The Virgin Media Television thread

Elmo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117848635#Comment_117848635

I can't imagine that GMB would take from Ireland AM, it didn't seem to make a dint in that audience when UTV Ireland broadcast GMB, the only cannibalisation that occur at that time was This Morning, which clearly had an audience as it now broadcasts on TV3.

Yes, the BAI shouldn't have allowed the Virgin Media buy out, and it certainly should have prevented the re-brand.

Traditionally that was what cable was for alright.

The tellytubies is the only kids show remaining on VM3. I remember when the children's strand was first launched as "3kids" about 4 or 5 years ago, they made a big deal about it at the time.

iseegirls

They even had 2 presenters at the start. Not sure how long they lasted, maybe 6 months.

https://marketing.ie/barney-and-friends-to-entertain-kids-on-3e/

It was launched during the UTV Ireland days. They had a lot of new shows in the first year and second year. Since then it's been the same 5 programmes on repeat - Teletubbies, In The Night Garden, Bob The Builder, Fireman Sam and Paddington Bear. Which I guess is normal for all programming on VM that they're repeated to death.

JDxtra

Hopefully the Virgin Media sale will shake things up for the better.

Streaming services in our house have eroded away time spent watching linear TV. The slice of time Virgin get of that is now negligible.

Elmo

VMTV TWO simulcast ITV2 by mistake last night before the Italy Switzerland match, only caught the last few minutes of the simulcast not sure how long it lasted. Virgin Media 2 DOG/BUG was on the RHS along with the ITV2 DOG/BUG on the left.

Delta2113

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117852231#Comment_117852231

Two or three minutes. Maybe we are getting ITV2 back on cable. (Joke).

icdg

Was it actual match coverage or just random stuff from ITV2? If the former it might not have been by mistake, maybe they were having problems with the world feed. Didn’t see it myself.

Delta2113

It was a mistake. Brian Kerr was in discussion and then suddenly ITV2 came on with some version off Superman. It went on for 2-3 minutes before somebody realised and made a switch back.

Leonita

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that Virgin have no interest in viewers. It seems to me that the schedules are done to suit the presenters and what they want to watch. Why not put that silly new show over to VM2 or VM3 how much was wasted on that? ITV don't seem to have that rubbish taking up a prime Saturday evening slot coming into the winter. They even moved love island to ITV2 during the summer which says a lot.

On another note could they get rid of that dreadful Derek Hartigan. The weather is as serious as the news and should be treated as so. Instead everytime the weather is on from 7am its the Derek show. Just give him his own daily 30 minute show on VM3 showing all of his photos. He's not even a qualified meteorologist which makes it worse. It shows when he is asked about it on the main news during severe weather events. I also suspect that he's not all that popular with his colleagues seeing as they have him galloping all over the country every day to do these outside broadcasts. I rarely see them interacting with him on Ireland AM.

And why keep repeating everything over and over until it's done to death. Laziness is what it is. One VM channel is really more than enough. They have really gone downhill recently.

iseegirls

The Big Deal got 179k over the hour. They've added a lot of odd stats to the tweet aswell, a rise in the slot average (wow, it was was better a repeated show of The Cube, which was shown multiple times before) and most viewed show at that hour.

Also they state that its the most successful original format show. Which doesn't say a lot considering what they launched before.

https://twitter.com/VirginMedia_TV/status/1434925512535707648?s=19

Elmo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117855264#Comment_117855264

As I suspected, I would be interesting to know how Spider-man into the spider verse did that night.

50% increase on an average of 179k for one night is not good.

Delta2113

They messed up this morning at the start off Ireland Am - a frozen screen for maybe a minute.

mackersdublin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117818308#Comment_117818308

Has Claire taken over already?

On VM's 360's Guide https://www.virginmediatv.ie/en/tv/tv-guide.html Matt Cooper and Ciara Doherty

On Sky https://www.sky.com/tv-guide/20210908/4104-50/ Matt Cooper and Claire Brock

On Saorview https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/listings/television/#!/virgin_media_one Claire Brock

So only the Saorview EPG mentions Claire as the programme's presenter

Elmo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117863971#Comment_117863971

She has taken over, where is Ciara Doherty going when she returns?

mackersdublin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117864392#Comment_117864392

Typical VM so, they can't even have the right info on their own channels on their TV service 🙄

iseegirls

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117864484#Comment_117864484

They were showing Cooking With The Stars recently on VM2, and on the VM channel guide they had it called Dancing With The Stars. It really has turned somewhat amateurish over there in Ballymount.

lertsnim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117864497#Comment_117864497

When was it ever not amateurish?

roadmaster

I see laura woods is now gone fron ireland am with more staff to leave virgin according to the indo. At this rate there will be no one to open the gates in ballymount in the mornings

