The Gay Byrne Irish Television Thread 2.0

[Dylan2001]

Family Guy never airs in Ireland. Maybe it could be the home of U.S comedy?.

[Brekkie]

A fifth channel called VM Four? When did Virgin Media More launch?

[Rdd]

Launched back in April, only on the VM cable platform, it basically replaced the old VMTV Sport channel and shows some first run dramas and some other stuff in the evenings and some of the sport that was on the old sport channel during the day.

---

Family Guy never airs in Ireland. Maybe it could be the home of U.S comedy?.

Gone to Disney+.

But VMTV Two isn’t that type of channel any more and hasn’t been for a few years. Truth is VMTV as a whole are totally reliant on ITV as a content provider outside of news, sport, and some talk shows.

[Roger Darthwell]

Launched back in April, only on the VM cable platform, it basically replaced the old VMTV Sport channel and shows some first run dramas and some other stuff in the evenings and some of the sport that was on the old sport channel during the day.

---

Family Guy never airs in Ireland. Maybe it could be the home of U.S comedy?.

Gone to Disney+.

But VMTV Two isn’t that type of channel any more and hasn’t been for a few years. Truth is VMTV as a whole are totally reliant on ITV as a content provider outside of news, sport, and some talk shows.

In fact, dare I say it, but VMTV has sort of become a de facto ITV region in some aspects, to make an example, years ago I watched a live simulcast of This Morning on VMTV One, and I remember Philip and Holly handing over to the local weather, and you had this weather forecaster for VMTV One doing a full forecast for Ireland.......like it was just another ITV region! I was a bit stunned to see that to be honest

[Rick]

More SD resolution rubbish I'm sure. The VM channels really are a total waste.

[Rdd]

Interestingly enough on that point, it seems VMTV One HD and Two HD are now available to ROI Sky customers without a HD entitlement. Previously you needed to have a HD sub to get the HD versions. There’s no HD version of VMTV Three on Sky.

[Teilifís]

Launched back in April, only on the VM cable platform, it basically replaced the old VMTV Sport channel and shows some first run dramas and some other stuff in the evenings and some of the sport that was on the old sport channel during the day.

---

Gone to Disney+.

But VMTV Two isn’t that type of channel any more and hasn’t been for a few years. Truth is VMTV as a whole are totally reliant on ITV as a content provider outside of news, sport, and some talk shows.

In fact, dare I say it, but VMTV has sort of become a de facto ITV region in some aspects, to make an example, years ago I watched a live simulcast of This Morning on VMTV One, and I remember Philip and Holly handing over to the local weather, and you had this weather forecaster for VMTV One doing a full forecast for Ireland.......like it was just another ITV region! I was a bit stunned to see that to be honest

Genuinely baffled at how VMTV are able to bring along so many channels with so little actually going on. I will always give them credit for the creation and production of so many hours of live television every day, which compared to RTÉ, puts them to shame. Outside of news & current affairs, RTÉ doesn't do much. But for the rest of the channels, they are just that - a sub ITV region. There are periods when the likes of a VM3 might just shows hours and hours of The Chase, and nothing else. What purpose is it serving? Irish folk who have the likes of Sky, Virgin TV, Eir TV or whatever, have access to the digital channels (Watch, Dave, Great Movies etc.) - I can't understand why such a under resourced (and from my experience, under paying...) station is so keen on wasting money on additional channels that serve nothing. Keep VM2 (so the likes of Love Island can go there without screwing up the VM1 schedule), but after that, shut them down.

[TVenthusiasm]

Launched back in April, only on the VM cable platform, it basically replaced the old VMTV Sport channel and shows some first run dramas and some other stuff in the evenings and some of the sport that was on the old sport channel during the day.

---

Gone to Disney+.

But VMTV Two isn’t that type of channel any more and hasn’t been for a few years. Truth is VMTV as a whole are totally reliant on ITV as a content provider outside of news, sport, and some talk shows.

In fact, dare I say it, but VMTV has sort of become a de facto ITV region in some aspects, to make an example, years ago I watched a live simulcast of This Morning on VMTV One, and I remember Philip and Holly handing over to the local weather, and you had this weather forecaster for VMTV One doing a full forecast for Ireland.......like it was just another ITV region! I was a bit stunned to see that to be honest

Indeed, when I watched This Morning on VM1 earlier, there was a weather report for Ireland! So with all the ITV programmes on VMTV in general plus the endless repeats that dominate the schedules on VM1 and VM2, they might as well rebrand VMTV 'ITV Ireland'.

[Rdd]

To be fair it’s now over seven years since ITV (UTV and subsequently ITV2) was removed from cable platforms in Ireland, while Sky viewers can only access it through the convoluted Manual Tuning process. Yes it’s on free to air satellite, but a slight majority of homes continue to subscribe to pay TV (about 320k with VM, about 700k with Sky, and a relatively small number with Vodafone) and not all of those who don’t have FTA satellite. So for a lot of people VMTV is their main point of access to ITV programming, which was historically strong in Ireland (up until the mid-2010s UTV would have been listed alongside the main PSB channels in newspapers).

ITV actually owned an equity stake in what is now VMTV during the early 2000s; they were forced to sell under the terms of their shareholders agreement with the now defunct CanWest Global who were in trouble and wanted out. I’m not sure why given the continued dependency almost 20 years later (save for the brief period when UTV Ireland existed) they’ve never sought to buy out, particular during the decade TV3 was private equity owned when they’d have sold for a decent profit. Presumably ITV feel the current arrangement where they get a decent payment and none of the risk is worthwhile enough, and broadcast television will long term decline from here on out anyway.

[Brekkie]

What happened to Liberty Global trying to sell the channels again?

[Rdd]

Nothing, they still want out of Ireland (completely - not just the broadcast operation) but have the slight problem of no one wanting to take the cable side off their hands. It would possibly be easier on them if they did just want rid of the content business but they want to offload the lot.

[bkman1990]

I've learned from boards.ie today that VM are going to launch yet another TV channel on their portfolio called Virgín Media Four in the not too distant future. There is also plans by VM to make VM Two an Irish youth oriented TV channel.

These plans were announced in a showcase for.Virgin Media Television held in Dublin sometime last week. I'm actually stunned in reading that VM want to launch another channel in a small media landscape like Ireland.

https://www.virginmediatelevision.ie/sol...wcase-2022

The PDF for this presentation is contained in this link.

VM Four's new logo is displayed on Page 12 of the document.

EDIT:

Ah. I see now that I've been beaten to it. At least you guys got here before me. I'm still struggling to think about what type of content will be available on VM Four in the near future.

If we were being serious about it for a second. Could this new station put on programmes that are shown on ITV3 & ITV4 on it to have it as a new ITV archive type channel that is catered for an Irish audience.

[Mateus Honrado]

TG4 continuity from July 25, 2022.
https://youtu.be/Din1cQcJtuM

[Rdd]

A few Irish tidbits before we say goodbye…there’s a rather belated 60th anniversary promo now airing on RTE with clips from the previous six decades of Irish TV.

Ryan Tubridy gave a recent interview in which he indicated there may be something of a revamp for the Late Late in the Autumn, didn’t give any details but if they could get rid of the current uber-cheesey titles while keeping the original theme arrangement it would be nice. (Please don’t go back to the big band version used for Tubridy’s first decade, thanks!).

Lastly, VM Four, nothing more heard from the latest new channel launch, be interesting to see what’s planned. (Or not, it’ll probably just be more ITV repeats).

Slan and goodbye.