NEWSTALK HAVE TODAY parted company with the team behind the award-winning Off The Ball programme.
Presenter Eoin McDevitt, Ken Early, Ciaran Murphy, Simon Hick and Mark Horgan have resigned according to the station.
A statement issued to TheScore.ie reads: ”Ger Gilroy, Newstalk Sports Editor, who devised Off the Ball in 2002, will be joined by mainstays of the Newstalk sports team – Cian Murtagh, David McIntyre and Joe Molloy – in taking over the running of the show, starting tonight.
“Newstalk would like to thank Eoin, Simon, Ken, Ciaran and Mark for their contributions to the station and wish them luck in their future endeavours.”
The incredibly popular nightly sports show has been running for almost a decade. More to follow
Apparently there is a story out saying the OTB team wanted to start an hour earlier at 6 eating into George Hook’s time. The station refused and they all resigned.
Seems madness by Newstalk. Off the Ball was one of the jewels in the crown and certainly worth sacrificing an hour of that buffoon Hook’s time for.
[quote=“tallback, post: 743980, member: 1158”]Apparently there is a story out saying the OTB team wanted to start an hour earlier at 6 eating into George Hook’s time. The station refused and they all resigned.
Seems madness by Newstalk. Off the Ball was one of the jewels in the crown and certainly worth sacrificing an hour of that buffoon Hook’s time for.[/quote]
Fairly naive of them if that is the case. Demanding the drivetime slot from probably the highest paid person at the station was always going to be a long shot notwithstanding what a cunt Hook is.
The only encouraging thing is that they’ve resigned en masse. Its possible that they’ve an exit strategy that involved a new show elsewhere. It was by far the best sports programme in Ireland and eons ahead of the GAA centric, middle aged mouth wash that comes out of RTE.
Newstalk have absolutely blown it here too. For a station that’s used to making losses they’ll have to keep asking uncle Dennis for more pocket money - I can imagine they’ll be getting a lot of calls from advertisers in the next day or so.
How many OTB threads has Bandage started on this forum? o_O
I’ve always enjoyed the Saturday Sports lads also, but they’ll do well to replace the lads. Brinksmanship gone mad you’d imagine. Say what you like about them, and many on here railed against them, but when you look at how they changed the evening radio landscape for sportsfans in this country you have to appreciate how good they were at what they did. A huge loss. They’ll no doubt pop up somewhere, but it’s hard to see it being the same.
It seems like it was a sudden departure? Newstalk were short-staffed as it was without five sudden departures. Tonight’s programme could be car crash listening.
Not sure sid, impression I’m getting is that they were pushing for this 6PM start so you’d presume the negotiations were ongoing for some time. I didnt realise Newstalk were short staffed though?
Hopefully Gilroy doesn’t prick about tonight and just addresses the matter head on from the start. It’ll be must listen radio anyway thats for sure.
From initially finding this show annoying and smarmy, I very much warmed to it and particularly liked McDevitt as an interviewer. It was generally just a well researched show and a great listen. Those lads will be missed.
[quote=“myboyblue, post: 743995, member: 180”]Not sure sid, impression I’m getting is that they were pushing for this 6PM start so you’d presume the negotiations were ongoing for some time. I didnt realise Newstalk were short staffed though?
Hopefully Gilroy doesn’t prick about tonight and just addresses the matter head on from the start. It’ll be must listen radio anyway thats for sure.[/quote]
They run a pretty tight ship in terms of staff.
I don’t really understand what they were hoping to achieve if they wanted to start from 6pm. 6-7 is still drive-time. I don’t know what Hook’s listenership is but I imagine it’s considerably higher than anything a sports programme could ever hope to get. They were never going to win that battle, if that indeed is what brought about their departure. I’d say money is more likely at the root of it.
RTE have just revamped their evening sports show and it seems like a bad time time for them to take such drastic action.
the admin team will be able to focus more on the forum now:clap:
any chance TFK could get a radio slot for a few hours, Rocko and Bandage could co-host, Kev would be special guest reporting on fitness… ah it would be epic
No but I think a bit of perspective is needed here. Have posted before your time a similar sentiment. It just struck me last Thursday night that the boy loves the sound of his own voice.
[quote=“mickee321, post: 744004, member: 367”]the admin team will be able to focus more on the forum now:clap:
any chance TFK could get a radio slot for a few hours, Rocko and Bandage could co-host, Kev would be special guest reporting on fitness… ah it would be epic[/quote]
You would be excellent for a gig like that.
