The ITV Thread

Delta2113

jack presley wrote: »

There's no better way to attract viewers to a prime time Saturday night slot that showing Dancing On Ice from 2012. Great work from the content department there!

- The channel is on wind down away from owner's Itv - they probably couldn't care less at this stage.

Dodge

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/tv3-and-utv-ireland-together-at-last-under-wing-of-virgin-media-1.2726030

Article in the Irish Times speculating on the future of UTV Ireland. Talks about soaps returning to TV3 and that channel becoming the "flagship" channel of the group with UTV Ireland possibly the 3rd choice channel (based on EPG numbers)

iseegirls

The new director of content is taking a while to appoint. Lynda McQuaid joined in March 2015, left a year later - with nothing else said.

channelsurfer2

One possibility is that they make UTVIRL or whatever its renamed into mostly the ITV2/3/4 best of schedule.

Elmo

channelsurfer2 wrote: »

One possibility is that they make UTVIRL or whatever its renamed into mostly the ITV2/3/4 best of schedule.

Your thinking too much like a sensible person.

Coro St and Emmerdale will be returned to TV3 with the same number of repeats they had before.

Gonzo

this being TV3, UTV Ireland will just be filled up with repeats from TV3 and 3e rather than offering new programming.

Cliff Walker

Its pretty dire that utv ireland has since day one pretty much shut up shop for the night at midnight, could they not have found something to show late at night ffs ?

iseegirls

Cliff Walker wrote: »

Its pretty dire that utv ireland has since day one pretty much shut up shop for the night at midnight, could they not have found something to show late at night ffs ?

Don't quite understand it either, especially if they are sitting on a lot of dramas, comedies and other ITV Studios shows.

Although main ITV channel isn't any better these days. Used to love back in the late 90's when ITV would have a treasure trove of great programmes after midnight. The Haunted Fishtank was one such gem, alongside Jerry Springer. Harry Hill TV Burp started out in a late night slot too.

icdg

http://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/utv-to-axe-a-dozen-jobs-in-wake-of-takeover-34905056.html

UTV NI playout to move to London in Autumn.

UTV Ireland playout to stay in Belfast until sale completed, then (if the channel remains on air) presumably move to Dublin.

Delta2113

From the article Utv Ireland could be played out from London until handover to Virgin Media - it's not very clear.

Cliff Walker

Why had itv such lack of interest in utv ireland ? Could they not have a least tried to do something with it ?

Elmo

With a licence from the BAI the play out system should have been in RoI. OfCom should have questioned why a broadcast channel from Belfast was not licenced by OfCom.

ITV possible thought it easier to sell the programmes and cheaper. ITV have done extremely well out of this.

doc11

Cliff Walker wrote: »

Why had itv such lack of interest in utv ireland ? Could they not have a least tried to do something with it ?

Why? ireland is a tiny market for the bother. What exactly will you miss from UTV IRL/ITV once the soaps go back to tv3. What exactly do you think they could try? They had a decent news service along with the vast bulk of itv's most popular shows.

Cliff Walker

They should have made a brave move and shown Gemma o Dorhertys mary boyle program

Elmo

Cliff Walker wrote: »

They should have made a brave move and shown Gemma o Dorhertys mary boyle program

Seem all broadcasters should have, though Gemma and the Twitteraity seem to think that RTE are the only broadcasters.

Elmo

doc11 wrote: »

Why? ireland is a tiny market for the bother. What exactly will you miss from UTV IRL/ITV once the soaps go back to tv3. What exactly do you think they could try? They had a decent news service along with the vast bulk of itv's most popular shows.

tiny market is not the main reason. There are 20 or more English based services providing opt-out advertising into the Irish market. That is a sizable chunk of a tiny market, accounting for 20% of the TV viewing market and around 30% of the advertising market.

The problem faced by Irish broadcasters is their inablitly to push into the fragmented opt-out market.

UTV Ireland took most of its audience from TV3 and UTV proper. It like TV3, RTE and TG4 took most of their audience from Irish channels. Even during the RWC and Euros most the the audience went from UTV, RTE ONE and TG4 not from any of the other channels (indeed during both tournaments UTV proper saw an increase in audience).

Irish TV is 10 years to late for the up take of Multiple channels from the one broadcaster. This lead by the disastrous role out of DTT (Saorview) by successive governments.

