Irish TV - gone?

JDxtra

How long before they are pulled from the platforms?

The Parish priest

Was the rich guy who gave them all the money conned into thinking that they would get a slice of the tv licence fee ?

Walter2016

The Parish priest wrote: »

Was the rich guy who gave them all the money coxed into thinking that they would get a slice of the tv licence fee ?

No, i think that would have been a bonus.

When they launched they just had wild expectations that every Irish person abroad would watch it - their hoped for viewership was off the wall.

Even with the best will in the world, it was not going to succeed in today's internet age. Even minor local matches can be broadcast online with minimal equipment and all local news is available almost as it happens.

Probably would have worked 40 years ago.

JDxtra

JDxtra wrote: »

How long before they are pulled from the platforms?

Still on the Freesat platform (ch 400) as of now.

An Ciarraioch

JDxtra wrote: »

How long before they are pulled from the platforms?

Still broadcasting for now, suppose it'll take a few weeks to formally wind up the company.

h7nlrp2v0g5u48

Sad to see it go as no matter how much I tried to advoid it I always found myself switching over just to see if anything new would appear.

The Cush

Another story in the papers today relating to Irish TV

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/high-court/tommy-fleming-gets-injunction-over-bestselling-dvd-1.2912045
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/singer-granted-injunction-against-tv-company-over-use-of-bestselling-dvd-35306393.html

Singer Tommy Fleming has secured an injunction restraining the broadcasting of his bestselling DVD Voice of Hope by a TV company pending the hearing of a legal action.

The order was granted by a High Court judge against Irish TV, which is based in Co Mayo. The company broadcasts a 24-hour channel on Sky, Eir and free-to-air services as well as an online video-on-demand service.

liam7831

The Cush wrote: »

Another story in the papers today relating to Irish TV

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/high-court/tommy-fleming-gets-injunction-over-bestselling-dvd-1.2912045
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/singer-granted-injunction-against-tv-company-over-use-of-bestselling-dvd-35306393.html

The video shows Tommy singing Something inside so strong over and over and over and over and over and over ....,

Hotblack Desiato

Walter2016 wrote: »

When they launched they just had wild expectations that every Irish person abroad would watch it - their hoped for viewership was off the wall.

Even if they did - would that still be appealing enough to advertisers willing to pay enough to cover the costs?
The younger generation watch on-demand online or pirated content. Many of the Irish abroad are OAPs with limited spending power who have very little appeal to advertisers. I can't imagine IrishTV was bringing in anything more than a pittance in income, and that's before we start talking about the lack of audience focus and dire quality content.

Even with the best will in the world, it was not going to succeed in today's internet age. Even minor local matches can be broadcast online with minimal equipment and all local news is available almost as it happens.

Yes that's content that a small number of people want to see, if it can be made available on a voluntary basis or at a cost of half nothing then it works. A TV channel has to have more than that going for it and has a lot more costs.

Probably would have worked 40 years ago.

Wouldn't have been possible 40 years ago, might have worked 20 years ago if done properly, TaraTV was definitely a missed opportunity.

RabbleRouser2k

Gotta love how so many company's who completely and utterly miscalculated (to say the least) their current market, and thus failed, are now using the Brexit as a means to say 'oh dear, wasn't expecting that-it was completely not our fault, it was Brexit'. Brexit's become the proverbial One Armed Man to everyone else's Richard Kimble.

I kind of cannot really think of anything I watched on that channel-I think I tuned in once, like, some local TV or something channel. I thought it used to show Country music, but I realised I had the wrong channel in mind. Although I know it had attempted to promote Irish Country music with its own awards show-then RTE jumped on that, copied the idea, and I bet Irish TV were none too pleased.

Tbh, they seemed completely misguided in their thinkings. It's sad, but this is what you get when you don't do your research, and make outlandish claims. They could have just started small, and been more resource clever. But they had big ideas for a pretty small audience.

Its website (www.irishtv.ie) seems to be down today.

Johnboy1951

Deleted User wrote: »

Its website (www.irishtv.ie) seems to be down today.

