The Virgin Media Television thread

Kermit.de.frog

byte wrote: »

The name "Virgin 1" would make more sense

Sounds like an interesting name...for a porn channel.

mollser

Is the plan here top use Ireland as a testing ground to roll this out internationally? I could see the plan here to have a consistent brand across the globe, adding exclusive content which is showcased on the TV channel but available instantly on their subscription service (like what they do with Good Behaviour etc). Maybe with sport to be added as well.

I don't know, but that could be the direction they're going? ?

Schorpio

mollser wrote: »

Is the plan here top use Ireland as a testing ground to roll this out internationally? I could see the plan here to have a consistent brand across the globe, adding exclusive content which is showcased on the TV channel but available instantly on their subscription service (like what they do with Good Behaviour etc). Maybe with sport to be added as well.

I don't know, but that could be the direction they're going? ?

No way. They've already had UK 'virgin' channels, which eventually folded.

As for the 'Virgin have money, why not bring HD to Saorview', I'd imagine it's got something to do with Virgin having their own pay-TV platform. The 'worse' they can make Saorview look, the more attractive their own platform becomes.

deezell

Machinehead wrote: »

Would it be implausible to think that now with VM mega bucks behind them, that for such a high profile competition, the company would reconsider their position on HD via Saorview in time for the beginning of the tournament.

It depends on how much of a bung tv3 get by having their HD product only on sky. If half of sky's subscribers opt for HD, that's about 5M subs at about 120 pa, for about 75 HD channels, or 8M per Hd channel. How much trickles down to tv3 is anyone's guess. It would only affect Irish subscriptions if Saorview carried tv3 hd

icdg

Schorpio wrote: »

No way. They've already had UK 'virgin' channels, which eventually folded.
.

They were sold to Sky. Virgin Media (who were still independent at that point) wanted out of the content business, Virgin Media - who were originally NTL - were never particularly interested in content and only ended up with Flextech because they bought its owner Telewest, tried to sell it straight after the merger and couldn’t get a buyer. They eventually got Sky to take it off their hands.

A number of the channels were closed - by Sky - not Virgin - after the sale went through, as they were effectively direct competitors for Sky’s own channels.. Sky Living, Real Lives, and Challenge are still going.

But that is all historical. The Virgin Media Inc - in truth still NTL - that took those decisions is gone. The Virgin Media name may still survive, but it is Liberty Global that is running the company now.

byte

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Sounds like an interesting name...for a porn channel.

Well, they'd probably get more viewers so :pac:

Mossy Monk

Machinehead wrote: »

If not then I'm afraid it's over to BBC & ITV for HD & back to TV3 at halftime & post match analysis with an Irish slant.

I'm afraid their analysis will consist of 80% advertising. I will have to put up with it as I currently only have Saorview.

zeebre12

Weird on TV3 news at 5.30 yesterday. Are they allowed to say '****hole' that early in the evening regarding what Trump said Could they not have said 'derogatory comment' instead? What's next 'He called him a F***ing c**t'?

Maz2016

zeebre12 wrote: »

Weird on TV3 news at 5.30 yesterday. Are they allowed to say '****hole' that early in the evening regarding what Trump said Could they not have said 'derogatory comment' instead? What's next 'He called him a F***ing c**t'?

Its not just TV3 news. When its a quote, I think it is acceptable.

dulpit

You hear the odd swearword on radio too from time to time, as long as it's not egregious I reckon it's okay.

Plus, as per above, I think it's different when it's a quote anyway...

lertsnim

zeebre12 wrote: »

Weird on TV3 news at 5.30 yesterday. Are they allowed to say '****hole' that early in the evening regarding what Trump said Could they not have said 'derogatory comment' instead? What's next 'He called him a F***ing c**t'?

It was the main focus of the story so is allowed. RTE however didn't say it and bleeped it when someone else said it which I found ridiculous.

Sam Russell

lertsnim wrote: »

It was the main focus of the story so is allowed. RTE however didn't say it and bleeped it when someone else said it which I found ridiculous.

