UTV Ireland

UTV Ireland has been name dropped on GMB, with Ben and Susanna welcoming viewers. Yet to see the local news opt, however they messed up the 6.50am break, they started their break 5 seconds after ITV and then rejoined GMB 5 seconds too late.

EDIT: Ireland Live has just dropped out during the weather sponsorship to the GMB breakfiller. The bulletin was short and the 6.30 pm bulletin was promoted, it appears it's presented from the Dublin newsroom aswell.

Seen the opt-out, the bulletin finished too early and left with about 30 seconds of GMB holding loop. It looked pre-recorded (as expected)

And naturally Ireland is included on the GMB weather map now.

Random point, but just a matter of interest for me: What would Irish broadcasters do in the event of a royal death or other equivalent huge breaking British story if their primetime schedule depended on a feed from London?

I think what I'm saying is if it was Saturday night, as with the Queen Mother, at which point ITV has to interrupt its programming to announce the death of the Queen and then cancels the rest of its schedule for the night. Would TV3 traditionally have had tapes to broadcast the shows themselves? Presumably - given we've seen the ITV logo appear occasionally on UTV Ireland - they don't.

In the event of a major royal death I assume also TV3 and UTV Ireland would be left scrambling for alternative programming as well. TV3 wasn't on air during at the time of Princess Diana's death but you would imagine the death of the Queen would result in a week-long disruption to programming.

Initially, you'd think TV3 and UTV Ireland would want to report the news also.

After a while I'd imagine they'd show repeats or alternatively programmes.

They're bound to have a stash of repeats available should they not be able to rebroadcast ITV for whatever reason.

The only real example we have was Diana, Princess of Wales death which occurred before TV3 went on air. RTE dropped its regular programmes and ran special programming in that case. But I don't think an Irish broadcaster would do that again for any member of the Royal Family save perhaps the Queen herself, and even then perhaps only RTE. UTV or TV3 would likely broadcast repeats in such case.

I don't know, If something was big enough to disrupt schedules in the UK, it's almost certainly big enough news to disrupt them on RTE. News is News. Any Member of the Royal Family that was in line to the throne would clear the schedules for the first few hours anyway. It's not like the old days when there were no 24 hour news stations. If there's a Newsflash or such on BBC or ITV now, it's Major News breaking.

It's not really an issue for TV3 anymore, most of their ITV shows are repeats at this stage anyway. UTV Ireland would have an issue on Day 2 and 3. There would probably be a lot of programmes looking back at the history of Coronation Street and such like.

RTE didn't run that many special programmes on the day though - their first news bulletin on the Sunday didn't air until 1pm - I remember being amazed they were showing an episode of the Waltons after the morning service rather than doing News especially when they could have plugged in Euro News or CNN - they extended the Six One news to cover her body being returned, went back to normal with Corrie until 9.00 and ran a Prime Time special after the 9.00 News until 10.00 when they went back to normal programmes.

There was a bulletin at either 8 or 9am on the Sunday. I remember because I was sleeping on a friends couch that weekend and they woke me up to turn on the News. (oh for the days when there was only one TV set in a house) It was never a good sign to see an RTE News programme on at that time. If it had happened in the afternoon or evening there would have been a different reaction I think. When the first Gulf War broke out, RTE1 closed down, showed the clock and the anthem. I remember the test card coming up and that was that for the night. Watched a Video with friends and when it finished an Hour later, CNN was on the RTE1 channel and there was a RTE News Headlines on the hour thru the night. A bit bizarre as no one would have known it was on at that stage expect thru chance.

The Time of the Stardust Nightclub fire in 1981 which was an Irish Tragedy RTE had a bulletin on the Saturday Morning but they then went to Anything Goes (their Saturday Morning Kids programmes) That would never happen now on RTE1. Times change.

I'm sure UTV Ireland would be factored into the plans for any royal death, seeing as they are very thoroughly rehearsed.

However, what is the plan should a story of global importance break? For instance, another major terrorist attack along the lines of 9/11. Would Ireland Live be expected to cover it, or would they screen ITV News for rolling coverage?

I'd assume that they'd cover it and relay either ITN or another News Service if needs be. TV3 for example would relay CNN as they have in the past (if they decided to cover the event)

Would be interesting as UTV Ireland don't have an agreement with iTV News and the news access rules don't cover it