UTV and UTV Ireland bought by ITV for £100m

Richard

If UTVI is a stumbling block then I can't see UTVI surviving in a different company than UTVNI. With UTV Media owning both stations they can make savings.

Gonzo

ITV will probably close UTV Ireland down for good and sell the rights of programmes back to TV3 or RTE. I doubt ITV have any interest in operating a channel in the republic.

irishfeen

Gonzo wrote: »

ITV will probably close UTV Ireland down for good and sell the rights of programmes back to TV3 or RTE. I doubt ITV have any interest in operating a channel in the republic.

I don't know about that! .. It could be their perfect time for doing it and with the ITV soaps there is Advertisement revenue to be made in Ireland.

ftakeith

irishfeen wrote: »

I don't know about that! .. It could be their perfect time for doing it and with the ITV soaps there is Advertisement revenue to be made in Ireland.

3e might be in HD in 2016 on satellite/cable if liberty buy UTVI, as UTVI is hd on satellite/cable

3e or UTVI will disappear in 2016

Gonzo

Once ITV buy UTV Northern Ireland, I presume they will move over to the ITV branding very quickly?

icdg

Not necessarily. But doubtlessly it will happen. The move to the ITV branding would likely to coincide with a move of presentation and playout to London.

It would also happen only after a decision on what the future of UTV Ireland will be, for the simple reason that UTV handles UTV Ireland's playout.

UTV Ireland would continue to require a separate continuity team in any event, as there remain too many variations from the ITV network schedule. Less of an impetus to rebrand.

Elmo

icdg wrote: »

UTV Ireland would continue to require a separate continuity team in any event, as there remain too many variations from the ITV network schedule. Less of an impetus to rebrand.

I could see ITV Ireland branding happening. With UTV keeping its brand in the north.

Though question if UTV plc are selling of their TV division who holds the rights to the brand UTV? will UTV plc rebrand to URadio plc?

icdg

That is no doubt one of the things to be agreed on in a deal. My view is that the UTV brand will go with the TV division, even if ITV intend to ditch it in the short to medium term, with the rump UTV being renamed something different at their next AGM. (I also wouldn't be surprised if the company relocated to either London or Dublin at that point, there'd be little to keep them in NI and little sense remaining there with only a small operation and the majority of their assets being in GB and ROI).

I wonder will something be announced tommorow morning when their interim results are released?

formerly scottish paddy

ITV will have no interest in keeping the UTV brand. I predict ITV Ulster as the name. If ITV do buy UTV(I) I wonder could we see ITV2,3,4 coming to Saorview as well?............nightmare for TV3 and RTE, in terms of advertising market.

galtee boy

formerly scottish paddy wrote: »

ITV will have no interest in keeping the UTV brand. I predict ITV Ulster as the name. If ITV do buy UTV(I) I wonder could we see ITV2,3,4 coming to Saorview as well?............nightmare for TV3 and RTE, in terms of advertising market.

I doubt ITV will cough up approx 1m each for ITV 2,3 & 4 to go on Saorview for such a small audience and that's only for standard def. I think right now, it's very much 50-50 if they will keep UTVI going. Might be a lot more profitable and a lot less hassle, to just put up the soaps for sale again and let TV3 and RTE fight it out for the rights.

Elmo

galtee boy wrote: »

I doubt ITV will cough up approx 1m each for ITV 2,3 & 4 to go on Saorview for such a small audience and that's only for standard def. I think right now, it's very much 50-50 if they will keep UTVI going. Might be a lot more profitable and a lot less hassle, to just put up the soaps for sale again and let TV3 and RTE fight it out for the rights.

RTE won't go near ITV soaps even now they have left TV3. TV3 would just complain even more if Coronation Street return to RTE One.

Richard

formerly scottish paddy wrote: »

ITV will have no interest in keeping the UTV brand. I predict ITV Ulster as the name

10 years ago, maybe, but I think ITV Northern Ireland would be the name chosen. Remember that their breakfast bulletins are branded "Good Morning Northern Ireland". The last time I looked, however, the Radio Times called it ITV Ulster, and have done for many years.

If ITV do buy UTV(I) I wonder could we see ITV2,3,4 coming to Saorview as well?............nightmare for TV3 and RTE, in terms of advertising market.

Depends on what rights they have and how much it would cost ITV to put those channels on Saorview. Don't think it'll be their top priority.

formerly scottish paddy

galtee boy wrote: »

I doubt ITV will cough up approx 1m each for ITV 2,3 & 4 to go on Saorview for such a small audience and that's only for standard def.

