The Virgin Media Television thread

AwaitYourReply

Elmo wrote: »

Even in the 80s/90s RTÉ wouldn't have gone after ITV or BBC daytime/morning programming.

AFAIK Virgin Media only has access to Channel 4 opt out channels (C4, E4, More4 and Film 4 not sure if they provide all the +1s, no 4seven).



Did they? I always thought they had Pat's Chat instead of it. By the late 80s most of those shows had disappeared from RTÉ, with Top of the Pops going by the early 90s.

I remember the slot called "Pat's Chat" with Pat Ingoldsby which was a weekly RTÉ children television programme on RTÉ 1 (weekday afternoons) and I even recall the pre-cursor to the show which was called "Pat's Hat" which featured Spindle the Spider if memory serves me correct? It would have run in the days prior to Dempsey's Den/The Den I suspect. I think Pat passed away not too long ago. My recollection is Jim'll Fix it went out Saturday's sometime starting anywhere between 5:00pm and 6:30pm at one stage. Probably on old RTÉ2 channel (pre-Network 2 days)

Yes, RTÉ began moving away from regular BBC/ITV series by late 80's early '90's and not just morning/daytime. Top Of The Pops had migrated from RTÉ2 (after it's rebrand to Network2) to RTÉ One and it never settled and was probably gone from RTÉ altogether by 1992 or thereabouts. Tomorrow's World also dropped from RTÉ long before BBC stopped doing it. A lot of material in those days imported from ITV/BBC was dropped in favour of American ad Australian material. Aussie programmes included: The Sullivan's, Sons & Daughters, The Flying Doctors, A Country Practice, Home & Away, Beyond 2000, The Henderson Kids, Return to Eden etc; Later again: Home & Away, All Saints, Neighbours. The exception to the rule were the British soaps which RTÉ tried to retain but after it lost Coronation Street to TV3 although; it later acquired the Irish rights for EastEnders which TV3 had first held.

I checked Virgin Media cable tv guide and it appears to only list itv3 and itv 4 from itv network channels and as one other contributor mentioned the sports coverage shown on itv4 on virgin cable is frequently blocked. Yeah they seem to provide the Channel 4, E4, More4, Film4 and all have +1 timeshift options but no reference to 4seven which you had already highlighted.

https://www.virginmediatv.ie/en/tv/tv-guide.html

AwaitYourReply

Elmo wrote: »

Still around just re-branded much like TV3 I'd say the removal of UTV from Virgin Media was more to do with TV3 than with Virgin Media at the time.

Yes - I think this is fair comment although; I cannot see today's Virgin Media Television being comfortable if UTV (Belfast) was to be reinstated on Virgin's cable tv platform as it would take some of the shrinking tv audience away from Virgin Media's TV channels and right now they are trying to compete in a much tougher climate as advertising shifts to other media formats. This along with the continued uncertainty surrounding Brexit has probably slowed investment down. If there are any further lengthy delays it will do enormous damage to a sector that is already struggling in my view.

its_steve116

AwaitYourReply wrote: »

I remember the slot called "Pat's Chat" with Pat Ingoldsby which was a weekly RTÉ children television programme on RTÉ 1 (weekday afternoons) and I even recall the pre-cursor to the show which was called "Pat's Hat" which featured Spindle the Spider if memory serves me correct? It would have run in the days prior to Dempsey's Den/The Den I suspect. I think Pat passed away not too long ago. My recollection is Jim'll Fix it went out Saturday's sometime starting anywhere between 5:00pm and 6:30pm at one stage. Probably on old RTÉ2 channel (pre-Network 2 days)

Yes, RTÉ began moving away from regular BBC/ITV series by late 80's early '90's and not just morning/daytime. Top Of The Pops had migrated from RTÉ2 (after it's rebrand to Network2) to RTÉ One and it never settled and was probably gone from RTÉ altogether by 1992 or thereabouts. Tomorrow's World also dropped from RTÉ long before BBC stopped doing it. A lot of material in those days imported from ITV/BBC was dropped in favour of American ad Australian material. Aussie programmes included: The Sullivan's, Sons & Daughters, The Flying Doctors, A Country Practice, Home & Away, Beyond 2000, The Henderson Kids, Return to Eden etc; Later again: Home & Away, All Saints, Neighbours. The exception to the rule were the British soaps which RTÉ tried to retain but after it lost Coronation Street to TV3 although; it later acquired the Irish rights for EastEnders which TV3 had first held.

