[chinamug]

While I agree that it hasn’t been as big in Ireland as in other English speaking markets - for whatever reason - it’s simply not true to say this has got no mention. Here, no less than the newspaper of record itself -

www.irishtimes.com ?

Also, a bit of an explanation about the tax credit:

www.irishtimes.com 

The series has its fans here, enough that Doctor Who merchandise, DVDs etc were always sold here through the usual outlets. I think it’s just the case that the BBC has been adequate for first run fans of the series up until now, and Netflix catered for the streaming audience until the BBC unfortunately pulled it off there a few years back - until the RTE Player deal was done it hasn’t been available to legally stream since.

Neither or RTE or TV3/VMTV have ever been big on sci-fi, I think we’ve mentioned somewhere else how RTE’s commissioning guidelines expressly say not to pitch a sci-fi idea (or really anything that doesn’t fit with their favourite category of “crime drama”!). Star Trek always was much bigger, with TNG the last big prime time sci fi on RTE. But TNG finished thirty years ago, they only got a season and a half into DS9 before they pulled it, and while they used to show some genre stuff (including I think Voyager) in late night slots on RTE2 back in the 1990s/early 2000s, I don’t think they’ve touched much other than the X Files revival in the last couple of years. As for TG4, the less said about their 1999 repeat run of Pertwee stories the better, as I think we’ve already mentioned.

To be fair I was talking about the current series where there seemed to be little or no coverage in the Irish press and certainly no outcry that RTE weren't showing it. Obviously Doctor Who had some fans in Ireland but it really wasn't a show that was discussed in the playgrounds when I was a kid, while Star Trek, Misfits of Science, V, etc were.

RTE was big on Sci fi from the late 70's till the mid 90's with a lot of American Shows shown usually months before the UK stations. However this stopped around 1995 onwards when SKY One seemed to buy a lot of the rights. Today's RTE aren't into Sci fi, but then again they're not into lots of other types of shows.

The Harp turns up all over the place these days, from the Marvel TV shows on Disney to Rick and Morty.