Remember the costs on Saorview go down the more channels that are on it, and apart from the transmission costs ITV will have nothing else to pay, easy money.

icdg

Richard wrote: »

10 years ago, maybe, but I think ITV Northern Ireland would be the name chosen. Remember that their breakfast bulletins are branded "Good Morning Northern Ireland". The last time I looked, however, the Radio Times called it ITV Ulster, and have done for many years.

I can't remember a time when they haven't, British based commentators have often referred to the station, particularly before 1993, as "Ulster". However it was always Ulster Television in those days.

Elmo

Just a dot TBH

Charles Slane

Elmo wrote: »

Just a dot TBH

Ha ha! Very clever!

JTMan

Ian Guider in the Sunday Business Post reports:

• John McCann, the CEO, says that UTV radio interest are not for sale.
• ITV are thought to have made an approach to purchase all UTV's TV assets including UTV Ireland.
• John McCann described ITV's summer performance as the worst in 15 years.

bk

JTMan wrote: »

Ian Guider in the Sunday Business Post reports:
ITV are thought to have made an approach to purchase all UTV's TV assets including UTV Ireland.

I think it makes a lot of sense, it is clear that ITV are positioning themselves for the future of IPTV and Video on Demand.

I think they want their channels and content widely available through out UK and Ireland. The days of small regional broadcasters is quickly coming to an end.

I expect we will see the full suite of ITV channels on the Sky EPG, eVision, etc. and that in time we might see the ITV Player become available here in Ireland.

All the ITV channels on Saorview, would be nice, but I doubt it. Why hasn't Channel 4 done that already. Do I do think it leaves an opportunity for Saorview to court C4 and ITV to get some more of their channels on the service.

Delta2113

Utv Ireland player coming soon to Upc.....

JCX BXC

How could the management be surprised with this outcome? They came in to Ireland with the idea that its completely the same as the UK market and are now being burned for their stupidity.

deanh

Carnacalla wrote: »

How could the management be surprised with this outcome? They came in to Ireland with the idea that its completely the same as the UK market and are now being burned for their stupidity.

Well they have the second most watched channel in the irish market with a presence on all platforms, including soarview. That has to be an attractive basis for investment.

StreetLight

Delta2113 wrote: »

Utv Ireland player coming soon to Upc.....

Before too long that might be:
"ITV Player coming soon to Virgin Media Ireland".

iseegirls

deanh wrote: »

Well they have the second most watched channel in the irish market with a presence on all platforms, including soarview. That has to be an attractive basis for investment.

Just a note that TV3 and RTE2 have been the second most watched channel in Ireland so far in various months in 2015. UTV Ireland haven't come close.

Richard

Carnacalla wrote: »

How could the management be surprised with this outcome? They came in to Ireland with the idea that its completely the same as the UK market and are now being burned for their stupidity.

People have been watching UTV in the republic since it launched. It was very popular in the pre-digital age. Its lack of availability on Sky and Saorview hurt it, but the only way it could appear on those platforms was to ensure it had the rights to broadcast those programmes.

But people haven't returned to the UTV brand, and those that have the choice seem to be opting for "proper UTV".

Elmo

iseegirls wrote: »

Just a note that TV3 and RTE2 have been the second most watched channel in Ireland so far in various months in 2015. UTV Ireland haven't come close.

And neither TV3 or RTE 2 have come close to being number 1, the gap is huge between 1 and 2, TV3, RTE 2 and UTV are far closer together.

Are there any updates on the proposed ITV buyout of UTV?

icdg

No, story seems to have died a death for now. Evidently the Belfast Telegraph's claim that a deal was done was greatly exaggerated

ftakeith

icdg wrote: »

No, story seems to have died a death for now. Evidently the Belfast Telegraph's claim that a deal was done was greatly exaggerated

the next ITV and UTV annual report is where a possible deal maybe will be announced

StreetLight

Might be interesting to note that the domain name of itvireland.ie was registered by Michael Wilson of UTV ROI. It appears to have been registered just one day after utvireland.ie in January 2013 for a period of three years.

Elmo

StreetLight wrote: »

Might be interesting to note that the domain name of itvireland.ie was registered by Michael Wilson of UTV ROI. It appears to have been registered just one day after utvireland.ie in January 2013 for a period of three years.

Bizzare that .ie would allow the reg of that domain considering UTV is only a small part of the ITV network, itvireland.com would be a more important domain as anyone can register a .com

I suspect that it was ITVs intention to drop its deal with TV3, TV3 must have been very undiplomatic when negotiating rights.

icdg

IEDR used to be sticklers for who was allowed register what. While it used to be UTV's position that they had rights to the ITV trademark I suspect they may have given them up as part of the deals they have done with ITV and in particular the renegotiation of the networking arrangements.

