UTV eyes up bid to take over 'debt laden' TV3

Did this happen during he 1970s? and 1980s?

When the first one started I don't know, but the biggest, South Coast TV, went on air in 1985. They turned into quite big operations. They were run by volunteers mostly through "donations" but in areas where they operated there would have been quite the pressure for you to "donate" from your neighbours. They were illegal but It got to the point where a TD (MP) was elected in Donegal in 1997 on the back of a campaign to legalise them. The ensuing government was a minority government and relied on the support of the independents and so legalised them (though whether they ever paid any royalties to the BBC/ITV/C4/S4C, much less actually went and copyright cleared their transmissions, is unknown - most of them were, as I said, run quite amatuerly). Around that time South Coast TV even went so far as to start an MMDS service (they called it a "terrestrial satellite" - an oxymoron - in order to distance themselves from the licenced MMDS operators which they had been quite critical of before, but the service was MMDS.)

That was the high point of the deflectors. Sky started carrying the UK terrestrials which up to then had only been on cable/MMDS. Suddenly the UK channels were available to anyone in the state that wanted them. The move of the UK channels to free to air worsened the situation. People stopped paying the donations. Most of them closed down eventually and they are now illegal again since 1st January. There may be one or two isolated cases of them still operating though.

... as for a name, arguably, UTV Group's most well known brand in the UK and indeed developing a worldwide presence is Talk Radio, if they were to rename, something along the lines of Talk Media Group would be better, had the name not already been taken.

That'll be the station that's been called TalkSPORT for the last 13 years.

Yes, and the name of the parent company is hardly relevant to the conversation.

Would I be right in assuming that parts of Northern Ireland have always been able to pick up Irish stations through their aerial, and vice versa?

Interestingly, when I was in Northern Ireland, STV was available as a secondary 'ITV' region on cable, but RTE wasn't.

Yes - and AIUI they're now officially available in Northern Ireland as a 7th DTT mux (SD but using DVB-T2?)

Correct - RTE One, Two and TG4 are available, TV3 is not (except via overspill).

In case people are wondering why TG4 launched before TV3, I'd like to point out it launched as TnaG before changing around 5 years later.

People seem to forget that there's a second channel to consider here as well, the woefully named 3e.

Growing up in (London)Derry in the 1980s, we could pick up RTÉ 1 and RTÉ (Network) 2 easily with an indoor aerial, but when my family moved to Craigavon, without installing a lofty roof aerial, we couldn't pick the channels up (although plenty of our neighbours could, and did).

Mind you, siting transmitters in prime locations close to the Border helped increase RTÉ penetration as much as physically possible in the Six Counties. The opposite to early worried musings at the BBC and/or ITA that constructing a transmitter in Strabane would openly beam their signals into "a foreign country"!

There's plenty of towns on the North Coast of NI that could pick up Border (or sometimes STV) on a clear day - I recall seeing a hazy Border signal at a relation's house in Whitehead over 20 years ago.

Interesting aside but the requirement that Republic of Ireland broadcasters increase their reach into Northern Ireland (specifically in the area of Irish language) was put by someone related to another board member on here, to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland back in 1998 and she thought it a super idea for sharing values and so on that it made it's way into the Belfast Agreement. Only took 14 years and digital switchover to happen...

On the topic of the potential takeover of TV3, it'd be interesting from the point of view that utv has almost looked like a company stepping away from television in the last few years rather than strategising to make future profits from acquisitions on the platform. Does TV3 have any PSB requirements?

Yes, though quite what they are is quite hazy. The exact details of TV3's contract with the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland are not public knowledge.

What we do know is that at present, on weekdays, there is a number of short bulletins during Ireland AM (between 7-10am), an extended summary around midday (during, er, Midday), a half-hour news bulettin at 5:30pm, and an hour long current affairs programme at 11pm. There are only short summaries at weekends. There is also an hour-long current affairs programme broadcast in prime time on Wednesdays. This is not including the half-hour daily news bulletin on 3e which does not have PSB requirements. TV3 don't do much sport, but they hold the first-pick rights for Tuesday night Champions League and Thursday night Europa League, and show a small number of GAA Championship games during the summer, including both All-Ireland minor (under-18 ) finals. Practically all their other home produced programmes are talk shows of one type or another. They rarely do drama.

This is quite different BTW to the pattern when they started, which was an hour long news bulettin at 6pm, an half-hour news bulettin at 11pm, and a half-hour sports bulletin at 11:30pm. There was no Ireland AM in those days but there was a half-hour news bulettin at weekends, which ran (albeit at 5:30pm) until comparatively recently.