THE Armagh versus Down Ulster Championship semi-final reached the “six-figure mark” on the BBC, according to Head of GAAGO Noel Quinn.
Donegal native Quinn said that BBC NI had “made great strides” after radically increasing their coverage of GAA at county and club level. Viewing figures on their TV and online platforms have increased significantly.
“Pound-for-pound BBC have, I wouldn’t say come under the radar, but in terms of the amount of coverage they’ve increased on in their new deal, they’ve gone from maybe two live games out of the eight in the Ulster Championship to this year having four exclusive, two simulcast with RTE and two on highlights,” said Quinn, formerly head of the GAA marketing team.
“They’ve added up to 10 League games, they have club highlights packages and they have put together a really good talent team as well.
“So they have done well and made great strides and Neil Brittain (Head of Sport) has been a breath of fresh air for ourselves dealing with him in the last year or so.
“They wouldn’t have the rights for further coverage beyond the Ulster Championship but they seem really happy with the gains that they’ve made and I know they’re very happy with the numbers from their coverage.
“BBC are going hard after the online. Their iPlayer reach in Britain is unbelievable and I know they achieved great numbers for the recent Down versus Armagh Ulster semi-final which were largely pushed up by their online audience.
“I think they have broken through the six-figure mark which is a multiple of what they had a number of years ago.”
Addressing the comments of RTE hurling pundit Donal Og Cusack who criticised the GAA for allowing Munster Hurling Championship games to be shown on the pay-per-view streaming service instead of free-to-air RTE, Quinn said GAAGO wasn’t “trying to hoodwink” anyone.
He said the Limerick-Clare and Tipperary-Cork games in the Munster Championship had been rescheduled due to the Limerick Run and the Munster football final respectively.
“We’re fully aware of some people saying that Munster hurling is behind a paywall,” he said.
“But we've literally tripled the number of games made available to those who are prepared to buy a season pass (E79) and there's been a lot of positive reaction to it.
“In terms of promotion of hurling, RTE will broadcast 15 hurling Championship matches over the course of the Championship. They have a couple of big Munster double headers coming up and at this stage there's probably close to 200 games free-to-air anyway across the year.
“So we feel we have the balance right here. But look, it's early days yet. Hopefully people will judge this on the multi-year deal that is in place, rather than the first couple of weekends.”