I checked Virgin Media cable tv guide and it appears to only list itv3 and itv 4 from itv network channels and as one other contributor mentioned the sports coverage shown on itv4 on virgin cable is frequently blocked. Yeah they seem to provide the Channel 4, E4, More4, Film4 and all have +1 timeshift options but no reference to 4seven which you had already highlighted.

https://www.virginmediatv.ie/en/tv/tv-guide.html

I have met Pat Ingoldsby several times. Went to see performance poet Stephen James Smith on Thursday night and he cited him as an influence.

icdg

4Seven isn’t on Sky in Ireland either. No idea why, obviously you can tune it in but with All4 available there may be little compelling reason to do so.

As why UTV was removed from Virgin Media cable, this was down to UTV themselves who were launching UTV Ireland the day after it was removed, it had little to do with TV3 and they would have been very happy if it had been removed years earlier but they had no influence over this because at the time TV3 and VM were not under common ownership as they are now. TV3 can claim credit for having ITV2 removed however, as the fact that 3e were showing the same shows was directly mentioned as the reason and there was no effort made to hide this.

AwaitYourReply

icdg wrote: »

4Seven isn’t on Sky in Ireland either. No idea why, obviously you can tune it in but with All4 available there may be little compelling reason to do so.

As why UTV was removed from Virgin Media cable, this was down to UTV themselves who were launching UTV Ireland the day after it was removed, it had little to do with TV3 and they would have been very happy if it had been removed years earlier but they had no influence over this because at the time TV3 and VM were not under common ownership as they are now. TV3 can claim credit for having ITV2 removed however, as the fact that 3e were showing the same shows was directly mentioned as the reason and there was no effort made to hide this.

4Music channel (also from Channel 4's stations portfolio) is UK only which shows more than just music nowadays - last Friday night they were showing back2back episodes form The IT Crowd starring Chris O'Dowd. 4Music is encrypted and this channel is now free-to-view for viewers based in the UK.

Well many of the programmes on itv were bought by TV3 for broadcast in the Republic of Ireland such as Coronation Street, Emmerdale, X Factor, Britain's Got Talent, Love Island, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Outta Here! etc; Maybe the issue was that UTV (Belfast) had already been available on local cable tv systems long before TV3 had even commenced broadcasting. Now that UTV (Belfast) was removed to make way for the short-lived UTV Ireland channel back in 2015, it is no longer possible to have UTV (Belfast) restored again as UTV Ireland was taken over and became be3 and later re-branded as Virgin Media Three.

HorsePunter

Pat was selling his poetry outside the main Bank Of Ireland in town, I last saw him there sometime last year, haven't been near that part of town since, so don't know if he's still around. Remembering childhood TV brought a smile to my face when I saw him.

Edit:

Just noticed that AwaitYourReply says above (#5286) that he thinks Pat passed away not too long ago. Nothing regarding this when Googled.

Elmo

AwaitYourReply wrote: »

4Music channel (also from Channel 4's stations portfolio) is UK only which shows more than just music nowadays - last Friday night they were showing back2back episodes form The IT Crowd starring Chris O'Dowd. 4Music is encrypted and this channel is now free-to-view for viewers based in the UK.

AFAIK 4Music is a pay TV service and part of Channel4's deal with Bauer (???) owners of the Box. At least I was unable to get it on FTA sat the other day.

I don't think UPC/Virgin Media could have allowed UTV to continue on their platform considering that all of all of TV3's imports would be available on that channel. UTV was still getting an Okay audience following the change, and started to grow again when Virgin Media bought UTV Ireland.

lertsnim

Elmo wrote: »

AFAIK 4Music is a pay TV service and part of Channel4's deal with Bauer (???) owners of the Box. At least I was unable to get it on FTA sat the other day.

It's FTV

icdg

4Music is a bit of an oddity. It is part of the Box Plus group channels that was formerly a JV with Bauer and is now solely owned by Channel 4. Once these channels were all part of the Sky package and indeed were on the Irish EPG. When the Box Plus network decided to go free to air (though apparently 4Music itself is FTV, one of the last remaining FTV stations) they were all pulled off the Irish EPG, not for rights reasons, but simply because they didn’t want to pay extra when they weren’t selling advertising here. They are all still on Virgin Media incidentally.

AwaitYourReply

HorsePunter wrote: »

Pat was selling his poetry outside the main Bank Of Ireland in town, I last saw him there sometime last year, haven't been near that part of town since, so don't know if he's still around. Remembering childhood TV brought a smile to my face when I saw him.

