The Virgin Media Television thread

Delta2113

Anyone else notice from the Ireland Rugby on Saturday the audio switched to Australian Commentators for a while in error. I saw a thread elsewhere which might be referring to this.

deezell

Didn't notice, I might have missed it on a beer run to the kitchen, but the co commentator Drew Mitchell with McIntyre was an Aussie. Wallabies really gave it all, but coaches must take the blame for their players playing on the borders of legality, just to try and tilt the aggression factor. They lost good field position more than once over that. A real scrap.

UsBus

Jesus Virgin media are really on their a*se with TV content. Changing presenters on a daily basis. No cohesion or rapport there at all. It's like watching work experience students terrified of slipping up.

Getting Virgin presenters on as guests on other panel shows is as low as you can get. 'So what are you up to now..?" Ahhh, well I'm working here kind of.."

dublinman1990

Are you getting that stuff from Ireland AM, The Tonight Show etc?

iseegirls

Martin King was moved to the weekend version of Ireland AM recently, ending his role on The Six O'Clock Show after a number of years. Not sure who's the replacement on that show for him.

Martin King replaced Simon Delaney on Ireland AM. I presume Martin King no longer does the weather bulletins then

AJB39

Martin King has been replaced by Greg O’Shea on the Six O’Clock Show. Martin has stopped doing the weather bulletin after the news at Seven. Since he left there has been nobody presenting that weather bulletin, just a voiceover from whoever presented the news.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119908076#Comment_119908076

Six O'Clock Show slowly becoming more and more like The One Show meets Xposé

UsBus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119906591#Comment_119906591

Ya, it seems these type shows are a training ground for wannabe presenters to start a career in television. They are learning as they go and it can be cringe worthy to watch. Just because someone did a stint on love island or celebrity brain-dead doesn't equate to a formal education in media training and it shows.

Maz2016

It suits virgin media though, cheap output

iseegirls

Nice to see a third series of Fanning At Whelans on next week on VM1 and 2.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119926383#Comment_119926383

If fanning the only RTÉ staffer to present a TV show on VMTV/TV3?

medoc

Just caught the end of the sport on the news at 5.30. Is there any reason they showed the ITV pictures of the Netherlands World Cup game? Would RTÉ not have the rights in Ireland and Virgin would get the pictures from them with a courtesy of RTÉ notice?

deezell

Do they have to pay for highlight clips from the rights holder? Maybe ITV were cheaper.

AJB39

Or maybe they just didn’t want to show a clip from RTÉ because of the rivalry between Virgin Media and RTÉ.

dulpit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119936339#Comment_119936339

They always tend to use UK pictures instead of RTE's if possible. I assume it's to avoid showing competitor's logos, plus pettiness..

deezell

I watch their news at 5.30, and their sport. Thats it. The rest is either innane or designed for UK consumption, or both, pandering to the new norms of insular post brexit Britain in a manner that for some reason makes my stomach churn. RTE would want to watch themselves too, I find it difficult to watch factual programmes when they are presented from Barbie's house. I sometimes expect the presenters to start texting or tweeting mid sentence, you can see it in their eyes. Bah. Humbug.

lertsnim

They show everything else from ITV. Why break with tradition?

eguiney

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119938152#Comment_119938152

They might be getting the clips from a UK agency rather than editing them directly.

iseegirls

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119932238#Comment_119932238

Yeah, had a good think about this one, I think it probably is.

There was a 2011 2 part docu from Gay Byrne - Inside a Car Crash: Ireland's Shocking Truth. Although it was more done because Gay was chairperson of the Road Safety Authority.

Maybe Eamon Dunphy as well, who hosted The Weakest Link and his own show, while simultaneously being on RTE2's Premier League and CL coverage. He's probably a contractor perhaps?