What was more ridiculous was the American MSM not being able to cope with the word 'pussy' when the Access tapes were released with the then candidate Trump saying that he grabbed women 'by the pussy' because he was so famous. Mainly Republican commentators were horrified when other commentators actually quoted the phrase in full.

That same person (Trump) is now using another offensive phrase to describe poor countries that some news media find difficult to cope with.

I can understand the difficulties.

Elmo

Sam Russell wrote: »

I can understand the difficulties.

someone said that trumps called some countries ****holes

Seems boards has a problem also

icdg

Look, can we drop the Trump conversation please. Plenty of places on Boards to discuss him. This isn’t it.

Elmo

icdg wrote: »

Look, can we drop the Trump conversation please. Plenty of places on Boards to discuss him. This isn’t it.

We need a Fox & Friends Thread

Elmo

https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/television/raising-its-game-how-tv3-is-set-to-take-on-rt-after-6-nations-win-and-rebrand-36532020.html

I am not sure about this survival of TV3.

TV3 had a white knight arrive in the form of Virgin, as did UTV in the form of ITV and later Virgin. For both channels in means a rebrand to Virgin, and if you were to follow TV3's train of thought on Channel 6 and UTV Ireland it means that TV3, 3e and be3 will cease to exist, it will be interesting to see if their parent companies will be closed at last.

I'd be wary of saying that "6 nations is a loss leader" (as Pat Keily suggest in the SBP that he cannot afford not to make a return) or "here's a TV station that fought the on slaught of Sky News Ireland and UTV Ireland".

Sky News Ireland being very much overestimated by the print media.

I'd wonder about "strong Dublin Accents" on TV3, I haven't heard them on any of the presenters.

The idea of "those 'town hall' programmes that Browne did around the time of the last general election were really rough-looking, from a television point of view, but it was fantastic public service television. " is strange mainly because I felt they were pointless arguing matches on top of badly produced TV.

I'd also question if TV3 can retain the audience they should gain from Six Nations and IGT, neither TV3 nor RTÉ have been able to retain audience of any kind after big events.

Then there is TV3 willingness to buy the world cup from RTÉ even though they didn't like the last deal for the Euros, which gave them a 10% share but again that was lost the following month. I can't see RTÉ selling any world cup games this year IMO.

iseegirls

Have to agree with the mess of the 3e and be3 re-brand. Such a wasted opportunity for 3e. If it wasn't for Big Brother and Love Island - it would be hard to distinguish it from the others.

For instance Airline USA has episodes on TV3, 3e and be3 this week. It's just pure and cheap filler on the channels. The Holiday Show repeats from 3 years ago have gotten a run on all 3 channels over the past month. It's as if they don't care, and just want to cram as much repeats on and save money instead of showing programmes that may cost more (US/Canada/NZ programmes) bit would be relevant to that target markets channel.

icdg

The article is factually incorrect when it says the 2015 RWC was the first not to be broadcast by RTE. TV3 (and Setanta) had 2007 too.

Machinehead

They want viewers to 'Move the Dial' in preparation for the six nations - some chance - may watch the pundits for their pre & post match analysis but it's over to HD vision with the BBC & ITV for the games. Will sorely miss Ryle Nugent though, who in my view is the best & most passionate rugby commentator on these islands.

zeebre12

iseegirls wrote: »

Have to agree with the mess of the 3e and be3 re-brand. Such a wasted opportunity for 3e. If it wasn't for Big Brother and Love Island - it would be hard to distinguish it from the others.

For instance Airline USA has episodes on TV3, 3e and be3 this week. It's just pure and cheap filler on the channels. The Holiday Show repeats from 3 years ago have gotten a run on all 3 channels over the past month. It's as if they don't care, and just want to cram as much repeats on and save money instead of showing programmes that may cost more (US/Canada/NZ programmes) bit would be relevant to that target markets channel.

