot of time for Joe and Will in particular. Both are outstanding in my view and I think the show is a vastly superior product when either are presenting. If they set up their own podcast, with decent guests, etc - I probably would consider paying €5 a month to them.

I think a lot of the criticism - and correctly so in my opinion - is to do with the fact that they thought their OK but average enough content was worth €10 a month. And the method of delivery of that move to subscription message was, well, about as arrogantly delivered as any justification for a change to a pricing structure as I have ever heard in my life.

I think that is fair and measured criticism, and I think that is the sort of message most of the criticism above is offering, no?

80% of posts on here 'seem' to be, (at least that's what it feels like) just flat out complaining about the show/presenters. It has mostly been that way on this thread for years now. And that is out of whack with what is a largely very successful show.

There's rarely a conversation in here about the subject matter of something covered by the show and how it was handled. There's rarely even discussion about the structure of the shows and how they should give more/less time to some sports over others for example. It's always just 'so and so is terrible' etc etc.

In terms of the value of the 10/month it's a weird one, and I think someone said it best yesterday or the day before that when something was free, charging for it, even a small amount, feels like its overpriced, no matter the value. Like, say 10 euro would get you 2 pints, you'd drink those in 2 hours and have some pleasure in doing t probably, but not best day of my life type pleasure. OTB could easily give 4-6 hrs of a similar level of pleasure a week listening to various slots and across the month, you're talking 20 hrs.

I'm saying all this as someone who hasn't signed up to it yet and not sure that I will. I'm like that about a lot of subscription services, I kinda feel that optimizing that often becomes the organisations MO at the detriment of quality (see Netflix for example) and so I just don't make the commitment. Will see how it plays out over the next number of montsh. I have long felt OTB could do more to cover sports below the Headline ones of GAA/Soccer/Rugby and if they start producing a more consistent and varied content, I might change my mind. Will see.

I seem to recall the show won several of these awards immediately after the Second Captains left. In the same way it was winning them for years beforehand.

Which kinda tells you all you need to know about those awards.

Joe Molloy is no better than Des Cahill, Damian OMara or Joanne Cantwell etc that do sport on rte

My issue with OTB is that as a radio show it's grand, it's good to have 3 hours of sports broadcasting in the evenings, and the full day on Saturday and Sunday. But where it falls down for me is thinking that it can become this big network with additional shows, the morning show, the pay wall for podcasts.

If it was never a radio show and launched as a podcast network with their offering (assuming all the presenters were known entities) it wouldn't have stood a chance, and the apparent lack of sign ups for the paid model seems to echo that. But as a radio show on newstalk, it's not bad. They should just pick a lane and stay it in though

It's a handy change of the dial to hear some sports news, with no real alternative/competition*

*Game On beset by the usual 2FM problems