The Late Late Gay Byrne Irish Television Thread

You can watch it here: http://www.tv3.ie/news.php

What's interesting about that is that the "half-hour" bulletin is actually only 15 minutes long. Granted, that excludes the weather forecast, but it is still a scary amount of ads.

It doesn't include the 5 or 6 minutes of Sport either, but your point is valid. TV3 shows are almost unwatchable at times with the amount of ads that they squeeze in. This bulletin is basically a warmed up version of the 5.30. There will be very little difference most nights. It will be interesting to see how they handle a breaking story.

This bulletin of course is a very quick fix to a schedule where they actually seem to be short of programmes. Almost all of their new shows failed miserably in the ratings. (The restaurant being the only exception) They pulled half of them and Red Rock might not be around for much longer with people leaving production companies and it's regarded as a bit of failure within the sector, which is slightly unfair but ratings are shocking.

The only show that has pulled in half decent figures has been their poorly resourced news department. If they can pull in half the audience they have at 5:30 it'll be regarded as a success (and will be a top 10 show.) That might give the rest of the evening an anchor it's being lacking over the last few months. But it does look like one of those stations in the states that loses Network affiliation and slowly declines month after month.

Purely from a presentational point of view although not to everyones taste that looks leagues ahead of UTV Ireland, not that UTV is the barometer of current news identity.

This year was always going to be tough for TV3 and will pretty much be a write off I'm sure - I suspect their main aim will be to be in a better position at the end of the year than they were at the beginning.

I don't know, I think it's a dead heat in last place for awful presentation (in very different ways of course) There's nothing wrong with content, TV3's News Market is not The RTE News Market. In fact all three have very different approaches. UTV Ireland's is the most bizarre. There's a lot of good journalism in there but in a format that seems to be stuck in mid 80's Europe. But a lot of money being thrown at it.

TV3 News is fine but it's terribly under resourced. 15 minutes is about all they can do with what they've got. Breaking stories in recent months have resulted in a Q and A session at the desk with a TV3 Journalist just giving out what the wires are reporting. Meanwhile RTE and UTV had pictures and reporters on the scene. The 1 news story from Cork a day is usually a press release that has been doing the rounds for ages before it gets onto TV3.

Their Studios and On Air Captions are awful on UTV Ireland, On TV3 they're no better. The Studio makes no visual sense when they go to Sports. I don't understand that at all, Virtual Studios can look fine if done well.

This year didn't have to be tough for TV3, they had 15 months Notice of what was coming. It's almost as if it were a surprise that soaps had gone on the 1st of January. Unlike RTE and UTV they can't afford to write off this year. Their viewing figures have never been this low in primetime and that includes the time when only 60% of the population could receive them. I wouldn't be surprised if they make major cutbacks the week after the Rugby World Cup finishes if not beforehand.

Nothing quite says desperation like a news bulletin scheduled in the heart of primetime.

I notice TV3 bigging up the success of 'You're Back in the Room' for them on Saturday nights in a press release, although I have no idea how good those figures are in relation to everything else.

https://www.tv3.ie/pr_sub.php?type=1&view_pr=736

Well they have nothing else at this stage. A Bulletin in the heart of primetime might work but all your other programmes would have to change and that's very unlikely to be happening. All TV3 press releases need to be taken with a pinch of Salt. In the first line they added up all the viewers from the four weeks to get that figure. If other stations did that the Late Late would reach 20 Million Viewers a year!!!

They actually had a good Saturday Night by TV3 Standards. The Show about the Graham Dwyer case got 118,000 Adults watching at 10 up against The Saturday Night Show on RTE.

TV3 are currently in a shocking state. They basically lost 40% of their viewers in January because of the ITV shows and Soaps leaving. What viewers are left have been down week after week over the last 2 months. At the end of January judge judy Used to need about 90,000 Adults over 15 to make the weekly Top 20 shows. At the end of March she only needs 72,000

(Had to edit as Judge Judy Disappeared from the final paragraph... much like many TV3 viewers )

So a TV3 buyout on the cards :

http://news.sky.com/story/1466127/buyout-firms-broadcast-bids-for-irelands-tv3

The Sunday Business Post has been running similar stories for weeks, but nothing beyond speculation at this stage.

Wonder if we could see interest from Viacom or Discovery Networks. With Viacom now owning Channel 5 and Discovery swooping in on SBS in Scandinavia and Germany, they are definitely both interested in the European market. Backed by an equity group, one of these options would probably be the best outcome for TV3. A private equity purchase alone will struggle. Content is the issue.

Well, this was obviously coming. They want to get out while figures still look fairly healthy. This time Next year, losses will probably be roughly the same as UTV Irelands for 2015, but with no long term Plan and little content. In fact the only really assets they have at this stage is their HD studio. They'll be lucky if they get a fifth of what they paid for it (and that's being wildly optimistic.) I can actually see it closing completely if they don't have a buyer this year.

However if someone does buy it with some idea of how to run a TV station the future for TV3 would all of a sudden start to look a lot brighter.

TV3 will show Big Brother UK from this summer.

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/television/tv-news/been-missing-big-brother-since-it-went-to-channel-5-its-coming-to-irish-tv-courtesy-of-tv3-31172513.html