That lead by the Broadcasters who now suggest that 45% audience share between RTE, TV3 and TG4 is good, but don't tell anyone that that 45% includes UTV Ireland and Setanta.

doc11

Elmo wrote: »

tiny market is not the main reason. There are 20 or more English based services providing opt-out advertising into the Irish market. That is a sizable chunk of a tiny market, accounting for 20% of the TV viewing market and around 30% of the advertising market.

Yes specialist sports,entertainment and documentary channels. How exactly do you expect a channel to survive on 1% market share in ireland. All those channels survive on UK advertising along with Irish and UK paid subscriptions. You do realize UTV IRL lost buckets of money?. I don't understand why you're inferring that sky sports, discovery, national geo or various entertainment channels don't deserve the ad revenue when they buy Irish tv rights. An irish channel alone couldn't survive with such specialist content between buying rights, broadcasting costs and tiny audience/ad revenue.

Elmo wrote: »

The problem faced by Irish broadcasters is their inablitly to push into the fragmented opt-out market.

I don't understand what this actual means? By doing what?

Elmo wrote: »

UTV Ireland took most of its audience from TV3 and UTV proper. It like TV3, RTE and TG4 took most of their audience from Irish channels. Even during the RWC and Euros most the the audience went from UTV, RTE ONE and TG4 not from any of the other channels (indeed during both tournaments UTV proper saw an increase in audience).

Irish TV is 10 years to late for the up take of Multiple channels from the one broadcaster. This lead by the disastrous role out of DTT (Saorview) by successive governments.

That lead by the Broadcasters who now suggest that 45% audience share between RTE, TV3 and TG4 is good, but don't tell anyone that that 45% includes UTV Ireland and Setanta.

Why exactly to you think in a country where everyone has access to a subscription service with literally hundreds of specialized tv channels that Irish audiences should be watching one of the half a dozen irish stations.

Why exactly do we need multiple channels from one broadcaster. 3e is absolute garbage and utv ireland won't exist once the takeover is complete.It's acquisition was purely for the 10 year itv rights to consolidate the existing channels.

How was the roll out of DTT disastrous? To be honest it seemed perfect. The paid tv model kicked to touch, up take of the latest broadcasting standards (mpeg 4), nationwide coverage and launched at a time when digital tuners were becoming standard in tv's. What went wrong?

Elmo

doc11 wrote: »

Yes specialist sports,entertainment and documentary channels. How exactly do you expect a channel to survive on 1% market share in ireland. All those channels survive on UK advertising along with Irish and UK paid subscriptions. You do realize UTV IRL lost buckets of money?. I don't understand why you're inferring that sky sports, discovery, national geo or various entertainment channels don't deserve the ad revenue when they buy Irish tv rights. An irish channel alone couldn't survive with such specialist content between buying rights, broadcasting costs and tiny audience/ad revenue.

Largely speaking outside of Sky so called specialist channels in Ireland are few in number. Largely speaking it general entertainment channels. And even those specialist channels that you refer to are subscription based.

UTV Ireland lost money because they didn't know what they were doing.They went after a mainstream market without looking at the main competitor TV3.
They failed to utilise their already established audience in both from TV (UTV Proper) and local radio. Deciding to spend a fortune on a News service in a market over saturated with news programming on Mainstream TV.

UTV Ireland could have attain 10% if they knew what to do, the simple answer is that both TV3 and UTV Ireland really don't know their audience.

I don't understand what this actual means? By doing what?

By producing consistent schedules, quality prime time programming. Both RTÉ2 and TV3 had 2 major sporting tournaments and following both saw massive drops in audience either below what they had been before the tournament or just back to where they'd been. TV3 made up most of its prime time tv with 2hours of daytime, while RTÉ2 pissed in the wind of Reality TV.

Why exactly to you think in a country where everyone has access to a subscription service with literally hundreds of specialized tv channels that Irish audiences should be watching one of the half a dozen irish stations.

I don't think that audience should be watch one of the half dozen Irish channels. I think that the Irish channel should be able to garner a large share of the audience, and this includes utilizing different types of channels. Not plus1 services which in a market like Ireland are redundant but with extra channels. Think about it RTÉ buy in 11,000 hours of TV, while both UTV Ireland and TV3 didn't know what do with their full slate of ITV Studio programmes. While this extra channels wouldn't gain mass audience they would help promote the main services. I am not talking about hundreds of specialized channels but at least one music service, one film services and a proper news services. None are impossible and all would give the consumer choice over subscription TV. Something the 7 or so channels on Saorview don't do.

