The ITV Thread

Elmo

delahuntv wrote: »

If anything UTV Ireland has less viewers than UTV itself had - and the result simply does not match the costs incurred to date with no end to the losses seen. Hence my guess is some shareholders will call stop at some stage or maybe we'll see a full rebrand or we'll see it as an "all Ireland" channel with just breakouts for the news. (and they still keep their saorview spot)

UTV Ireland and UTV together have more viewers across the Island than UTV proper.

UTV proper had 2.9% of the ROI audience in 14, UTV Ireland now has 6% with 0.7% watching UTV proper

I agree that they over spent in their news service. Never understood why they choose to use Communicorp's Newstalk for their local services' National news while at the same time setting up a national news service on UTV Ireland (Economies of Scale???) Part of the main advantage of UTV setting up an RoI TV service was due to the fact it has a number of Local radio stations in 3 major cities Limerick, Dublin and Cork and one more in Belfast.

A Disgrace

Leroy42 wrote: »

I just don't see the business case for ever launching this channel.

All the above, and the interview, would make sense if they were playing the long game. The fact that they have doubled their potential operating loss in 6 months tells me that this was never the plan, and given all the issues with sports rights/general program availability & rights issues I cannot see how they ever thought it would be a success.

When they launched, many of us here (myself included) almost uncannily predicted this situation – we spoke of a channel that seemed to have been created only to host the two soaps. Some of us were outraged, others merely insulted, at their decision to broadcast GMB after public demand became too much (2/3 people on Facebook) and others hoped against hope that they’d integrate live sports into their schedule

Their MD has pretty much confirmed all of the above, and admitted that UTVI has no future, or at least no plans for the future. Mysteriously, it seems that the revenue generated by the two soaps is enough for them, and with costs low (GMB costs next to nothing, as does ‘no sport’) maybe that was the whole plan along.

Elmo

A Disgrace wrote: »

Their MD has pretty much confirmed all of the above, and admitted that UTVI has no future, or at least no plans for the future. Mysteriously, it seems that the revenue generated by the two soaps is enough for them, and with costs low (GMB costs next to nothing, as does ‘no sport’) maybe that was the whole plan along.

The plan of Canwest back in 1998. That's why UTVi would be insane to consider a daytime TV programme over a prime time programme.

iseegirls

Ireland Live At 10 is being reduced to 30minutes next week. May just be reduced for the month though, in a similar move to RTE Six One News.

irishfeen

iseegirls wrote: »

Ireland Live At 10 is being reduced to 30minutes next week. May just be reduced for the month though, in a similar move to RTE Six One News.

I think it could very well be a permanent move.

I wonder how their news output is rating these days?

lacase

Since they moved the news to 5.30 p.m. I don't look at it or any other UTVI programs. I have all the ITV's on Freesat. I used to look at the 6.30 p.m. news and come back to check out UTVI programs, now I don't bother. I have ITV1 in HD, all that UTVI seems to be is a downgraded ITV1.

Jimmy Bottles

UPC TV subscriptions down 5% this year. Linked to UTV Ireland perhaps ?

icdg

Quiet possibly. For me it was the straw that broke the camels back though I'd been considering moving for a while.

Elmo

icdg wrote: »

Quiet possibly. For me it was the straw that broke the camels back though I'd been considering moving for a while.

The Dutch also seem very unhappy!

L1011

Jimmy Bottles wrote: »

UPC TV subscriptions down 5% this year. Linked to UTV Ireland perhaps ?

Been dropping for years.

icdg

They were effectively the incumbent monopoly in large areas of the country so that was bound to happen. Don't forget pre-2001 Sky had no UK channels and cost a small fortune to install (£450 for the equipment alone in the early days of Sky digital).

CorkMartin

I think Alison Comyn is a good newsreader, and enjoy the nightly bulletins. They need to get HD on Saorview, the picture difference is unreal.

smurfs5

CorkMartin wrote: »

I think Alison Comyn is a good newsreader, and enjoy the nightly bulletins. They need to get HD on Saorview, the picture difference is unreal.

Comyn is definitely an asset for them and a better newscaster than most of the RTE lot. O' Donoghue has improved but Comyn is far better than Sharon Ni Bheolain and I prefer her to Eileen Dunne as well, who is quite wooden IMO.

Elmo

smurfs5 wrote: »

Comyn is definitely an asset for them and a better newscaster than most of the RTE lot. O' Donoghue has improved but Comyn is far better than Sharon Ni Bheolain and I prefer her to Eileen Dunne as well, who is quite wooden IMO.

Una O'Hagan is prob RTE's, she always is able to ask a fairly obvious question and catch people off guard and they are always surprised by her line of questioning. Though she don't get to do it that often.

smurfs5

Elmo wrote: »

Una O'Hagan is prob RTE's, she always is able to ask a fairly obvious question and catch people off guard and they are always surprised by her line of questioning. Though she don't get to do it that often.

