So this concludes the UTV Ireland saga.
UTV now owned by ITV plc and UTV Ireland is owned by TV3 (The channel it was supposed to beat)
To be fair it's John Malone and Virgin that came to the rescue of TV3 and then UTV Ireland. Two basket-cases of stations even though they shouldn't have been if they had actually run their operations correctly. The only true winners here are the ITV group, where they'll get a handsome amount from the TV3 group over the next 10 years with none of the losses.
As mentioned in another post I feel sorry for the staff who lost their jobs caught up in the vanity project that was UTV Ireland. Must be pretty galling as well for the UTV board who saw their then profitable TV business decimated. One wonders what would have happened if the Dublin staff had been allowed to run it independently from the 'experts' in Belfast.
On the news front it's a shame the female anchor didn't jump to TV3 - she was UTV Irelands only talent asset imo