Brock Turnpike

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117883264#Comment_117883264

That may not be a bad thing tbh (opening gates, not Laura being let go)

dublinman1990

Would Laura not be planning to stay here in Ireland to continue doing something in radio with Bauer Media or maybe go back to RTÉ in the near future? I have read from one article from Evoke.ie on my phone last night which reported that the staff were not happy with the management who have made these decisions at the station. The VM presenters & other staff have mentioned that they are currently working under a dark cloud of 'fear & loathing' with some of the stations longest-serving and most loyal stars told that their services are no longer required.

https://evoke.ie/2021/09/12/entertainment/laura-woods-let-go-from-ireland-am

These recent developments coming out from VMT appear like a very unsettling play on words in how the management in charge at VMT are calling the shots in playing an aggressive strategy that has continued to cull out other presenters roles at the station due to not being able to afford to pay for their time while they worked there. That type of strategy so far has seen a lot of well known faces that have put in a long hard slog of promoting themselves on VM now being shown the door due to that situation being put right in front of them. It's now being seen as unsustainable.

You have names like Laura Woods, Anna Daly, Muireann O'Connell & Des Curran who has recently done soccer commentary for the Euros, the UEFA Champions League & the European Qualifiers on RTÉ all being given the heave ho irregardless of how much work they have contributed to the station. Their own former colleagues at this point might be fearing right now that the same strategy by the managements are putting their own futures in peril straight away. I'll might ask here has Des Curran officially left Virgin Media to go to RTÉ Sport or he is a freelance soccer commentator with other broadcasters here?

Elmo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117887383#Comment_117887383

It looks like Liberty Global maybe starting to split VMTV from VM, and will aim to sell both separately. Though they are finding it difficult to find a buyer for the telco/cable end. The regulartors would be hard press to allow VM to merge with and of their competitors as they've all merged into one another 3 to o2 and Meteor to eir. Perhaps Vodafone might be allowed, but are they interested?

As for TV it a case of bring down costs for the new owner, IMO, and getting it on the right footing business-wise.

@iseegirls do we have an news of the second ep of The Big Deal, nothing from VMTV on twitter.

iseegirls

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117892634#Comment_117892634

111k in Medialive for the episode on Saturday. Not sure what it got on Medialive the previous week. They only count Adults, so I'd presume it's higher than that figure. The Tonight Show ratings seem really low. Only 1 show above 77k.

239k average for the Ian Bailey interview on Monday.

https://twitter.com/VirginMedia_TV/status/1437772673397018624?s=20

channelsurfer2

Mispost

iseegirls

Few media reports about the decline of The Big Deal over the past day. Ratings gone way down. And it looks like they've even moved the show to Sunday at 7pm from this weekend. In it's place on Saturday is a Catchphrase repeat.

Elmo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117924496#Comment_117924496

Interesting RTÉ's Quiz Show (yes I am calling it that) had 156,000 viewers, though massively down on The RTÉ Game Show (are they ever going to bring that back?)

bk

So Liberty Global (VM’s parent) has just sold UPC Poland to Play (Owned by Iliad, Eir’s parent).

This means VM Ireland is now the only standalone company left and thus likely the next up for sale.

BTW I don’t think Eir could buy VM, it wouldn’t get past competition authority. The difference in Poland was that Play/Iliad there was purely a mobile operator, so a good fit for them to buy a cable operator.

icdg

They’ve made very clear at this stage that it’s up for sale, the difficulty is the lack of interest. Eir is not a runner for competition reasons. The most obvious buyer is Vodafone. Trouble is Vodafone know that too and if you are a seller the last position you want to be in is that there is only one interested buyer.

The broadcast business (in the era of “convergence is dead”) is a massive complicating factor as no one wants to be both a telco and a broadcaster any more never mind an almost 100% linear terrestrial one.

Elmo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117927388#Comment_117927388

Virgin Media should a "converged" both the free player and the paid on demand service. with the On Demand service being available to customers not on their network.

Much like Discovery+ which has a set number of "free" channels, for their FTA channels, though I am not sure how long that will last.

icdg

There is very little convergence between the two sides (VM and VMTV), they are almost completely separate businesses (two completely different apps, for example).The sole point of convergence is the sport channel, but that’s dead now as a standalone proposition, it has very little rights of interest apart from the Europa League. (They are showing the top games on VM Two anyway).

Having moved to VM broadband recently I noticed that new customers are no longer being given a “TV Anywhere Sports Pass” ie access to the sports channel via the app.

Really the only point to the common branding is to allow the FTA channels be an advertisement for the cable business.

bk

"Trouble is Vodafone know that too and if you are a seller the last position you want to be in is that there is only one interested buyer."

The trouble is that Vodafone wouldn't be the last option. They could also sell it off to private equity firms, who would treat it like they treated Eircom, forcing debt on the company and under-investing in new development and tech. That would be the worst scenario IMO.