[Chemicz]

The Sunday Telegraph is NOT covering the new rugby league season this Sunday 29 Jan 2012 See: My link

Proof, if it were needed, that rugby league is suffering from lack of media coverage is the fact that there were so few companies pitching to sponsor the Super League. What's really disappointing about this is that Peter Mitchell, Sports Editor at the ST reports in to Ben Clissitt who has accepted that coverage of rugby league last season was poor. Here's a link to a video summing up a conversation I had with him in December: My link

[WSCR]

Chemicz, on 27 January 2012 - 09:48 PM, said:

The Sunday Telegraph is NOT covering the new rugby league season this Sunday 29 Jan 2012 See: My link

Proof, if it were needed, that rugby league is suffering from lack of media coverage is the fact that there were so few companies pitching to sponsor the Super League. What's really disappointing about this is that Peter Mitchell, Sports Editor at the ST reports in to Ben Clissitt who has accepted that coverage of rugby league last season was poor. Here's a link to a video summing up a conversation I had with him in December: My link

So that's another lost sale for the Sunday Telegraph.

[Tommy The C5t]

WSCR, on 27 January 2012 - 10:30 PM, said:

So that's another lost sale for the Sunday Telegraph.

TBH I sacked the Guardian last week once they stopped the sports pull out and had reversed back to putting the sports content on the last four pages.

No RL so far this week despite Stobart and the sale of Odsal.

[DIEHARDTITAN]

We truly need a concerted strategic plan to finally tackle this. At all levels from grassroots efforts to courting them in the boardrooms.

[foozler]

Tommy The C5t, on 27 January 2012 - 10:54 PM, said:

TBH I sacked the Guardian last week once they stopped the sports pull out and had reversed back to putting the sports content on the last four pages.

No RL so far this week despite Stobart and the sale of Odsal.

To be fair to the Guardian, the online has an article about Stobart. I have been in touch with Andy Wilson on the Guardian about his blog "Set of Six" which seemed to work pretty well last year. Seems he is uncertain at this late point whether it will go ahead, although seeing that he has been in Dubai covering the cricket, he hasn't really got his RL head on.

Anyhow, I can vouch for the weekly blog he does, myself and Saintslass are regular contributors (hope that doesn't discourage anyone) and it would be helpful to get some of the TRL posters involved in the event it goes ahead. My impression is that these days the coverage a paper gives a sport is as much about the number of posts on a blog as anything else (the Guardian RU blogs seem to get a large number of posters), so we only have ourselves to blame if people don't get involved and our sport subsequently disappears from the paper. Newspapers are struggling to stay afloat and we as RL fans have to give them a reason to feature our sport; blogs is the one of the most immediate and interactive ways to do so.

Likewise the Daily Telegraph which seems to have bucked its ideas up lately, thanks to one mans campaign, and there is a small but dedicated band of posters, amongst whom I suspect is Paley who masquerades as Fasdunckle?

[Bulletproof]

We can do all the soul searching we want to about where we've gone wrong but the truth of the matter is like parliament and business the media in this country is only concerned with London and views the rest of the country as some sort of backwater. Until this is addressed sports like ours will never get what we deserve no matter how we court them or what product we put out. London press, London focus.

[getdownmonkeyman]

Bulletproof, on 28 January 2012 - 12:43 AM, said:

We can do all the soul searching we want to about where we've gone wrong but the truth of the matter is like parliament and business the media in this country is only concerned with London and views the rest of the country as some sort of backwater. Until this is addressed sports like ours will never get what we deserve no matter how we court them or what product we put out. London press, London focus.

Spot on. Which makes the RFLs decision to move bodies to Media City to schmooze, hopefully, the BBC all the more laudable.

[Derwent]

getdownmonkeyman, on 28 January 2012 - 09:14 AM, said:

Spot on. Which makes the RFLs decision to move bodies to Media City to schmooze, hopefully, the BBC all the more laudable.

Having bodies there is one thing, having the right quality of people is quite another. The RFL salaries (apart from the 2 at the top) are very poor compared to other organisations and hence they do not attract really good people. For example, the recently filled post of Salary Cap & Licensing Manager was advertised at a salary range of £25k-£28k which quite fankly is paltry for the level of responsibility it should carry.

