[ASnep]

Well the UPC brand is basically gone anyways, the last two holdouts are Poland and Slovakia. And since the Polish business was sold to Illiad, they are set to be rebranded as Play (the mobile phone network Illiad owns in Poland), leaving Slovakia as the only UPC left.

And TBH I can't see the Irish business continuing on it's own. Either Liberty sells, gets into a JV with a mobile network (like in the UK and the Netherlands) or they outright buy a mobile network (like they did in Switzerland with Sunrise).

[Medianext.MX]

Well the UPC brand is basically gone anyways, the last two holdouts are Poland and Slovakia.

Additionally, its Latin American operations (now separate from the main Liberty Global company) don't brand as UPC. In Chile, they brand as VTR (an heritage brand which Liberty has kept given its strong recognition in that country), in Puerto Rico and Costa Rica they use the straightforward Liberty brand (although they use different logos in each country), and in the Caribbean, they use the Flow brand (except in Panama and the Bahamas, where they use local brands +Móvil and BTC).

[bkman1990]

Virgin Media Television in Ireland has become a victim of a major security breach at it's television facilities in Ballymount in Dublin.

https://www.rte.ie/news/2023/0220/1357832-virgin-media-hack/

Probe after cyber attack at Virgin Media Television
An investigation is under way after a cyber attack at Virgin Media Television.
  Source: www.rte.ie

Minister of State Ossian Smyth and the National Cyber Security Centre in Dublin have been notified of the attack. An investigation will now get underway in due course.

The security breach at the broadcaster has affected programmes on VM3, VM4, VM More and VM Player. Programmes on these channels are now not allowed to be viewed or recorded on these services until further notice.

The security breach has not affected VM broadband and telephone services in Ireland.

[Stuart]

The security breach at the broadcaster has affected programmes on VM3, VM4, VM More and VM Player. Programmes on these channels are now not allowed to be viewed or recorded on these services until further notice.

That sounds very serious if some of your channels can't be viewed on your own platform.

At least VM3 & VM4 are also on Saorview.

[pc55]

The security breach at the broadcaster has affected programmes on VM3, VM4, VM More and VM Player. Programmes on these channels are now not allowed to be viewed or recorded on these services until further notice.

That sounds very serious if some of your channels can't be viewed on your own platform.

At least VM3 & VM4 are also on Saorview.

Well let's be honest, it's no big loss is it?  Not even a little one!

[Rdd]

Well the UPC brand is basically gone anyways, the last two holdouts are Poland and Slovakia. And since the Polish business was sold to Illiad, they are set to be rebranded as Play (the mobile phone network Illiad owns in Poland), leaving Slovakia as the only UPC left.

And TBH I can't see the Irish business continuing on it's own. Either Liberty sells, gets into a JV with a mobile network (like in the UK and the Netherlands) or they outright buy a mobile network (like they did in Switzerland with Sunrise).

They want to sell, I think, but are short of buyers  in a market with only three mobile networks one of which is owned by the incumbent fixed line provider (eir) who for competition reasons will never be allowed to buy them (it would be like BT buying Virgin Media in the U.K. only much worse because of our better cable penetration).

The other two, Three and Vodafone, have never shown an inclination in any other market to get into the FTA TV business. An ideal solution would be to offload VMTV first but I’m not sure who would buy. The natural home for it would probably be ITV who supply them with about 75% of their content (they are virtually an ITV Network affiliate in all but name) but who have had ample opportunity to buy them before when they actually had a stake but have never shown any interest in doing so.

[gottago]

Not to mention they were keen to offload UTV Ireland as quickly as possible. 

It's surprising that it's never been worth their while to buy TV3 given how much ITV commissions dominated the schedule, especially back when linear ratings were much bigger. Quite a number of commercial German channels have run Swiss and Austrian versions of their channels with local news (and possibly other programmes) for years.

[Rdd]

If O2 still had their network here they might have gone into a JV in both countries , but they sold to Three a few years back (reducing the number of physical mobile networks to three from four). The problem for Liberty is VMTV, why would a telco buy into a traditional free to air broadcast business in this day and age, it simply doesn’t make sense strategic wise. After all the analysts are telling anyone who will listen that “convergence is dead” and it’s not particularly necessary for the network plays to also own a content play, and particularly one that’s routed in the conventional free to air game rather than pay TV. Hence you see BT getting out of content and VM U.K. got rid of their content side (which they weren’t in for long anyway) years ago.

Liberty will probably figure their way out of this situation eventually, but for now it appears they’re basically stuck with VM Ireland.

[cable]

Not to mention they were keen to offload UTV Ireland as quickly as possible. 

Would that have been down to brexit? not wanting to have to deal with EU regulation. Or the realising a channel for Ireland would not be wanting content mostly aimed at UK viewers in the long term. Apparently it was not a happy place either www.thejournal.ie 

'We were effectively sold a pup': UTV Ireland staff on their 2 years of 'pointle…
Looking back over the past 24 months, former staff say they are proud of what th…
  Source: www.thejournal.ie

[Rdd]

Whether or not Brexit played a part, VMTV’s content is still about 75% ITV Studios (higher at weekends when they have little home produced programming usually). Irish audiences still have a big interest in U.K. programming.

Speaking more generally, the pendulum hasn’t swung in favour of other EU countries - the language barrier sees to that - but rather US programming has replaced U.K. programming to some extent due to the streaming revolution and US programmes to some extent becoming better available through streaming services compared to U.K. ones - I’ve said before about the fact that many BBC programmes are impossible to stream here including Doctor Who. That’s not a Brexit thing, as the US has never been part of the EU, but down to the ready availability of US owned streaming services as opposed to U.K. ones (no iPlayer, no ITVX, no Britbox. We do get All4 oddly enough).