They also had registered
irishtv.tv
irishtv.com

irishtv.tv is showing a Blacknight placeholder at present.

brick man

RabbleRouser2k wrote:

Tbh, they seemed completely misguided in their thinkings. It's sad, but this is what you get when you don't do your research, and make outlandish claims. They could have just started small, and been more resource clever. But they had big ideas for a pretty small audience.

Utv Ireland seemed to have had the same problem totally misguided in their thinking and research

Elmo

brick man wrote: »

Utv Ireland seemed to have had the same problem totally misguided in their thinking and research

As did TV3. Both lost vast amounts of money it was either ITV or Virgin Media that was going to merge both services.

castle2012

There still broadcasting on sky . I wonder how long for or do they wait till the powers cut ?

Hotblack Desiato

The satellite carriage is presumably paid for in advance, and they'd have to pay someone to go in and press 'stop' on the playout machine, so on it goes...

JeffKenna

I'm disappointed this is gone, sure it's easy to complain about it but at least it was a bit of variety to the same sitcoms and reality shows that are constantly repeated on sky.

Antenna

A number of issues:

(1) Irish Newspapers/guide not printing the schedules for Irish TV even though they print schedules for low viewership UK channels. Again anyone know why?
Looking for payment?
The type of target audience mainly rely on newspaper schedules (or perhaps RTE guide) to plan their TV viewing rather than online listings or EPG.

(2) not on cable TV providers, a particular issue in Dublin, also meaning the channel not visible to perhaps possible national advertisers.
Again were UPC looking for a large payment to carry the channel?

(3) a number of occasions during its life when change of satellite transponder resulted in retuning being needed of FTA satellite boxes for this and a few other smaller satellite broadcasters. The Saorview approved/satellite Combo boxes with a mimic Freesat mode would not automatically retune either. Retuning these things is beyond the grasp of most elderly people, and would probably live without the channel if they lost it rather than pay an installer to visit (or had a family member who could retune for them). Only if BBC etc reception was lost might they get an installer out.

I'm not saying the above issues regarding distribution were the only challenges to Irish TV, but they were certainly significant contributory issues. Regarding programming it didn't make sense trying to do a County Matters show for every single county (regardless of size/population). Some of the smaller neighbouring counties could easily have been grouped together (say Kilkenny and Carlow, as is the case with local radio)

GreenFolder2

They would have probably been better off being entirely online with a very well built website. It would have been way cheaper and given people access to shows on demand.

Narrowcasting on traditional broadcast television platforms, even satellite, is rapidly becoming a very hard sell compared to going online.

It was an interesting idea but, like CityChannel/Channel South shows there isn't much advertising revenue out there for local TV in Ireland.

I think part of the issue is that other than in Cork City there has been no history of local cable type channels in Ireland like the way there was in the USA and even in the Cork example, it was basically run by the cable company directly as part of their service rather than being a purely commercial stand alone entity.

I think for IrishTV to have been a success it would have needed to be on US Cable decades ago or on European satellite certainly in the late 90s early 00s.

It's a bit like trying to launch CDs in an era of Spotify and YouTube

Johnboy1951

Antenna wrote: »

...
(3) a number of occasions during its life when change of satellite transponder resulted in retuning being needed of FTA satellite boxes for this and a few other smaller satellite broadcasters. The Saorview approved/satellite Combo boxes with a mimic Freesat mode would not automatically retune either. Retuning these things is beyond the grasp of most elderly people, and would probably live without the channel if they lost it rather than pay an installer to visit (or had a family member who could retune for them). Only if BBC etc reception was lost might they get an installer out.

What do you consider elderly?

Do you have some statistics that show 'the elderly' are less technically competent than other sections of the general population?

Ageism?

GreenFolder2

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

What do you consider elderly?

Do you have some statistics that show 'the elderly' are less technically competent than other sections of the general population?

Ageism?

I agree - it's more that the content isn't compelling enough to cause most people to go to that effort.

Also I think on the Sky EPG, it's so cluttered with channels, I doubt most people even notice when a channel comes or goes unless it's one of the very major ones.

