UTV to launch channel in Republic of Ireland

Yes, I was aware of this development. But the fact is the success of ITV content may have well been subsidising home produced content. So they might have even less money to spend on it now.


Their expenditure on programming will have dropped as a result of this and no matter what spin they put on it, advertising revenues will too.

Fair point Jon. I also question the wisdom of commissioning a twice weekly soap now - surely commissioning it as a weekly hour-long show rather than two half-hours makes more sense with viewing habits nowadays, and assuming the Irish ad structure isn't too disimilar to ours they get an extra internal break by airing the two half-hours as one than if they air them separately. Only benefit I guess with it over two nights is it can prop up the night to an extent.

Here's how the announcement was reported on RTE. If you click on "audio" there's a seven minute radio snippet. The Julian Simmons issue is addressed at the very end.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/1106/484908-utv-channel/

Wouldn't be surprised to see Julian make the move to Dublin, he's certainly well known enough in the Republic to have appeared on a TV3 reality show. It wouldn't be bad if all the other continuity presenters were from the South.

Surely even UTV wouldn't launch a new channel with in-vision continuity.

Well the thought had crossed my mind that they probably wouldn't bother. But if one of the things they're going to be trading is the fact people already have some connection with the brand in the Republic they might want to emulate what they are known for. Also it would depend on much they wanted consistency between the two operations.

Corrrect me if I'm wrong, but I always understood that TV3's deal with ITV included The X Factor and numerous other programmes not produced by ITV Studios. Maybe ITV Studios Global Entertainment have the rights to sell X Factor UK to any other country, as the commissioning company?

They'd be shouting about it if they had the rights though.

Looking at TV3 tonight and tomorrow

X factor USA:
The Graham Norton Show
Waterloo Road
You are what you eat:
How Clean Is Your House?
America's Got Talent

Lets just Say UTV buys TV3, UTV could move introduce ITV2 to eire market, move content over to that site? and keep a number of of local programmes at the 9 and 10pm slots? 6pm proper news show could be good competition to RTE?

UTV couldn't introduce ITV2 to the Eire market - it's not UTV's to introduce.

I'm really sure X Factor UK is shown on TV3 as part of a deal with ITV. Maybe it's commissioned from FremantleMedia for the "UK and Ireland" and ITV just sell it on to TV3 as part of their contract?

But the current X factor only runs until 2014 does it not?