Edit:

Just noticed that AwaitYourReply says above (#5286) that he thinks Pat passed away not too long ago. Nothing regarding this when Googled.

For some reason I thought I read somewhere that he had passed away which brought a sense of sadness although; I also cannot find any record of him in the past tense. I hope he is in good health and I wish him well. Pat Ingoldsby had such a unique way of communicating with children all those years ago through his work on RTÉ children's television programmes through on shows like "Pat's Hat", "Pat's Chat" and other programmes. I forgot he wrote some of the episodes for Wanderly Wagon and is a poet and fluent Irish speaker according to his wikipedia page.

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Ingoldsby

its_steve116

HorsePunter wrote: »

Pat was selling his poetry outside the main Bank Of Ireland in town, I last saw him there sometime last year, haven't been near that part of town since, so don't know if he's still around. Remembering childhood TV brought a smile to my face when I saw him.

Edit:

Just noticed that AwaitYourReply says above (#5286) that he thinks Pat passed away not too long ago. Nothing regarding this when Googled.

I Googled it too, nothing came up.

AwaitYourReply

Elmo wrote: »

AFAIK 4Music is a pay TV service and part of Channel4's deal with Bauer (???) owners of the Box. At least I was unable to get it on FTA sat the other day.

I don't think UPC/Virgin Media could have allowed UTV to continue on their platform considering that all of all of TV3's imports would be available on that channel. UTV was still getting an Okay audience following the change, and started to grow again when Virgin Media bought UTV Ireland.

The reason you cannot receive 4Music is because it is NOT currently FTA (Free-To-Air on digital satellite) 4Music signal is FTV = Free-To-View which means you need a Sky smart card registered to a UK postal address to access this channel. This does not necessarily mean it is a "Pay Channel" either for the record. Another example of a channel that is FTV is the timeshift channel: YESTERDAY+1 unlike YESTERDAY which is FTA.

AwaitYourReply

icdg wrote: »

4Music is a bit of an oddity. It is part of the Box Plus group channels that was formerly a JV with Bauer and is now solely owned by Channel 4. Once these channels were all part of the Sky package and indeed were on the Irish EPG. When the Box Plus network decided to go free to air (though apparently 4Music itself is FTV, one of the last remaining FTV stations) they were all pulled off the Irish EPG, not for rights reasons, but simply because they didn’t want to pay extra when they weren’t selling advertising here. They are all still on Virgin Media incidentally.

Yes, I think 4Music went FTA for a while and then reverted to FTV again. Of course 4Music no longer appears in the music category of the Sky UK EPG as some of the programming is no longer music related.

lleti

Just joined the thread but it's shameful what TV3 have done with the champions league.

They have some **** game on the same evening as RTE and then the next day nothing. And they have games on earlier on the tuesday too so even less to watch.

AwaitYourReply

lleti wrote: »

Just joined the thread but it's shameful what TV3 have done with the champions league.

They have some **** game on the same evening as RTE and then the next day nothing. And they have games on earlier on the tuesday too so even less to watch.

Yeah the options are being snapped up although; viewers across the Republic of Ireland still probably have better Champions League coverage broadcast on the Free-To-Air television stations in comparison to viewers watching FTA channels in the UK nowadays.

iseegirls

lleti wrote: »

Just joined the thread but it's shameful what TV3 have done with the champions league.

They have some **** game on the same evening as RTE and then the next day nothing. And they have games on earlier on the tuesday too so even less to watch.

RTE have first choice match on Tuesday. Virgin Media will show the 2nd best match available then to compete against RTE2.

Virgin Media One have been showing 3 live games per gameweek compared to one or virtually none last year. They also have a Europa league game free on a Thursday on VM2. When Eir had exclusive Europa league before the VM deal, then the only free match was the Europa league final.

Keeping the Wed 8pm match for their Sports channel makes sense in terms of trying to push a subscription for that channel.

In the UK - there are zero games free to air. In Ireland, at least 4 free games.

AwaitYourReply

For those into their TV Sport below are links of details on what is broadcast in (i) Republic of Ireland and (2) United Kingdom however; I since been informed by Infoanon of some out of date information contained within these links.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_broadcasting_contracts_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_broadcasting_contracts_in_the_United_Kingdom

Infoanon

AwaitYourReply wrote: »

For those into their TV Sport below are links of details on what is currently broadcast in (i) Republic of Ireland and (2) United Kingdom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_broadcasting_contracts_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_broadcasting_contracts_in_the_United_Kingdom

Some items listed as Eir are actually Premier .
On Sky Eir still lists as having F1 coverage bizzarely

icdg

It’s Wikipedia, so it cannot be taken as reliable.

