UTV Ireland

Was GMB that popular in Ireland? Considering it's called Good Morning Britain, Im surprised viewers are that bothered about it coming back.

That's what I didn't understand - seems like a knee jerk reaction to me - the breakfast TV audience in Ireland has never been massive.

Perhaps the Irish men wanted to experience the full ITV schedule through UTV?

There is a lot of very, very annoyed UPC customers who've had UTV for decades only to lose it in favour of UTV Ireland and this decision (which wasn't part of the original plan) is aimed at them more than anyone else. It makes UTV Ireland look more like ITV - the fact that it's not ITV is the biggest complaint of UPC customers customers. (and UPC customers prior to launch were sold on the idea that UTV Ireland would effectively be the 16th ITV franchise, something UTV have changed their tune about since launch)

Now, Mel and Sue and ITV News aside, UTV Ireland will be showing pretty much the entire ITV daytime schedule (and will be exactly the same as ITV from 6:00-13:30 on weekdays). Prime time and weekends still differ greatly and the biggest thing UTV need to do is to get the Thames/Syco shows which are still tied up with TV3 for a few years yet.

Just wondering - would there be anything to stop UPC putting the main ITV feed or another ITV region like HTV on their service ? Rights presumably wouldn't be an issue as they showed UTV North for years

ITV have sold the rights to UTV - there would be a huge rights issue.

Mmm they also sold the rights to tv3 and there didn't seem to be an issue UTV North being shown for years

It's two different countries.

The suggestion from UTV, though not explicitly stated, is that UPC were able to save the cost of clearing the rights by dropping UTV. Their line is "we didn't suggest it, but we agree with it". Which I don't fully believe. It suits UTV for UTV (NI) to be no longer available as it means UTV Ireland is the only place to see the shows they do have. The complaints will start up again when people find out ITV's football coverage is no longer available. Irish viewers can now see the European Qualifiers of every country in Europe - except for England and whatever second choice game ITV pick - these games have no Irish rights holder and are now "lost", to UPC viewers anyway.

That's why I didn't think that UPC actually paid anyone to show UTV Northerm Ireland - UTV Belfast or indeed ITV themselves didn't have the rights to sell the channel feed to UPC as the Irish rights to pretty much everything UTV Northern Ireland show were held elsewhere

In theory there is nothing to stop UPC relaying the Welsh Version of ITV as they can pick it up via overspill. They do and have had to pay rights to any UK terrestrial station that have been rebroadcast on the Cable Network. So they are saving money by not rebroadcasting UTV Ulster. However I'm suspicious of many of the complaints that have popped up about UTV Ireland on UPC. Some are obviously real but Some of the people that were complaining that UTV Ireland didn't have UTV Ulsters programmes are now the same people that are complaining that Good Morning Britain is going to be broadcast on the Station.

There's a very, very small Market in Ireland for Breakfast TV. Ireland AM is the Market leader because it was the only service on air. It's basically a mix of a Breakfast show and an infomercial. I don't think that Good Morning Britain will get more than 10 or 15,000 viewers but that would eat into the Ireland AM audience. Ireland AM has an audience of around 50,000-55,000. It wouldn't surprise me if many of the online complaints are coming from Ballymount (TV3's address)

ITV will be the main thing stopping ITV Wales (or other) broadcasting in Ireland though - they're not going to sell the rights to their content to UTV and then simply be able to sell the rights to rebroadcast another ITV varient themselves.

From UTV's point of view I guess it's quite simple that they'll be able to make more from selling advertising directly for the Irish market than as effectively overspill of the NI channel, and of course removing TV3 airing the same shows helps too.