Why exactly do we need multiple channels from one broadcaster. 3e is absolute garbage and utv ireland won't exist once the takeover is complete.It'suisition was purely for the 10 year itv rights to consolidate the existing channels.

Cross promotion, you could really say the same about Channel 4 and their repeat channels do you really need 4Seven? or from Channel 5 5STAR?

I agree 3e is absolute garbage but as one of the many General Entertainment channels it has a share of 2.5% and was probably the only thing to save TV3.

UTV Ireland will remain. If it doesn't TV3 will be in the position where they will only grow back to 10% of the audience, that's a drop of 5% between all 3 channels.

How was the roll out of DTT disastrous? To be honest it seemed perfect. The paid tv model kicked to touch, up take of the latest broadcasting standards (mpeg 4), nationwide coverage and launched at a time when digital tuners were becoming standard in tv's. What went wrong?

It was left to the last minute by the government. They didn't really know what to do, they spent a fortune on The Digital Switch Over, money better spent on providing The Irish Film Board Channel. (while RTE ran a campaign of their own) Extra RTÉ channel were only launch following on the run up to DSO, TV3 dragged its heels.

It had nothing to do with the pay model which had been in the state long before Digital TV.

Few digital tuners in the Irish market actually compatible with MPEG4 standards.

And ultimately the launch of the 4 Irish channels on DTT from analogue, with one extra RTE channel RTEjr.

My point is that I don't expect Irish viewers to switch to Irish channels but Irish channels and broadcasters should be wanting at least 60% of the market.

doc11

Elmo wrote: »

UTV Ireland lost money because they didn't know what they were doing.They went after a mainstream market without looking at the main competitor TV3.
They failed to utilise their already established audience in both from TV (UTV Proper) and local radio. Deciding to spend a fortune on a News service in a market over saturated with news programming on Mainstream TV.

UTV Ireland could have attain 10% if they knew what to do, the simple answer is that both TV3 and UTV Ireland really don't know their audience.

who should there audience be? what programs would get them above 10%? Examples or you're just B.S.

Elmo wrote: »

By producing consistent schedules, quality prime time programming. Both RTÉ2 and TV3 had 2 major sporting tournaments and following both saw massive drops in audience either below what they had been before the tournament or just back to where they'd been. TV3 made up most of its prime time tv with 2hours of daytime, while RTÉ2 pissed in the wind of Reality TV.

Could you give me an example of consistent schedules and quality prime time programming. What channel in the UK do you think we could replicate?
or is It really just empty rhetoric.

Elmo wrote: »

I don't think that audience should be watch one of the half dozen Irish channels. I think that the Irish channel should be able to garner a large share of the audience, and this includes utilizing different types of channels. Not plus1 services which in a market like Ireland are redundant but with extra channels. Think about it RTÉ buy in 11,000 hours of TV, while both UTV Ireland and TV3 didn't know what do with their full slate of ITV Studio programmes. While this extra channels wouldn't gain mass audience they would help promote the main services. I am not talking about hundreds of specialized channels but at least one music service, one film services and a proper news services. None are impossible and all would give the consumer choice over subscription TV. Something the 7 or so channels on Saorview don't do.

What world are you living in? Existing channels can barely survive yet they should broadcast new ones? That can somehow compete with UK alternatives with perhaps 1% market share. Running a profitable music,news or film service in the Irish market alone is la la land

Elmo wrote: »

Cross promotion, you could really say the same about Channel 4 and their repeat channels do you really need 4Seven? or from Channel 5 5STAR?

I agree 3e is absolute garbage but as one of the many General Entertainment channels it has a share of 2.5% and was probably the only thing to save TV3.

4seven and 5star are channels that exist to sell cheap lawyers4you,postcode lotto and life insurance ad space to 60m people in the uk and no more

Elmo wrote: »

UTV Ireland will remain. If it doesn't TV3 will be in the position where they will only grow back to 10% of the audience, that's a drop of 5% between all 3 channels.