B17G

Renewed speculation..........

http://www.independent.ie/business/world/utv-media-shares-jump-on-sale-talks-with-itv-31602216.html

lertsnim

It was announced yesterday

icdg

No such thing was announced yesterday. A couple of people latched on to an Independent report that claimed to announce something new (that UTV Ireland was "confirmed" to be included in sale talks). In fact this was not new and had been confirmed by UTV back in August, as this report from the horse's mouth shows clearly:

http://www.u.tv/News/2015/08/24/UTV-Media-in-talks-to-sell-TV-channels-43580

Why people, including several news organisations thought this Independent report was something new I don't know, a quite clear case of did not do the research.

When it is confirmed - IF it is confirmed - it will be in the form of a Stock Exchange announcement.

Gonzo

We first heard of this over a month ago and nothing since, I really hope the Sale to ITV goes through soon enough, Ive never liked UTV's branding and their very amateur graphics and websites etc. Would be good to see UTV Northern Ireland and UTV Ireland take on the ITV corporate look and feel.

Rick_

Seen this posted on another site as a mock-up, but looks good, no?

irishfeen

Paddy C wrote: »

Seen this posted on another site as a mock-up, but looks good, no?

That looks very classy! Would be a nice ident.

Elmo

irishfeen wrote: »

That looks very classy! Would be a nice ident.

Bizzarely looks like the original UTV Ireland idents with the ITV logo.

ITV have never really had a great logo, took me a while to like the current one. The other ITV network logos were not great. At least they had local logos.

channelsurfer2

All gone quiet again...Sale must be going through some long due diligence process at this stage or else ITV is driving a hard bargain.

channelsurfer2

channelsurfer2 wrote: »

All gone quiet again...Sale must be going through some long due diligence process at this stage or else ITV is driving a hard bargain.

Yes,it was supposed to be completed this week.Maybe there will be some news later today or Friday!

Gonzo

Paddy C wrote: »

Seen this posted on another site as a mock-up, but looks good, no?

that looks really good!

iseegirls

Gonzo wrote: »

that looks really good!

Looks good, but should it be ITV Republic Of Ireland if it's to use those colours, and when it takes over UTV, will it be renamed ITV Northern Ireland. (Sorry for bringing politics into this :pac:)

channelsurfer2

will they streamline it to just ITV?

Rick_

UTV will most likely be known as "ITV Northern Ireland" but it will only ever be called or referenced on screen as ITV, apart from the local news which will have some new name instead of UTV Live.

UTV Ireland is accepted just fine, no-ones asking for it to be changed to UTV Republic of Ireland, so I don't see why ITV Ireland is somehow unacceptable... The colour scheme is irrelevant.

Elmo

Paddy C wrote: »

UTV will most likely be known as "ITV Northern Ireland" but it will only ever be called or referenced on screen as ITV, apart from the local news which will have some new name instead of UTV Live.

UTV Ireland is accepted just fine, no-ones asking for it to be changed to UTV Republic of Ireland, so I don't see why ITV Ireland is somehow unacceptable... The colour scheme is irrelevant.

ITV Ireland is unacceptable because it was always used to deride TV3 as purely a regional variant of ITV, not good for PR tbh. Also unlike BBC America it has far more connotations of regionalism or in the case of ITV pseudo-regionalism.

We all seem to think ITV will rebrand UTV as ITV Northern Ireland, why not ITV Ulster?

icdg

We might keep the politics of both Northern Ireland v Ulster and Republic of Ireland v Ireland out of this thread, discussions on those topics get quite heated and to be honest they are matters for Politics rather than Broadcasting

Elmo

icdg wrote: »

We might keep the politics of both Northern Ireland v Ulster and Republic of Ireland v Ireland out of this thread, discussions on those topics get quite heated and to be honest they are matters for Politics rather than Broadcasting

It's not a heated debate. You have pointed your to your view that it doesn't matter. I am pointing out the problems that exist with such a name change. Even UTV Ireland has political connotations weather we want to admit that or not. Most likely it will be name ITV Something to avoid audience getting confused with the reduced number of ITV programmes on the channel.

UTV will be rebranded ITV like other regional services. UTV, weather UTV itself wants to admit it, stands for Ulster Television, despite the fact that 3 counties are in the Republic. And most unionist view themselves as Ulster Unionist.

Also my post is far more about ITV regionalization than politics.

hotmail.com

What's going to happen to UTV News in the North?

Will they ditch the current lineup and introduce a couch setting? Or is the news in the North too serious for a couch.

Is Julian Simmons out of a job?

icdg

It won't go anywhere - the news department would likely emerge relatively unscathed. They have no sub-regions that can be cut. Given that this is Northern Ireland I imagine any new set would still feature a desk.

The presentation department however, I imagine would be completely cut. Though some may have a stay of execution given UTV Ireland would still require separate continuity.

Doesn't look like there will be any news this week, talks probably still ongoing!