Sport features prominently in the RTÉ Annual Report published yesterday with the launch of GAAGo with the GAA listed as one of the main highlights of the year.
As the national broadcaster and the central point around which most national conversations develop it is imperative that RTÉ and sport remain strong partners across as many areas of engagement as possible.
With that in mind it is heartening that sport feature so high in Director General Noel Curran’s review of the year gone by and reproduced below.
Given the financial challenges, reducing RTÉ’s sports rights costs, while also maintaining our major rights, was a key goal in our five year strategy. We have prioritised investment to deliver coverage of national teams, national games and major events. Within that context and in an increasingly competitive market, RTÉ retained its GAA television and radio rights, ensuring that coverage of Gaelic games is delivered free- to-air to Irish audiences until 2017. The 2014 season proved to be a big winner for audiences with huge numbers tuning to RTÉ’s coverage and analysis.
In a new departure for both RTÉ and the GAA, in May together we launched an entirely new international digital service, GAAGO. this service enables fans outside of Ireland to watch the 2014 GAA Championship games (over forty-five games internationally) on any Internet-enabled device. Games were streamed in high-quality HD and included full commentary, scores and studio programming as broadcast to audiences in Ireland.
Within six months of launch, the service was being accessed by fans in 157 countries worldwide, with the highest number of streams coming from the united States, Great Britain, Australia and Canada. Building on the strong success of the first season, in December RTÉ and the GAA announced an expansion of the service with more than double the number of matches being offered to fans internationally in 2015.
That two organisations so central to Irish life have maintained such a strong relationship over so many years is very special. In recent years Liam O’Neill and Páraic Duffy have led the GAA through a key period of change and innovation. I am delighted that RTÉ has been a key partner in that journey and I very much look forward to seeing where it may bring both organisations in the years ahead.
The 2014 FIFA World Cup saw Irish audiences watch in record numbers across RTÉ2 television, RTÉ Player and RTÉ.ie. The fifty-six live games on RTÉ2 averaged over 335,000 per match – up 28% on 2010. The final peaked at over 1.2 million viewers and was the highest television audience for a World Cup Final since USA ’94. 2014’s final was also notable for being the final bow for broadcasting legend Bill O’Herlihy.
RTÉ also covered a remarkable year for Irish rugby, with just one loss across the full year with wins over both South Africa and Australia in the Autumn series. Close to 900,000 tuned in to watch Ireland’s 6 Nations victory over France in Paris as Joe Schmidt’s side clinched the 2014 title and the nation bid farewell to Brian O’Driscoll.
In such a competitive international market, where many sports events are now available across different channels to Irish audiences, it is remarkable that all of the top-twenty most-watched sports programmes of the year in Ireland were broadcast on RTÉ.
RTE Sport is one of over 130 organisations that are members of Sport for Business, Ireland’s largest network of sporting and business leaders.