Yes, her and Dobson are RTE's strongest pair. Why Ni Bheolain gets such a high profile position is baffling. Stumbles over her words, is an awful interviewer and I find the whispery hush she puts on quite annoying.

Anyway, I'd like to see UTV's news go down the Channel 4 News route of dealing with stories the main broadcasters don't bother with. I like how they've made use of foreign correspondents and cover international stories. I'll admit I haven't seen a huge amount of their news output but I'd like to see them have deabtes and make it more of an analytical programme. Most people will know the main stories of the day so inviting experts on, having debates and doing special reports would provide a more in-depth programme with wider discussion of the issues. Whether that would be a ratings winner is debatable, though.

Sam Russell

smurfs5 wrote: »

Why Ni Bheolain gets such a high profile position is baffling.

Fluent Irish?

icdg

AFAIK she rarely does the Nuacht anymore, because it comes from TG4's studios in Co. Galway.

lertsnim

Sam Russell wrote: »

Fluent Irish?

Which is handy for being a presenter on an English speaking programme?

Arrow in the Knee

smurfs5 wrote: »

Anyway, I'd like to see UTV's news go down the Channel 4 News route of dealing with stories the main broadcasters don't bother with. I like how they've made use of foreign correspondents and cover international stories. I'll admit I haven't seen a huge amount of their news output but I'd like to see them have deabtes and make it more of an analytical programme.

Nice to know someone else likes Channel 4 news.

Also Sharon is more attractive/eye candy to look at to be fair.

jelutong

Off topic by a mile I know but BBC Alba are showing Scottish Premiership highlights @ 11 o'clock tonight.

icdg

I'm not entirely sure what that even remotely has to do with this thread.

hotmail.com

They're still publicising their own homemade shows as "exclusively" on UTV Ireland.

It's like RTE saying The Late Late Show is exclusively on RTE.

lertsnim

It sounds ridiculous.

Elmo

hotmail.com wrote: »

They're still publicising their own homemade shows as "exclusively" on UTV Ireland.

It's like RTE saying The Late Late Show is exclusively on RTE.

This is something TV3 have done over the years. Or the phrase "only on ..."

Arrow in the Knee

Last night I seen an ad for the 5:30 news on TV3.
Rare enough channels doing ads for their own news.

WheatenBriar

Hmmmmm poirot on utv Ireland vs the Bourne supremacy on Itv1 hd now

Difficult choice...

Elmo

WheatenBriar wrote: »

Hmmmmm poirot on utv Ireland vs the Bourne supremacy on Itv1 hd now

Difficult choice...

What 2 overly repeated titles, choice

giftgrub

Couple of things on this thread....

A point was made earlier about UTV using Communicorp for its radio, that stems from the decision to set up the TV station in the first place. They had a good few staff in a centralised radio newsroom in Dublin that covered national stories and fed them to a network. A lot of those staff were hired for TV and management decided not to keep the network going, instead they opted to buy in the Newstalk feed.
There is NO crossover between the radio newsrooms in Dublin Cork Limerick, LMFM and the TV newsroom.
It was also suggested that UTV should have a Channel 4 style approach to its news, cover the stories that others dont. Thats a fair point but theres a lot of work involved in putting 30 minute tv bulletin together, reporters, crew etc. There isnt really the time to go hunting down stuff when the Taoiseach or someone else is out every day of the week putting out easy grabs.

Right now the only thing thats doing the job for UTV are the soaps, their figures jump from 10,20,30K to 300-400K when Corrie and Emerdale come on.

Elmo

giftgrub wrote: »

Couple of things on this thread....

A point was made earlier about UTV using Communicorp for its radio, that stems from the decision to set up the TV station in the first place. They had a good few staff in a centralised radio newsroom in Dublin that covered national stories and fed them to a network. A lot of those staff were hired for TV and management decided not to keep the network going, instead they opted to buy in the Newstalk feed.

There is NO crossover between the radio newsrooms in Dublin Cork Limerick, LMFM and the TV newsroom.

This doesn't make sense. I own a number of Radio stations and I provide a centralized national news service to each. I now decided to set up a TV station and rehire those same journalist for the TV station's national main evening news, but rather than use this network of news staff I choose to drop my national radio network news. Not only that but should something happen in Cork I won't use my local Radio news journalist on TV, rather I will use my Nation network of News journalists (which seems to be the case when I had a national radio network). This provides no economies of scale so why set up the TV station?

The were only 2 main advantages for UTV to set up a mainstream TV service. ITV programming and the UTV Radio News service which could be used for the TV channel.

Is there really any reason why a national news report on UTV Ireland could not be used on Q102 or C103? On the odd occasion a news report has something visual but generally its just the same as Radio news.

Also I always thought the only reason for VB Tonight was the possibility that TV3 might get the 4FM licence and it would form the main late night discussion programme on both Radio and TV.

Elmo

Elmo wrote: »

This is something TV3 have done over the years. Or the phrase "only on ..."

Just to back myself up on this