UTV Ireland

To be fair that could pretty much be any series. I assume the reruns are from the revived series so I find it a bit odd that TV3 actually have the rights.

As someone said earlier though TV3 have the upper hands with the weekend schedule generally - Ant and Dec is the exception when it comes to the big hits as generally the ITV produced entertainment shows are the weaker ones. Strange that neither of them have Take Me Out - I know TV3 have (or had) their own version but if it's popular enough for them to make an Irish version I'd have thought one of them would be airing the series.

UTV Ireland will be significantly weakened at weekends after SNT when BGT starts up, and in the Autumn when TV3 have the Rugby World Cup, X Factor & Downton. Don't TV3 have the Bake Off - is it the phenomenon it is over here over there ?

I presume that UTV aren't in the market to commission any big entertainment shows themselves and will use other ITV content (drama or entertainment) to counter.

They can't be weakened as they are not competing at the weekends right now It seems that they are concentrating on Primetime Monday to Friday and that's about it. They don't seem to making any effort towards the weekend and I doubt they will until the Summer at the earliest. X factor will Give TV3 a boost. Downton Abbey has never done well for TV3 in the past and it's possibly going to be the last series anyway. As for the Rugby world Cup, If Ireland do well they'll make a profit (just!) However there are maybe 10 to 12 big games over a month and lots of games that almost no one will watch.

UTV Ireland plan seems to just relay as much ITV content as possible with a decent News Service thrown in and the odd Irish produced show. They were never going to break any new ground. Having said that, even with all the suspicious negative press and comments they're on target so far and will probably make the profits they said they'd make in the long run. The Soaps are the Key to success or Failure. They're on 52 weeks a year and provide steady viewership. You can build a station around them. TV3 never got that and now they're suffering the consequences.

Frampton v Avalos will air on UTV Ireland:

http://utv.ie/Sport/2015/02/18/UTV-Ireland-to-air-Framptons-Bantamweight-Challenge-31957

The more I see oF UTV Ireland the more it seems more and more of a vanity project rather than a serious operation which presumably is how TV3 seem to be looking at them - i.e. not taking them that seriously

I agree TV3 should be worried - they seem to have seriously undervalued the popularity of what is essentially an ITV Ireland / ITV Gold operation. I think they (TV3) need to look at their overall scheduling strategy and move away from their typical target audience and start from scratch in peak time - from the current schedule it's not that obvious who they see their typical audience as being at the moment.

I think UTV will need to revisit their projected losses as well, as payback on ads will start, and probably carry on through the summer.

The current abandonment of the weekends is a big mistake on both their parts in my opinion.

I'd have to agree with a lot of this but the UTV figures do appear to add up. They don't appear to have any interest in providing a service outside of 6pm to Midnight. Basically What you're getting from 6am to 6pm is a relay of ITV which probably isn't costing them much. As they said before if they didn't have the soaps they wouldn't have launched down here. They reckon they can make a profit on the soaps, Something they've been doing in the North for decades. In the meantime TV3 claimed that the soaps were losing them money which doesn't make sense at all. However, if the soaps stay at the same level and they can bring in an average of 100,000 - 150,000 viewers a night for 5 nights between 8 and 11 for other programmes they will be well on their way to making a decent profit. They are already half way there and Probably will have the numbers they need for the rest of the weekday schedule by the start of Next Year.

That's basically what was happening on TV3. The Soaps were bringing in the huge figures and the rest of the shows were riding on the coat tails. Now the soaps are gone TV3 have no shows basically on a week to week basis that bring in the big numbers and all the other shows can't break 100,000. There are probably 15-20 Nights in total between Now and the end of June where they might have more than 300,000 tuning into a show. That's a recipe for closure. TV3 have already cost the Irish Taxpayer appox 180 million euro, They got away with write offs because their was a worry there would be no other start up. UTV Ireland has burst that bubble so if they make losses you could see Their owners in London Doughty Hanson pushing the off button fairly quickly.

That's an odd move. Doctors, Home and Away, and Neighbours all take breaks, but not for three months!

Well they've committed to 80 eps a year over 2 years (and because of BAI funding they probably have to stick to that) So that means they've enough for 40 weeks in a year. They will almost certainly pull it over July and August and then perhaps when the rugby is on but who knows with TV3. I would presume that there will be an encore presentation of the whole series again when fresh episodes are off the air. Every other show is repeated forever so I can't see this being an exception, but it's no way to build an audience.

Again it's actually not fair to those making the series as it's not bad at all and would have a future if it were on any other station. If the makers can sell it aboard it might have a chance.

That makes sense - didn't Fair City used to take a summer sabbatical as well ??

It did but it had to be stopped. Fair City took a awful long time to settle in and it was noticed that the break in the summer was causing problems when it came back with lower numbers each autumn. They put on a episode a week over the summer to keep the audience interested and as the years progressed that has expanded. But if Fair City had been made by a commercial Station it would have been Cancelled very early on. It was only because it had the resources of RTE that they could wait the years it took for it to become a hit.

St Patrick's Day postcards:

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When did the channel start broadcasting Sesame Street?