The Late Late Gay Byrne Irish Television Thread

There are new TV programme adverts from Virgin which include VM Ireland logos & separate adverts with TV3's current channel logos.

I just spotted an ident for TV3 promoting the change.
It features a clip of the Virgin TV promo with the 3 logo in white over its purple background and then it changes to the new VM One logo in a red background.
A caption on the bottom reads "Virgin Media One. The new name for TV3. Coming soon"
I reckon the same has been done for 3e/VM Two and be3/VM Three

I just heard that Virgin Media Sport will launch in Ireland with it's first match on Tuesday the 18th of September.

https://www.virginmedia.ie/virgin-media-sports/

I’ve only the Virgin Media Three one - it’s in place of the break bumper. Doesn’t feature the Be3 name at all.

During a wander around the Northside of Dublin yesterday, I saw quite a few Virgin Media One adverts on the sides of buses and at bus stop shelters.

Again, I'll eat a pair of socks if this rebrand is a roaring success. Also, having lived in Ireland for the last 17 years - more than four-fifths of TV3's lifetime - I reckon I'm going to have trouble referring to Ireland AM as a Virgin Media One show and Colette Fitzpatrick as a Virgin Media One newscaster, among other things.

If this rebrand *does* fail, what does that mean for the future of the Virgin Media brand in Ireland?

Well, presumably it will be “Virgin Media News” for Colette.

I agree though, the channel names are mouthfuls the likes of which we haven’t seen since BT Sport ESPN or UKTVG2. I think we discussed a while back that there are certain limitations to their brand licensing agreement that mean it has to be “Virgin Media” rather than just “Virgin”, and anything else would render the rebrand pointless anyway. Be fun to see how the papers/EPGs squeeze them in.

So will the 3News Ireland which was relaunched a few years a go with a newly revamped Studio 1 is now going to be called Virgin Media News, what a dreadful comedown.

It also takes away the fact that TV3 News or 3News had an Irish feel to it, whilst Virgin Media News could be used for any of their brand across the UK and Ireland, and it seems totally misguided and I think a different name should be used.

This rebrand will be a disaster I feel, and totally misguided. The Irish will not warm to this new look, they prefer stability, this is why RTE has been so successful.

Well, I said “I presume” - don’t take it as gospel!

But I mean, what else would they call it, given we are getting Virgin Media One, Two, Three, and Sport. It fits the brand that they are trying to establish. There’s nothing particularly Irish about “TV3”, as I’m sure the people of New Zealand, Catalonia, or half a dozen Nordic countries could tell you.

Is it wrong of me to kind of *want* this rebrand to fail?

IMHO, it reeks of vanity on Virgin Media Ireland's part more than anything else - even more so than when Central and Westcountry were Carltonised. (Indeed, in Central's case, the name change didn't exactly come out of the blue.)

It also makes far less sense than RTÉ2 becoming Network 2 in 1988 (and then becoming RTÉ2 again in 2004), or Antenne 2 and FR3 becoming France 2 and France 3 respectively in 1992.

And I know TV channels and confections are not the same thing at all - but this rebrand even makes less sense than Opal Fruits and Marathon becoming Starburst and Snickers respectively...

What I've seen is awful. TV3's current look is excellent, it just seems needless dumbing down for the sake of brand consistency.

You know you're in trouble when you're talking about dumbing down from TV3's current level.

Now if they called it Virgin Media Oneness on the other hand...