Notably Eoghan McDermott couldn't do any promotion for Love Island Australia (as he was the voiceover some of the seasons) due to him working on 2FM at the time.

deezell

Dunphy's own show was the 'weakest' link also, for a different reason. A good presenter knows when to 'pass the ball', instead of trying to keep it and end up scoring an og.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119939004#Comment_119939004

I have re-watched, well taken a quick look, had it been on a Saturday Night it would have gained an audience.

deezell

Would it though? The late late was successful on either Friday or Saturday, as were a lot of other shows. Pat Kenny's Saturday live was a success, right up to when he took over the late late. His midweek Frontline programme after he left the late late was also successful, until RTE scored an og by foisting Clare Byrne and Miriam O' Callaghan on top of him, at which point he walked, and the show died. His UTV Ireland show bombed, as did UTV Ireland. My old Sat box app still pulls the old TV3 icons, though the channel names are correct, which is kind of cute and nostalgic.

Maz2016

TG4 is now HD on saorview. Now it’s only the virgin channels broadcasting in 544×576, sky news and RTÉ news broadcast in 704×576. TG4 is 1440×1080. Just shows how far behind virgin media is.

deezell

The Sub SD resolution suits them, when they get the exclusive rights to sport with an Irish FTA mandate, they can satisfy this requirement with low resolution terrestrial broadcast, and lever the high resolution version on the Sky paywall market.

Ironically, this was not a strategic decision they made with the advent of digital TV, (they had already upgraded to HD studios by 2011), but rather occurred when RTE Networks Limited tried to gouge them for the two digital channels for TV3 and 3E, despite both channels occupying only a fraction of the bitrate and equivalent bandwidth of a single UHF analogue channel, when they they previously had two UHF channels. As a result they purchased the minimum bitrate of two sub SD channels, normally used for shopping channels and news, thus leaving RTENL with a load of unwanted HD and SD channels and Bitrate on their mux, which remained unused for years.

I'm glad to see TG4 being upgraded to HD, it's frustrating watching the URC on such limited resolution. The News channel in SD essential for watching the simultaneous last round matches, where Switzerland have just scored.

lertsnim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119949957#Comment_119949957

They probably want us all to subscribe to their cable service for HD. Been there before and would never subscribe to their television service again

deezell

Edinburgh Munster game looking great on TG4 anyway.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119940536#Comment_119940536

1. At that point RTÉ had no Saturday Night chat show. So TV3 would not have had competition Tub Tonight started in 2004, a hiatus of 3 years.
2. Kenny Live didn't have competition in the 1990s from other Irish TV shows or channels
3. Frontline wasn't that successful, RTÉ like to dress up their Monday Night Current Affairs show but I don't think any have been a successful as Q&A, one of the reasons Frontline became Prime Time Live.
4. His show bomb on UTV Ireland but in general for the 2 years UTV Ireland was on the air it was as successful as TV3, while it beat RTÉ to 3rd place and at times was in 2nd, the problem was there focus on ITV studio programming and not much else.
5. Bring back Channel 6 and Network 2 :)

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119950301#Comment_119950301

AFAIR ComReg insisted on the pricing for the MUXES RTÉ NL, I assume they are being charged around the same for the 4 channels now, due to the addition of Sky News and TG4 HD.

I assume that RTÉjr | RTÉ2+1 will soon share space on Saorview with the arrival of Cula 4 | TG4 +1 in the new year? Anyone know what is happening OTV at the weekends.

iseegirls

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119951019#Comment_119951019

On number 4, I think he only had something like 5 episodes of his chat show on UTV Ireland. Such a huge announcement at the time, and then oddly didn't deliver anything.

I don't think that channel ever passed TV3 in shares to 2nd place. They had built up good audience for Ireland AM, Xpose, News and Vincent Browne that helped along, although their 7pm-9pm ratings were horrific.

Odd things like repeats of Saturday Night Takeway on TV3 were beating UTVI's new SNT episodes.

TV3 / VMTV went downhill soon after they purchased it, and turned it into be3 and is now like a poor man's ITV3 into VM3.

RoTelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119951223#Comment_119951223

Nov 2016, though by that stage VM had taken over I think, and just missed 2nd place in Nov 2015 with 7.36% v 7.93%, if you add UTV proper they had 8.25%. I did mean to say it beat RTÉ2 to 3rd place, and practically halved TV3 audience, over those 2 years.

I agree with you on Pat Kenny and least we forget him bombing on TV3 a year or so later.