Elmo

It was more than just platforms. Virgin should have carried for free, while it's difficult to justify printing Irish TV schedules.

The older generation didn't view it as a worthwhile station, it only reminded my parents of City Channel.

Local TV has to be part of a national broadcaster look at how badly local TV AKA channel6 in the UK is doing, you'd wonder why ITV was given permission to buy up all the local channel 3 licence.

Irish TV was unable to criticises itself. It wouldn't see past how twee it was, even if you consider local TV in any other country they actually provide local news services... and even in big cities that's not all that good but it certainly isn't County Matters.

Thargor

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

What do you consider elderly?

Do you have some statistics that show 'the elderly' are less technically competent than other sections of the general population?

Ageism?

Are you for real? What percentage of pensioners in this country do you think can go online to find the new transponder settings and then input them into a new transponder search on the box to find the new location? Then delete all the crap that search inevitably threw up, then move Irish tv back to its old location in their channel list and delete the old dead entry? I would estimate less than 1% of the elderly viewers in the country would be capable of doing that. How is it ageism to ask that?

I know someone said earlier that they only changed frequencies once but Ive had to retune Irish TV at least 5 times for my parents including again this weekend. They did themselves no favours with that but were most likely doomed anyway.

h7nlrp2v0g5u48

I wonder with irish tv now gone will this put pressure on the government or RTE to try and come up with some sort of solution to try and provide an international service for irish people living outside this country?

donegal.

i've sold loads of set top boxes to "elderly" people and i have to agree , most of my customers couldn't retune irish tv.

they are also the only people who watched the station and 0% of them would have watched the station if it was on the internet.

GreenFolder2

Thargor wrote: »

Are you for real? What percentage of pensioners in this country do you think can go online to find the new transponder settings and then input them into a new transponder search on the box to find the new location? Then delete all the crap that search inevitably threw up, then move Irish tv back to its old location in their channel list and delete the old dead entry? I would estimate less than 1% of the elderly viewers in the country would be capable of doing that. How is it ageism to ask that?

I know someone said earlier that they only changed frequencies once but Ive had to retune Irish TV at least 5 times for my parents including again this weekend. They did themselves no favours with that but were most likely doomed anyway.

What % of *ANY* group of customers can do that?
A lot of them struggle to operate the Inputs selection menu on their TV and phone up Sky or Virgin complaining that the service is down because they're on the wrong feed

Johnboy1951

Thargor wrote: »

Are you for real? What percentage of pensioners in this country do you think can go online to find the new transponder settings and then input them into a new transponder search on the box to find the new location? Then delete all the crap that search inevitably threw up, then move Irish tv back to its old location in their channel list and delete the old dead entry? I would estimate less than 1% of the elderly viewers in the country would be capable of doing that. How is it ageism to ask that?

I know someone said earlier that they only changed frequencies once but Ive had to retune Irish TV at least 5 times for my parents including again this weekend. They did themselves no favours with that but were most likely doomed anyway.

What % of TV viewers can do that?

I would estimate less than 1%.

Elmo

I agree I worry about what channels have replace other channels on my parents EPG, I haven't re-tuned it in a while and channel 1 which I tuned to Irish TV is now probably porn! Though I think my mam would be quick enough to let me know.

Even though it was on Channel 1, I can safely say that Irish TV was watched 0% of the time by either of my parents.

My mam misses BBC3!

Thargor

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

What % of TV viewers can do that?

I would estimate less than 1%.

Well then you estimate wrong or do you think all the movie and music channels, Challenge, even Sky News recently are giving up 99% of their audiences on non-freesat boxes every time they move?

FRIENDO

Thargor wrote:

Well then you estimate wrong or do you think all the movie and music channels, Challenge, even Sky News recently are giving up 99% of their audiences on non-freesat boxes every time they move?

I think Fta box's are not user-friendly for any age.
I've been in house's and people of all ages just live with out those channels.

The only answer is Freesat or something similar, when channels are automatically tuned on transponder changes.