[ACTV]

If VMTV closed down I'd assume some ITV programmes would turn up on RTE fairly quickly, but nothing new would be broadcast in their place. RTE certainly wouldn't be putting out a schedule. It's unlikely to happen as the licences are worth something.

RTÉ have been screening some more ITV programmes as of late. The 1% Club (no doubt because that show is distributed by BBC Studios) and Limitless Win, for example. They had Corrie of course all the way up until Granada bought TV3 in the early 00s, so the bigger ITV programmes would not be out of place in such a scenario. The likelihood of RTÉ ever showing Who's Doing the Dishes or The Royal Today (which surprisingly got a VM1 slot just a few years back) is much lower.

[Rdd]

It’s a reminder of course that although VMTV often looks and sounds like an ITV affiliate, its deal is with ITV Studios specifically and does not cover all ITV network output.

That deal incidentally should be up at the end of the year, the tenth anniversary of the launch of the ill fated UTV Ireland, if you can believe it.

[Kunst]

Breakfast TV isn't really watched in Ireland, It had a window of opportunity but that's gone. Ireland AM is useful to VMTV because they can do hours of output for very little money and then claim it's public service broadcasting. Much of what they put out is also put out online by individuals and Media groups, should they also be getting some cash for their public service broadcasting?

Ireland AM only came on air because TV3 had so little Irish content in it's early days. They more than doubled output with that one show. Plus it was used for filler for hours and hours at the weekends with the best of Ireland AM.

The state of Irish Broadcasting isn't great, the population of the country is going up and up and yet viewing figures for the stations is either at a standstill or going down. I do have some sympathy for Virgin Media as the market has been distorted over the years by RTE and it's Licence Fee.

It would be best to take RTE out of the commercial Market entirely. Let Advertising only on commercial stations. Give out more licences if that's what the market wants.

I'm off outside now to shake my fist and shout at some clouds.

Maybe RTE should show less intrusive advertising though

Removing it completely isn't going to work, advertising on public stations can be found all over Europe; but with lower averages (somehow) than RTÉ/TG4

[chinamug]

Maybe RTE should show less intrusive advertising though

Removing it completely isn't going to work, advertising on public stations can be found all over Europe; but with lower averages (somehow) than RTÉ/TG4

I wouldn't have a problem with something like ARD in Germany were there's no Advertising in Prime Time and limited Advertising at other times. Sponsorship of shows would also be okay especially special events and Sports, but the reality is that RTE should cut it's cloth to measure. It gets a certain amount a year from whatever replaces the licence fee and that's it. No spending 10 million extra and then going to the Government saying they can't count.

50% or so of TV advertising goes to UK channels, not much can be done about that (and advertisers spend money where the audience is) but the other 50% of the market is warped by RTE. If you pull them out of the market mostly, you'd hope it would provide more advertising to Virgin Media and perhaps other competitors that might enter the Irish Market.

Back in the 90's when people were interested in going for TV Broadcast licences in the Republic, they had a look at RTE's behaviour in the Radio Market (when they hobbled Century Radio) plus on top of that UTV grabbing huge amounts of Ad revenue from Belfast, a lot of sensible media players walked away. TV3 never made a profit until Virgin Media purchased them, in fact overall losses were over 200 million since it started. If you take RTE mostly out of the commerical market, it might make VMTV a profitable operation.

[RhysJR]

Is there anything left that they can commission???

x.com 

[Rdd]

As the article says…crime dramas. They love crime dramas.

[bkman1990]

There is going to be a new documentary series airing on RTÉ about the fire at the Stardust nightclub in 1981.