The Virgin Media Television thread

iseegirls

So since 8.30pm this evening on VM1 - there will be ZERO new Irish programmes, no full news reports, and no new Irish specials on the 3 channels until Ireland AM is back on the 2nd January. There are no film premieres.

There are several repeats of Catchphrase, The Chase, 3rd showing of British TV Awards at a 9pm slot and another showing of The Snapper.

Absolutely dire.

odyssey06

iseegirls wrote: »

So since 8.30pm this evening on VM1 - there will be ZERO new Irish programmes, no full news reports, and no new Irish specials on the 3 channels until Ireland AM is back on the 2nd January. There are no film premieres.

Except for the ads for the Red Rock finale.
Which they cancelled...

Do trailers count as new content!

political analyst

iseegirls wrote: »

So since 8.30pm this evening on VM1 - there will be ZERO new Irish programmes, no full news reports, and no new Irish specials on the 3 channels until Ireland AM is back on the 2nd January. There are no film premieres.

There are several repeats of Catchphrase, The Chase, 3rd showing of British TV Awards at a 9pm slot and another showing of The Snapper.

Absolutely dire.

Indeed. There doesn't seem to be any news bulletin at all on VM1 this weekend or next week!

Maz2016

Absolutely shocking. They are going backwards at an alarming rate

Harry Palmr

Are Virgin required under the terms of their licence to produce X hours of home produced content in a given week?

its_steve116

Keep Red Rock I say!

twinklerunner

political analyst wrote: »

Indeed. There doesn't seem to be any news bulletin at all on VM1 this weekend or next week!

If I want proper in-depth news, Virgin isn’t my go-to place. Their viewership doesn’t justify major expenditure on home based programmes. Their news, breakfast programmes and Six o’Clock Show are glorified talk radio shows that are of no interest to me anyway.

Elmo

twinklerunner wrote: »

If I want proper in-depth news, Virgin isn’t my go-to place. Their viewership doesn’t justify major expenditure on home based programmes. Their news, breakfast programmes and Six o’Clock Show are glorified talk radio shows that are of no interest to me anyway.

In answer to the question Yes Virgin Media have a set target of home produced programming to meet. It’s unlikely that taking 2 weeks of will effect that target. They must also spent 1% of their home produced spend by on independent productions.

Unfortunately the target is not based on prime time TV meaning Virgin Media & TV3 before them have used cheap Daytime TV to cover that target.

Suppose the normal St Stephens day bulletin won’t air again this year!

But then RTÉ2 airs no news & current affairs year round!

Maz2016

The thing is, I actually like virgin media news. I think it’s fine well. But when they do things like this not having any all over Christmas , it undo’s all their work building an audience

political analyst

Elmo wrote: »

In answer to the question Yes Virgin Media have a set target of home produced programming to meet. It’s unlikely that taking 2 weeks of will effect that target. They must also spent 1% of their home produced spend by on independent productions.

Unfortunately the target is not based on prime time TV meaning Virgin Media & TV3 before them have used cheap Daytime TV to cover that target.

Suppose the normal St Stephens day bulletin won’t air again this year!

But then RTÉ2 airs no news & current affairs year round!

Well, there is the children's news programme 'news2day', which is off during the summer months, of course. Maybe that's allowed to count towards news out put on RTÉ2.


Going back to VM1, I don't see the point in having an hour-long lunchtime news programme on that channel, given that the number of viewers must be extremely low for that time of day!

Elmo

political analyst wrote: »

Going back to VM1, I don't see the point in having an hour-long lunchtime news programme on that channel, given that the number of viewers must be extremely low for that time of day!

It’s purely Irish filler to meet requirements. The 6 hours of morning is all based on Economics of Scale. You’d have to talk to VirginMedia TV staff but I guess that VMTV could always use the same directors, mixers, sound, floor managers etc over the six hours, or at the most or 1.5 teams. I’d say it’s a very constant and consistent TV to make.

VMTV make the viewers up in prime time.

channelsurfer2

An article in the irish times last week suggested that 6-8 were made redundant in VMTV as part of the 60 or so they were looking for in the overall group. If it gets any smaller they will have robots running the schedule and presenting as well. Doughty Hanson were good at sweating the assets but it seems that Liberty Media are even better at squeezing out every penny. the article mentioned that overall VM was profitable and questioned the need for the staff to be made redundant.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/fear-and-loathing-at-virgin-media-ireland-as-strike-action-looms-1.4116010

Delta2113

Now showing a Seven year old Coronation Street Documentary.

twinklerunner

Delta2113 wrote: »

Now showing a Seven year old Coronation Street Documentary.