It all repeat after repeat after repeat. These Airline episodes are 14 years old and they are repeating them constantly over again. I'd say this is the cheapest of the cheap. All 3e really is is repeats of Tipping Point and other ITV shows over and over again. Couldn't they acquire some old US sitcoms even like 8 Simple Rules, Friends, Fresh Prince, Scrubs, Malcom in the Middle, Melissa and Joey, Gilmore Girls etc. They'd hardly break the bank. A few years ago at least they had Pretty Little Liars/Family Guy on (at stupid times) but now its repeat after repeat of ITV shows.

icdg

For those that asked, the Pat Kenny Show is back on Wednesday.

Elmo

zeebre12 wrote: »

It all repeat after repeat after repeat. These Airline episodes are 14 years old and they are repeating them constantly over again. I'd say this is the cheapest of the cheap. All 3e really is is repeats of Tipping Point and other ITV shows over and over again. Couldn't they acquire some old US sitcoms even like 8 Simple Rules, Friends, Fresh Prince, Scrubs, Malcom in the Middle, Melissa and Joey, Gilmore Girls etc. They'd hardly break the bank. A few years ago at least they had Pretty Little Liars/Family Guy on (at stupid times) but now its repeat after repeat of ITV shows.

Gilmore Girls currently repeating on TG4

dublinman1990

Friends is also currently repeating on RTÉ2.

Thargor

dublinman1990 wrote: »

Friends is also currently repeating on RTÉ2.

Currently!?

icdg

Im slightly concerned that this thread is now going to turn into a discussion over who holds the rights to the list of shows zeebre12 posted, so let’s maybe not go down that road.

deezell

Speaking of who holds rights, Sit back and relax Saturday for the inaugural TV3 6 nations show, all 544 pixels of it smeared out over the 3840 pixels of my nice UHD screen. That's 18 pixels per player on the screen. It'll be like the old days of 405 line TV, whose 4:3 aspect ratio had a notional horizontal resolution of 540 lines. Thank the stars (or the Clarke belt an any rate) for good old Astra and 1920 pixels of HD signal from BBC/ITV. I'll just need to bodge the home commentary out of the speakers

deezell

deezell wrote: »

Speaking of who holds rights, Sit back and relax Saturday for the inaugural TV3 6 nations show, all 544 pixels of it smeared out over the 3840 pixels of my nice UHD screen. That's 18 pixels per player on the screen. It'll be like the old days of 405 line TV, whose 4:3 aspect ratio had a notional horizontal resolution of 540 lines. Thank the stars (or the Clarke belt an any rate) for good old Astra and 1920 pixels of HD signal from BBC/ITV. I'll just need to bodge the home commentary out of the speakers

Need to bombard COMREG and the relevant minister with emails over this tbf. Should be booted off Saorview.

political analyst

Deleted User wrote: »

Need to bombard COMREG and the relevant minister with emails over this tbf. Should be booted off Saorview.

And leave Saorview-only viewers with even less choice?!

icdg

Comreg don’t have any jurisdiction to do that. They don’t own or operate Saorview. The only way they could do it would be to redefine the Irish DVB-T standard so that **all** channels had to be HD. I suspect that process, if embarked on, wouldn’t happen fast enough for those who are calling for its liking.

Even that being the case TV3 would have a very good argument that they signed a contract with the BAI back in 2008 that did not place any requirement on them to operate a HD service, and that being the case, the authorities have no right to “move the goalposts” at this point.

political analyst

icdg wrote: »

Comreg don’t have any jurisdiction to do that. They don’t own or operate Saorview. The only way they could do it would be to redefine the Irish DVB-T standard so that **all** channels had to be HD. I suspect that process, if embarked on, wouldn’t happen fast enough for those who are calling for its liking.

Even that being the case TV3 would have a very good argument that they signed a contract with the BAI back in 2008 that did not place any requirement on them to operate a HD service, and that being the case, the authorities have no right to “move the goalposts” at this point.

Is TV3's broadcast licence up for renewal at a later date? If it is, could HD be brought up in negotiations between TV3 and the BAI?