I notice that on Saorview, RTE has more channels than any other independent service. On the radio side, RTE radio channels are there, but no independent stations such as Newstalk 106 or Today FM, it is all just RTE. I say it again, RTE strangles competition, and this needs to be addressed now by the Irish government.
If their an Ofcom variation in Ireland that regulates Irish broadcasting?
Saorview = 11 television channels, of which six are RTE run. On radio there are 10 stations, 9 RTE stations and 1 Catholic station - no independents at all. Fair? No.
There's nothing stopping Independents going on Saorview, they choose not to for good reason. There would be very few listeners for extra transmission costs. The reason that the Catholic station is on Saorview is that they have no FM licences plus Saorview only households are very much over 55 and their target market.
To be fair here RTE isn't stopping TV competition on Saorview, Why would any broadcaster go on it when they're already reaching 90% of the population If they're on Sat, Cable and Freeview. The example here would be the Channel 4 family of Channels.
The problem with Commerical TV in Ireland (as in Virgin/TV3) is poor, poor management. It's not RTE's fault, but they would do everything in their power to make you think it is. Irish Commerical Radio has no problem making profits against a much stronger RTE radio product.
When I look as an outside at Virgin Media One channel, I see it is a version of ITV for the Irish republic, and that is the problem.
They are good at producing cheap studio based programmes, their online content is truly appalling, especially their news. It is as if they have not realised they have a news section on their website.
Virgin Media Ireland could be so much better, with even a little bit more money invested properly, and with an understanding of what each channel is for. It seems they have no idea what to do with Virgin Media Two and Three. Are they really needed?
The problem is that it's a half baked version of ITV that they're providing. If the three stations were scheduled properly then there would be some growth but it's repeats of repeats while new episodes are going out on ITV. Add to this that about half the households in the country can only get Virgin Media in very poor SD (well below BBC and ITV SD), most of those households can watch ITV or UTV in HD, Which would you choose?
As for their home-produced content in studio, it's generally rubbish. The News (which is their most-watched home-produced programme) Is acceptable but it's basically the same bulletin put out at 5.30, 7.00, 8 and 10. The only Studio based show outside of news that ever makes their top twenty is Tonight which does well for it's time slot. Almost no one is watching the other shows. They seem to just have them to show that that they're putting out Irish content.
On top of all that they keep advertising services and shows that are not available to 80% of their audience, for example, Virgin Sport or other content available on the cable system.
Add to all of that the name, it's daft! TV3 was at least recognisable, If you were going to change the name you'd just change it to one word... It's still called TV3 by most people, but even those in the media have problems. When it's been discussed on the radio it has been called...Virgin Media TV, Virgin Television, VMTV, Virgin Media One, and just Virgin. I'm sure there are others.