Glad we’re not relying on it.

iseegirls

9pm Catchphrase. Episode shown 8 times already on VM1&2.
10pm Long Lost Family WHN. Episode shown 4 times on VM1 this year.
11pm Ivan's Pub Crawl. Synopsis is "Ivan Yates visits 4 different pubs to review the past 12 months with some minor Celebs". It's from 2015, shown 4 times already, and so we'll have a 2015 news review at 11pm in 2019.

its_steve116

What is VMT's obsession with showing old programming??

Infoanon

It's cheap - simples

Maz2016

Obvious answer is it’s cheap. The advertisers don’t seem to mind either

iseegirls

Maz2016 wrote: »

Obvious answer is it’s cheap. The advertisers don’t seem to mind either

I think Dunnes are sponsors of their Christmas Movies. Have to wonder why they even bothered. Did they not see what they are showing across the next few days.

Noticed they've also gone into the Made For TV movies and showing them at prime time. Again, another cheap route.

Oh, Red Rock back on the 6th Jan at 9pm. One thing they made in recent years which was properly produced, but TV3/VMs promotion of it has been terrible since they knew they had the English soaps back.

Elmo

iseegirls wrote: »

I think Dunnes are sponsors of their Christmas Movies. Have to wonder why they even bothered. Did they not see what they are showing across the next few days.

Noticed they've also gone into the Made For TV movies and showing them at prime time. Again, another cheap route.

Oh, Red Rock back on the 6th Jan at 9pm. One thing they made in recent years which was properly produced, but TV3/VMs promotion of it has been terrible since they knew they had the English soaps back.

Also the continuity announcers are just an ad for VM on demand!

captain caveman

Elmo wrote: »

Also the continuity announcers are just an ad for VM on demand!

I was just thinking this earlier tonight! Time was they might have at least something creative to say, but now it’s just a big sell. Have they changed announcers recently too? There’s a guy who sounds like he’s got a head cold on VM2.

I wonder if they can measure the clicks on VMTV On Demand following announcer links?

channelsurfer2

Snapper on again tonight.....says it all about their attitude.while it's not a bad film there is no need to show it every 3 months...

Elmo

channelsurfer2 wrote: »

Snapper on again tonight.....says it all about their attitude.while it's not a bad film there is no need to show it every 3 months...

They have shown it a lot over the last 5 years or more however... they’ve got only aired it once previously this year, back in February. The expendables 2, murder on pleasant drive & Dirty Dancing airing 5 times each Dirty Dancing was help with an airing on TG4.

iseegirls

The 40s versions of Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are been shown 3 times each in 7 days across their channels.

Ireland's Craziest Lights 1 and 2 have been shown 7 times each across 12 days.

Maz2016

I see they are doing the news updates, those 2 min bulletins - better then having nothing at all I guess

Elmo

Maz2016 wrote: »

I see they are doing the news updates, those 2 min bulletins - better then having nothing at all I guess

Yeah noticed that today.

Also they have an obsession with anything to do with the British royal family, you’d think they repeat the BBC interview with Prince who was friendly with Epstein!

political analyst

Elmo wrote: »

Yeah noticed that today.

Also they have an obsession with anything to do with the British royal family, you’d think they repeat the BBC interview with Prince who was friendly with Epstein!

VMTV's deal for rebroadcast of British programmes covers ITV Studios-produced output.



By the way, the interview with Prince Andrew is available free-of-charge worldwide on the BBC News YouTube channel.

political analyst

iseegirls wrote: »

I think Dunnes are sponsors of their Christmas Movies. Have to wonder why they even bothered. Did they not see what they are showing across the next few days.

Noticed they've also gone into the Made For TV movies and showing them at prime time. Again, another cheap route.

Oh, Red Rock back on the 6th Jan at 9pm. One thing they made in recent years which was properly produced, but TV3/VMs promotion of it has been terrible since they knew they had the English soaps back.

I'm aware that the last 2 episodes are not being shown back-to-back. So viewers will have to wait another few days for the final episode!

Elmo

political analyst wrote: »

VMTV's deal for rebroadcast of British programmes covers ITV Studios-produced output.

By the way, the interview with Prince Andrew is available free-of-charge worldwide on the BBC News YouTube channel.

But it seems they’ve forsaken most new programming from ITV in favour of The Royal Variety Show 2018 or some fly on the wall doc on Prince Charles or a Diana doc or a doc on the queen all of which have been shown multiple times before... am I wrong in saying ITV produced a doc on Prince Andrew recently following that interview?

odyssey06

I don't understand the scheduling...
1 episode on Monday 6th and 1 episode on Wednesday 8th.

Why not show them back to back on St Stephens Night instead of the umpteenth airing of The Snapper?