:et's hope an announcement gets made this week. At this stage I just want to know what the future is. But I think the writing is on the wall.
As for UTV Ireland - I honestly think it will close because it will continue to make losses and ITV won't want big losses obviously.
Therefore, I think TV3 will get the ITV shows back.
Or ITV might decide to take a risk and keep it going but I can't really see it remaining open personally. Let's hope we find out what the facts are this week.
I think it would be far more cost effective to cut their losses and make TV3 an "ITV affiliate", perhaps taking a share in the channel (lets not forget that TV3's owner owns a 9.9% stake in ITV, so they are hardly strangers)
Totally agree. In fact I wouldn't be surprised to see TV3 disappear sometime in the near future too with the two channels (TV3 and UTV Ireland) becoming ITV Ireland.
As for Northern Ireland, I can't see the Ulster name being used myself. The Ulster name seems quite a controversial subject...
:et's hope an announcement gets made this week. At this stage I just want to know what the future is. But I think the writing is on the wall.
As for UTV Ireland - I honestly think it will close because it will continue to make losses and ITV won't want big losses obviously.
Therefore, I think TV3 will get the ITV shows back.
Or ITV might decide to take a risk and keep it going but I can't really see it remaining open personally. Let's hope we find out what the facts are this week.
I think it would be far more cost effective to cut their losses and make TV3 an "ITV affiliate", perhaps taking a share in the channel (lets not forget that TV3's owner owns a 9.9% stake in ITV, so they are hardly strangers)
Totally agree. In fact I wouldn't be surprised to see TV3 disappear sometime in the near future too with the two channels (TV3 and UTV Ireland) becoming ITV Ireland.
As for Northern Ireland, I can't see the Ulster name being used myself. The Ulster name seems quite a controversial subject...
I don't think TV3 have to worry at all because there is already an established audience and there isn't really a huge percentage of ITV programming on it really.
They have their own soap and news/entertainment programmes and the rest of programming is really films and imports.
Instead of itv waiting around until the itv contracts run out they'll just sell off the rights to corrie and emmerdale to rte or tv3.
To me, that's less hassle for itv whereas keeping a dead horse will be huge hassle for them.
If UTV Ireland didn't run into so much debt there would have been a chance but I doubt there will be a chance. Maybe I'm being too negative but if I was ITV I'd be concerned about the debt in ROI.
:et's hope an announcement gets made this week. At this stage I just want to know what the future is. But I think the writing is on the wall.
As for UTV Ireland - I honestly think it will close because it will continue to make losses and ITV won't want big losses obviously.
Therefore, I think TV3 will get the ITV shows back.
Or ITV might decide to take a risk and keep it going but I can't really see it remaining open personally. Let's hope we find out what the facts are this week.
I think it would be far more cost effective to cut their losses and make TV3 an "ITV affiliate", perhaps taking a share in the channel (lets not forget that TV3's owner owns a 9.9% stake in ITV, so they are hardly strangers)
Totally agree. In fact I wouldn't be surprised to see TV3 disappear sometime in the near future too with the two channels (TV3 and UTV Ireland) becoming ITV Ireland.
As for Northern Ireland, I can't see the Ulster name being used myself. The Ulster name seems quite a controversial subject...
I don't think TV3 have to worry at all because there is already an established audience and there isn't really a huge percentage of ITV programming on it really.
They have their own soap and news/entertainment programmes and the rest of programming is really films and imports.
Instead of itv waiting around until the itv contracts run out they'll just sell off the rights to corrie and emmerdale to rte or tv3.
To me, that's less hassle for itv whereas keeping a dead horse will be huge hassle for them.
If UTV Ireland didn't run into so much debt there would have been a chance but I doubt there will be a chance. Maybe I'm being too negative but if I was ITV I'd be concerned about the debt in ROI.
There's a difference between a debt and a loss. Any new station would be running at a loss after year one, and I'd imagine a sizeable chunk of the £11.5 million loss is incurred from set up costs.
And think about it, aside from set up costs and the general day to day running of the station, who is the main beneficiary of UTV Ireland? ITV Studios.
Their two biggest expenses would be paying the quite expensive Saorview transmission fees and running the Irish news service. One thing which they may consider as an option is to cut both. Nearly everything else is shared with UTV NI.
MR
mr_vivian
From looking at twitter ROI miss UTV NI since UTV Ireland launched because they were able to view UTV NI and that was what they were used to.
If ITV just gives ROI ITV and not a ITV Ireland then I have hopes it would be successful.
But, TV3 are still holding onto certain ITV programming contracts which complicates this.
THE sale of North of Ireland broadcaster UTV Media’s television division to ITV will include its UTV Ireland channel, it has been confirmed.
UTV’s decision to sell and become a radio-only business first came to light in August.
Since then, there had been uncertainty over whether the sale would include the struggling Irish channel, which launched in January.
UTV Ireland is expected to lose almost £12million this year.
A UTV spokeswoman confirmed that UTV Ireland will be sold along with the Belfast TV station, the Belfast Telegraph reports.
The spokeswoman said: “I can confirm that our TV assets include both UTV and UTV Ireland – talks have always been about the sale of both TV channels.”
UTV broadcasts many of the North of Ireland’s most popular shows, with TV personalities Eamonn Holmes and Gloria Hunniford making their names on the channel.
UTV has operated a television station in the North of Ireland since 1959 and has radio businesses in Britain and the Republic of Ireland, including talkSPORT.
The company expanded into television in the Republic in January but it has had little success in finding an audience.
The multi-million pound deal is expected to conclude this week.
It’s the latest move by ITV to take over regional broadcasters who hold the Channel 3 licence.
I think this proves that the adage "owning an ITV franchise is a way of printing your own money" is very much dead and buried.
UTV will die as a brand and I can see both stations being rebranded as ITV. Which of course is a shame as Ulster Television has been around for 56 years.
So it's very much a case of 14 down... only one more to go! However luckily STV seems far from being dead and buried just yet.
