Virgin Media Ireland to sell its TV stake?

I'd say a simple no, there must be one thousand other Media enterprises that would be more attractive than VMTV.

I'd suggest that there are a lot more watching Channel 5 in Ireland than most of us think, There's a reason it's still listed in most TV Guides and Newspapers in Ireland. (Including the RTE Guide.)

It's also the case that there are about 40% of homes at this stage that don't have traditional paid TV in Ireland, of those about 8% only have Saorview. Now this figure is growing every day, there's less and less reason to pay SKY for their TV package when all the main UK stations are free to air off satellite or Freeview and all the ones that might have tempted people onto the SKY platform seem to have gone free to air in recent years (Dave, Sky Arts, etc)

I know a lot of these people and most of them have UK EPG's on their TV's (using a Belfast postcode) or Sky boxes. Some top-up their SKY viewing with half-price deals from NOW TV, None of these people watch VMTV. They will turn over to the Saorview box for RTE Stuff, but they're not watching VMTV. The main reason being the picture quality is awful It's a lot worse than SD on the main Satellite Stations.

Before the current situation, I would visit elderly relatives in Nursing Homes, you'd often see ITV on the TV's in the Sitting rooms.

It would be interesting to see if Saorview was turned off for a month and then we looked at viewing figures for Irish stations. I would think that with the exception of RTE1, the rest would lose more than 2/3's of their audience immediately. When you look at the figures the 8% of Saorview only homes could be providing more than half of all regular Irish TV viewers.

I can actually see how they would be happy to get rid of VMTV at this point, it will be nothing but a drain on finances for decades to come if they hold onto it. It's an easy win for someone in Corporate, Increase profits by just getting rid of the TV stations.

Reading about cable television in Ireland, I am truly amazed at how quick and widespread cable television took off in Ireland. I would never have thought such a small country could have so many cable companies originally, all supplying the main UK stations to cities and large towns in Ireland.

It is interesting reading how much a need for the UK stations there were in what was originally called "one channel land" and later "two channel land" - where areas could only receive RTE Television stations.

Dublin of course was the first area of the republic to be cabled, and what astonished me was reading that it was RTE who launched cable television RTE Relays in 1970, realising thousands of viewers were abandoning their television service to watch over spill signals from BBC and ITV, they decided to launch a commercial subsidiary company, to bring the UK stations to homes in crystal clear form, and make money out of it. Wow!

I was sent this link from a friend in Dublin, who showed me how many cable companies were in operation in the Republic of Ireland by 1986.

It makes fascinating reading, looking at how many areas had access to cable, along with their launch dates.

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1986-06-17/9/

I think Crossan is the only company on that list that is still operating in the same form. Of the others, Casey was the last to go (by a long stretch) only having been bought out by Virgin Media about three years ago.I visited Dungarvan last year and you couldn’t tell the difference between it and any other VM cable lineup.

When I was last in Dublin about 18 months ago, on the way back to the Airport passing all the houses I saw, I did not see one rooftop aerial on any house. I only clocked a couple of satellite/Sky dishes. I guessed cable penetration in Dublin was very high.

When I was a student in Dublin in the early '90s, all the Uni people from Dublin had Cable at home. Every flat or house I lived in had it. I did have a black and white Set with an Aerial and the Signal from RTE in Dublin was perfect (unlike down the country,) Many cable operations down the country provided a better RTE signal as well. I remember being in a Hotel in Cork on my Holidays in the 80's and they had BBC and HTV via the Community Deflector Service. The BBC 1 and HTV picture was better than RTE 1 and 2! (BBC 2 was the weakest of the 5)

At that stage, and maybe up to the early 2000s, the number of homes passed who took up cable was something ridiculous like 85%. If you lived in Dublin chances are you had Cablelink and all your neighbours did as well. The annual fee was also dirt cheap - in the region of £80 per year! (I pay well in excess of that per month now for Sky).

Take up is not what it was. In those days if you wanted U.K. TV you needed cable but once Sky started to carry the channels and FTA satellite became a thing the attraction lessened. Cable never kept up with Sky in terms of the sheer number of channels offered. In newer estates it would now be a good mix of satellite and cable homes.