No shocks as match viewers opt for RTÉ in battle with Sky

There was little surprise yesterday when viewing figures from Sunday’s All-Ireland hurling semi-final showed RTÉ had trounced Sky Sports in the simulcast head-to-head.

RTÉ2’s Sunday Game Live programme attracted an average of 434,000, a market share of 41.28%. That was compared to Sky Sports 3’s 9,444 average, which represented just 0.9% of the audience share.

Sky’s numbers don’t include pub or high definition (HD) subscriptions but the less than 10,000 figure is a particularly low one.

The news follows a weekend where Sky Sports 3 featured over 12 and a half hours of GAA, replaying Saturday’s All-Ireland quarter-finals on Sunday morning having shown them live the evening previous.

With those Dublin-Monaghan and Donegal-Armagh games, Sky’s quota of exclusive Championship games has finished for 2014. Their second of six simulcasts with RTÉ will feature this Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final between Cork and Tipperary. Along with the national broadcaster, they will also be broadcasting the Kerry-Mayo and Donegal-Dublin football semi-finals, as well as both senior All-Ireland finals.