The Late Late Gay Byrne Irish Television Thread

Ahh now that makes sense!

https://twitter.com/JP_Biz

UTV selling tv division to ITV according to various reports.

http://belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/news/end-of-an-era-as-utv-sells-off-its-television-division-to-itv-31469190.html

Edit not clear yet if the new "UTV Ireland" is included.

Shock news - not an inkling that this was coming.

End of an era is right, UTV was an institution, an ITV company like no other, at least since 1993. Presumably within a year or two it will be ITV Northern Ireland, indistinguishable from any other ITV region, and the last bastion of in-vision continuity in the UK will be gone.

And what of UTV Ireland? Whether or not it goes with it, it's future now has to be up in the air. If it stays with a UTV no longer interested in TV and without the synergies on the transmission end it had with it, will it make sense for UTV (or whatever new name it adopts) to persevere with it in the long run? If it goes with UTV NI to ITV, will the new owners run the numbers and go for a quick closure? Or will they stick with it and make it ITV Ireland. It's in their power to do what Channel 4 do and start buying rights on a UK and Ireland basis, which could strengthen the channel in the long run.

As someone who has lived in UTV land their entire life I have waited many years for this to happen. It's great news. At last we will get rid of poor presentation, low quality cameras, patronising presenters and hopefully Julian. This is GREAT news for TV fans in Northern Ireland. Only people looking with rose tinted glasses would ever want to cling on to the rubbish that is UTV!

Confirmed today that UPC Ireland is changing its name to Virgin Media:

http://www.upc.ie/about-us/press/2015/upc-confirms-plans-to-become-virgin-media-in-ireland/

Today's Sunday Times has reported that RTE One HD and RTE Player are to launch on Sky with the addition of some RTE stations on Sky Go in a new 5 year deal. The new deal may also include some RTE TV stations on a Sky UK subscription.

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/ireland/Business/News/article1600165.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2015_08_29

There have been plans from RTE to launch an international channel since 2008: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT%C3%89_Ireland

Will believe it when I see it, although in fact there is very little original content on RTE I want to see, and that's the problem. Their better option surely is to strike a content deal rather than launch a UK channel, whether that is for channels to show their content or Sky to offer an RTE On Demand channel in the UK.

RTÉ have been getting the jump on UK channels for some shows, like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and Homeland. Adding them to the player would be welcome.

I doubt we'd see those on Sky Player in the UK. I think we're talking RTE's own programming rather than imports.

That's yet another Wikipedia article about an "expected" channel that in fact is no more concrete than a vague idea. It's something that various people, mostly politicans, have wanted to do for a long time (since Tara closed) but RTE has never been more than lukewarm about the idea, never mind done anything much to actively progress it. The international Player is as good as it gets for the moment.

RTE launched its new Irish langauge strategy yesterday and one thing it will me is that, if it is followed through, bilingual and Irish continuity announcements before English langauge programmes are to become the norm. Some programmes, such as GAA, are to be preceded by Irish continuity announcements always. Now I don't mind Irish continuity announcements before Irish langauge peogrammes, but to do them before English programmes seems an odd form of lip service.