Imagine if utv kept going they could rerun ireland am at 1pm for another 3 hours:pac:

Why would tv3 even bother with utv having ireland vs GMB and midday vs loose women, the chase vs tipping point, expose vs the pulse. TV3 market share would be greater then 10% because it would no longer compete with utv in dublin home for the soap audience. Take away the soaps and news service from UTV you have nothing worth promoting/saving that can't be achieved with 3e.

icdg

They won't bother. UTV Ireland in its present form will go. You seriously think TV3 is going to pay for and run two competing news services? Show a breakfast show right opposite its own? Run a talking heads show at midday against its own talking heads show at midday?

There is not a chance it is going to keep a competitor alive with a similar schedule targeting the exact same market. UTV Ireland will go. It's big prime time ratings winners - the soaps, Ant and Dec, Graham Norton etc - will move to TV3. Some of the daytime and ITV2 stuff might go to 3e to displace repeats. The rest of the ITV Studios programmes, including GMB, Lorraine, This Morning, and Loose Women - will never be heard of or seen in this market again. They compete directly with TV3 shows that they need to run to keep their Irish content up and will disappear.

UTV Ireland has some very good EPG positioning, and it might be that TV3 will set up some sort of speciality or genre based channel to replace it and make use of that EPG presence (or prevent someone else from getting them). But it won't be another general entertainment channel, and it won't look a thing like UTV Ireland.

Elmo

doc11 wrote: »

who should there audience be? what programs would get them above 10%? Examples or you're just B.S.

There audience is the mainstream audience. A wide audience with wide tastes. I would say that largely speaking (55%) of that audience don't consider them contemporary with Irish life. UTV Ireland relied heavily on ITV Soaps, when they did actually start to show other drama's as ITV most of the audience had give up thinking what we already knew that UTV Ireland didn't have access to certain ITV shows. TV3's use of Daytime TV in prime time failed to help them gain any audience outside the ITV Soaps. For all their bluster they didn't really do anything over the past year and a half. Both TV channel audience share show this to be this case.

Could you give me an example of consistent schedules and quality prime time programming. What channel in the UK do you think we could replicate?
or is It really just empty rhetoric.

I honestly don`t think it is a great idea to total replicate an English channel. though both TV3 and UTV Ireland`s main success seems to be a simulcast of ITV. Also to imitate programming from English TV often falls flat. Though if you want to look at UK TV, I`d suggest Channel 4 or BBC2 for RTE2, I`d have no problem with RTE2`s very low audience shares if it provided some amount of public service content, its current content little more than Sky One lite.

What world are you living in? Existing channels can barely survive yet they should broadcast new ones? That can somehow compete with UK alternatives with perhaps 1% market share. Running a profitable music,news or film service in the Irish market alone is la la land

I have no sympathy for Irish broadcaster. There was a time in the mid-2000s when they had better content but currently they all lack any imagination. When I do suggest extra channels from Irish broadcasters usually I mean the use of content that they are currently not using but have the rights to (e.g. 11,000 hours of content bought in by RTE, and the range of shows that TV3 never broadcast on TV3 from ITV Studios), coupled with repeats of programming from the main services.

4seven and 5star are channels that exist to sell cheap lawyers4you,postcode lotto and life insurance ad space to 60m people in the uk and no more

That`s fine they are repeat channels.

Imagine if utv kept going they could rerun ireland am at 1pm for another 3 hours:pac:

Better than This is UTV Ireland!

Why would tv3 even bother with utv having ireland vs GMB and midday vs loose women, the chase vs tipping point, expose vs the pulse. TV3 market share would be greater then 10% because it would no longer compete with utv in dublin home for the soap audience. Take away the soaps and news service from UTV you have nothing worth promoting/saving that can't be achieved with 3e

Why wouldn`t they. Does it really matter to Virgin Media if they sell ads? TV3 will own the rights to both Tipping point and The Chase why wouldn't they air both? They won't keep The Pulse or Ireland Live.

If you get rid of UTV Ireland TV3 will see a drop in audience. Yes TV3 will move the soaps back, but drop UTV Ireland and see the audience drop off.

doc11

Elmo wrote: »

There audience is the mainstream audience. A wide audience with wide tastes. I would say that largely speaking (55%) of that audience don't consider them contemporary with Irish life. UTV Ireland relied heavily on ITV Soaps, when they did actually start to show other drama's as ITV most of the audience had give up thinking what we already knew that UTV Ireland didn't have access to certain ITV shows. TV3's use of Daytime TV in prime time failed to help them gain any audience outside the ITV Soaps. For all their bluster they didn't really do anything over the past year and a half. Both TV channel audience share show this to be this case.