Regarding media relations, is it any wonder we get treated the way we do when we are paying a ridiculously low £14k a year (See Here) for someone to deal with the press and write press releases etc ? You get what you pay for. We are small time and we get treated as such, and mainly we bring it all on ourselves.

[deluded pom?]

Easy remedy. Don't buy the Telegraph.

[Bulletproof]

getdownmonkeyman, on 28 January 2012 - 09:14 AM, said:

Spot on. Which makes the RFLs decision to move bodies to Media City to schmooze, hopefully, the BBC all the more laudable.

It was the right decision from both parties. Right for the BBC to finally branch out from London and right for the RFL to try to take full advantage.

[Bostik Bailey]

Guess what the pope is Caltholic

[Saintslass]

foozler, on 28 January 2012 - 12:34 AM, said:

To be fair to the Guardian, the online has an article about Stobart. I have been in touch with Andy Wilson on the Guardian about his blog "Set of Six" which seemed to work pretty well last year. Seems he is uncertain at this late point whether it will go ahead, although seeing that he has been in Dubai covering the cricket, he hasn't really got his RL head on.

Oh that's disappointing. I got the impression from what he said last season that the blog was gaining contributors. I do hope it does go ahead again as without Andy's blog there will be no RL blogs left will there?

[snoopy]

Bulletproof, on 28 January 2012 - 12:43 AM, said:

We can do all the soul searching we want to about where we've gone wrong but the truth of the matter is like parliament and business the media in this country is only concerned with London and views the rest of the country as some sort of backwater. Until this is addressed sports like ours will never get what we deserve no matter how we court them or what product we put out. London press, London focus.

If you want the National Media to take an interest you need to be a National Sport. If you want to keep the sport along the M62 don't complain when the sport is seen as a minority one played in the North and so is largely ignored.

[Leeds Wire]

Saintslass, on 28 January 2012 - 07:59 PM, said:

Oh that's disappointing. I got the impression from what he said last season that the blog was gaining contributors. I do hope it does go ahead again as without Andy's blog there will be no RL blogs left will there?

Aye. Set of six was consistently entertaining reading last season.

[Bulletproof]

snoopy, on 28 January 2012 - 08:58 PM, said:

If you want the National Media to take an interest you need to be a National Sport. If you want to keep the sport along the M62 don't complain when the sport is seen as a minority one played in the North and so is largely ignored.

Well I have two things to say to this. One, nobody on here has suggested seriously now or ever keeping the sport along the m62. There are people with differing degrees of support towards expansion but that's it. Two, it's abut the London media. Always has been. League isn't big in London despite the broncos best efforts, and like a lot of things in this country sports coverage is dominated by people in the capital.

I hasten to add I've not bashed the broncos recently and have been more often given to offering my support than writing them off. This post is a complete irrelevance.

[Bulliac]

Tommy The C5t, on 27 January 2012 - 10:54 PM, said:

TBH I sacked the Guardian last week once they stopped the sports pull out and had reversed back to putting the sports content on the last four pages.

No RL so far this week despite Stobart and the sale of Odsal.

I think Andy Wilson, who would probably have been doing any reportage on TGG, is abroad somewhere covering some cricket matches. Not that the Grauniad has ever 'done' RL very enthusiastically. I usually checked the old sports section for RL news by going backwards, even looking at the RU headlines, just in case, until I hit the mass of soccer coverage which is the bulk of the section(usually five or six pages) and then, after finding none, putting it in the recycling bin, basically unread.

I buy the paper because, whilst it often chimes in with my personal world view, it also challenges it, on a daily basis, not what you get from most national papers, which have a very determined left/though mostly right wing, bias. I have to say that they can push RU as much as they want, this gentleman is not for turning.

[deluded pom?]

The Daily Star always challeges my train of thought.

[steef]

snoopy, on 28 January 2012 - 08:58 PM, said:

If you want the National Media to take an interest you need to be a National Sport. If you want to keep the sport along the M62 don't complain when the sport is seen as a minority one played in the North and so is largely ignored.

So why do Northern editions have Union in them? there are only 2 teams up here, neither of which many people give a stuff about.