AwaitYourReply

icdg wrote: »

It’s Wikipedia, so it cannot be taken as reliable.

Well, I never stated that Wikipedia should be taken as gospel truth in all it's aspects. I merely gave it as a source and each viewer can decide for themselves.

One should always err on the side the side of caution with most things on the net including Google, Facebook etc;

AwaitYourReply

Infoanon wrote: »

Some items listed as Eir are actually Premier .
On Sky Eir still lists as having F1 coverage bizzarely

Apologies if there were subsequent changes made and not updated. It can serve as a general guide in that case. I must modify my earlier reference to "current".

Elmo

Interesting to see how the media that report on twitter not mentioned the dissatisfaction of some to the morning changes.

iseegirls

They're showing the Denmark and Switzerland match live now on Virgin Media One, but very hard to even know judging by any TV guides. Even on the Virgin Media player apps don't have it on.

Got to wonder why they wait until such a late stage to put these matches on the channel, when the fixtures were known about a year ago. Same with Netherlands and Northern Ireland, which was shown on Virgin Media Two on Thursday, but nothing in the schedules until at least Thursday morning.

lertsnim

iseegirls wrote: »

They're showing the Denmark and Switzerland match live now on Virgin Media One, but very hard to even know judging by any TV guides. Even on the Virgin Media player apps don't have it on.

Got to wonder why they wait until such a late stage to put these matches on the channel, when the fixtures were known about a year ago. Same with Netherlands and Northern Ireland, which was shown on Virgin Media Two on Thursday, but nothing in the schedules until at least Thursday morning.

They announced it yesterday so why they couldn't be arsed to update even their own site I don't know.

iseegirls

Changes to the weekday schedule next week, after only a week with the new schedule in place. On VM1 at 3pm May the Best House Win has been replaced by Renovation Nation Mon-Thurs, and Last Laugh In Vegas from Fri onwards. These programmes have been repeated so much in the past few months.

In VM3, they've put Elaine into its usual slot of 3pm, so that's probably a repeat of the 11am show.

Shambles already with the changes. I can see This Morning returning in the new year possibly.

channelsurfer2

iseegirls wrote: »

Changes to the weekday schedule next week, after only a week with the new schedule in place. On VM1 at 3pm May the Best House Win has been replaced by Renovation Nation Mon-Thurs, and Last Laugh In Vegas from Fri onwards. These programmes have been repeated so much in the past few months.

In VM3, they've put Elaine into its usual slot of 3pm, so that's probably a repeat of the 11am show.

Shambles already with the changes. I can see This Morning returning in the new year possibly.

do they actually have a channel controller these days like Ben Frow used to be? It seems they are making schedules up or maybe an intern is making the schedule. I too concur that this morning will be back...

Delta2113

This Morning won't be back.

Elmo

channelsurfer2 wrote: »

do they actually have a channel controller these days like Ben Frow used to be? It seems they are making schedules up or maybe an intern is making the schedule. I too concur that this morning will be back...

Former controller of RTÉ2 Bill Malone

Delta2113 wrote: »

This Morning won't be back.

Insider info?

channelsurfer2

Delta2113 wrote: »

This Morning won't be back.

ok .. you must know something everyone else dosent...

iseegirls

channelsurfer2 wrote: »

do they actually have a channel controller these days like Ben Frow used to be? It seems they are making schedules up or maybe an intern is making the schedule.

The schedules are diabolical. No clear identity for any of the channels anymore. An example is that the Heartbeat spinoff The Royal is on the 3 channels today. Now, I'm guessing The Royal's target audience is up there beside Heartbeat at a very older audience. Why the need for it be shown across the 3 channels is unclear.

I'd love to know does Bill Malone even know the schedule or what is on the channels tonight.

Some other notes that have happened over the past few weeks:

• Series 7 of Wentworth Prison stopped after 2 episodes on VM3 to show ITV repeat Dark Heart
• New Series of America's Got Talent on VM2&3 stopped after 4 episodes to show a repeat of ITV's Dancing On Ice
• The Royal Wedding Extravaganza is on today on VM2 at 2:30pm and VM3 at 12midday on Saturday. The synopsis of this special is: "a programme which will focus on all the build-up to Harry and Meghan's big day with speculation on the guest list"
• A film on VM1 has been dropped tomorrow night in favour of Britain's Spending Secrets and the 2018 Weather Special that was shown ad nauseam over Christmas.