Did TV3 not develop red rock?Great bake off? What programs do you want?

Elmo wrote: »

I honestly don`t think it is a great idea to total replicate an English channel. though both TV3 and UTV Ireland`s main success seems to be a simulcast of ITV. Also to imitate programming from English TV often falls flat. Though if you want to look at UK TV, I`d suggest Channel 4 or BBC2 for RTE2, I`d have no problem with RTE2`s very low audience shares if it provided some amount of public service content, its current content little more than Sky One lite.

What Public service content do Channel4/bbc2 provide that say rte/tv3 don't

Elmo wrote: »

I have no sympathy for Irish broadcaster. There was a time in the mid-2000s when they had better content but currently they all lack any imagination. When I do suggest extra channels from Irish broadcasters usually I mean the use of content that they are currently not using but have the rights to (e.g. 11,000 hours of content bought in by RTE, and the range of shows that TV3 never broadcast on TV3 from ITV Studios), coupled with repeats of programming from the main services.

Thousands hours of content that no one will watch in any great numbers. Useless really. Even if it was fantastic content when you have a situation when repeats of say Ant and Dec from 3/4 years ago where easily beating new episodes on UTV or the bridge on tg4 getting a few thousand viewers what's a tv controller to do. The general tv audience aren't that smart.

Elmo

doc11 wrote: »

Did TV3 not develop red rock?Great bake off? What programs do you want?

Red Rock is welcome, but generally TV3 other shows destroyed any chance of it doing well. this will change with the return of coro st. and it will get a boost in audience share.

Programmes like Xpose and The 7 O'Clock Show are purely filler.

What Public service content do Channel4/bbc2 provide that say rte/tv3 don't

RTE2 firstly not RTE ONE. They both provide PSB far beyond either RTE2 or TV3. RTE2 have already put their news programme on holiday it airs for 4mins!!! not that you should compare those channels with their Irish counterparts due to budgets but even still TV3 and RTE2 aren't doing much.

Thousands hours of content that no one will watch in any great numbers. Useless really.

Well then don't buy those programmes.

iseegirls

Elmo wrote: »

Programmes like Xpose and The 7 O'Clock Show are purely filler.

Don't see it like that. If they wanted filler, they could have went down an easy and cheap route, and put Friends and other US shows in there. Xpose isn't aimed for me - but it does have an audience there that does provide an alternative to the News and Simpsons on the RTE channels.

The shows keep on going throughout the summer as well, along with mostly every other programme like TWVB, Ireland:AM, Midday. Meanwhile RTE One goes into a hiatus with their shows until September. Reeling In The Years is once again brought on for the month of August.

Dodge

Yeah, I think Elmo is mistaking "light, not for me" for "filler" there. Expose, certainly does have an audience and it's well suited to it's time too.

Elmo

Dodge wrote: »

Yeah, I think Elmo is mistaking "light, not for me" for "filler" there. Expose, certainly does have an audience and it's well suited to it's time too.

Really its light cheep Irish filler, it served a kind of a purpose while TV3 didn't have the soaps, but we know that Xpose is being reduced to 30mins (and that it has less than 50,000 viewer most nights) and The Seven O'Clock Show is either going from TV3 or moving back to its lunch time slot (again a show that has less than 50,000 viewers).

So much for a strong audience for either show. They may not be my type of show but we all know that neither live up to the shows that the aim to imitate, in terms of audience and in terms of content.

Dodge

You can't call it cheap when they could easily buy in any number of sitcoms or soaps from UK, US or Australia for a fraction of the price

medoc

Dodge wrote: »

You can't call it cheap when they could easily buy in any number of sitcoms or soaps from UK, US or Australia for a fraction of the price

But they need a certain amount of home produced programmes so in that sense it is cheap filler and they can repeat them the next afternoon anyway.

iseegirls

medoc wrote: »

But they need a certain amount of home produced programmes so in that sense it is cheap filler and they can repeat them the next afternoon anyway.

They have easily enough home produced shows to fill their quota without Xpose & TSOS. Ireland AM, VinB and News take up 5.5 hours a day. Giving them 25% already, as they shut down for around 3 hours in the night.

EdmondShiels3

Would a general entertainment channel work or a american comedy/american drama channel work in place of utv ireland. There are alot of american programs not shown over here.