That depends where in the Republic you live though. A few years back I stayed in a hotel in Rosslare after coming off the ferry and the hotel had this strange TV setup which had about 9 channels, including CNN. We got BBC and ITV Wales in the hotel. They must have had some Freeview overspill from South Wales, but I am puzzled as to why CNN was on there. I also vaguely remember they had BBC News 24, but I don't remember any other channels. As for satellite/cable, most of my street have satellite dishes up. A friend of mine told me that in the towns and cities people tend to have UPC (especially in blocks of flats or inner city properties where they mightn't be allowed dishes) and satellite in the suburbs/rural areas.

I'm in Dublin and you do see satellite dishes dotted around on the occasional house here and there, but I'd say the vast majority of people are with UPC (there seems to be a misconception in this thread that most people in Ireland have a satellite dish, but that is definitely not the case in the cities and built up areas).

It's true that in Dublin there are far less Satellite dishes than in the rest of the country. However Satellite Households in the Republic are 61% (that's Sky and FTA) This is very much a Dublin problem it seems. (and some other urban areas) It's still a problem of course but only 25% have cable so for the other 75% it's either no change or a vast improvement in the circumstances as they can now record off of SKY or actually have a UTV on Eircom TV.

I will say that watching UTV Ireland it has a more rural Ireland Feel than other stations. probably because of the indents, the news that wasn't focused on Dublin and that Farming programme which wasn't too bad.

4 percent of homes in the republic receive only UK TV programmes and no Irish stations at all!

I live in a quite new apartment block in Dublin, and we're not allowed to have Sky at all. They don't want satellite dishes to be stuck onto the buildings. Although we're pretty sure the management of the area must have done some deal with UPC - but that's another conspiracy theory.

The steak story. That's my favourite.

Not really. RTE used to have a substantial late sports bulletin on their 11pm News and TV3 used to have Sports Tonight. Both are now gone, meaning the last proper TV sports bulletin of the evening comes on in Six-One.

A properly-delivered sports bulletin after the night's football, including late-breaking stories, is severely missed these days.

Yes, that seems to be a common rule with apartment blocks all around Dublin : no satellite dishes allowed (and your conspiracy theory may well be correct)

It all depends on the management company.

There are quite a few apartment blocks now (mine included - thankfully!) that have a communal dish setup - 1 dish for the entire block, hidden up on the roofspace - but I'm told it took a lot of lobbying on the residents behalf to allow it be installed (possibly the management company is expected to contribute towards the cost of installing and are reluctant... hence so many blocks simply lack the option?)

The joys of rural Ireland - you can have a satellite the size of a truck and nobody cares ... Internet not great though

I suspect that DSO (analogue retirement) was the thing that did for the ready availability of GB/NI TV over the RoI. The Dublin area used to be well populated with aerials clearly pointing at Divis or Llandona, analogue reception must have been tolerable, but well beyond what would normally be considered the fringe. With DSO, even the higher power DVB-T transmissions must have, for most households presented the cliff-edge. As the unofficial analogue repeaters disappeared at the same time this was clearly a boon for UPC and Sky, and a challenge for UTV.

Annoyingly, a friend who is working for UTVI persists on facebooking links to UTV.ie player content, that we can't watch in GB.

I'm sure that's illegal under EU law.

I'd say the satellite dishes are more common in the suburbs than inner city properties. It's the same in Galway where I live. Lots of houses have satellite dishes but there are a lot of people who have UPC and they're probably in the apartment blocks and in houses where you can't have satellite dishes. Some of those people might have eVision as well. I was looking into eVision but it's still too new and doesn't have all the channels I want.

Rather fascistic to ban people the use of a satellite dish just because of the way it looks outside, it gets so many more channels than cable, especially if you can get all the channels across Europe, The Middle East & North Africa.

I must look into it.

Really getting to like UTV news - they should move it to 5.30 and wipe TV3 news out and be a lead for RTÉ. They will never beat RTÉ but they could do very well yet, even after 2 days they have put TV3 news to shame.

its a EU directive and apartment owners in the majority must have an agreement to change complex contract like cable tv to satellite tv

I live in a house in Dublin

I have sky/saorview in the main tv room

but have freesat/saorview in 2 other rooms with a london freesat postcode instead of ulster

But have UPC broadband

Big night for TV3, with the launch of Red Rock, their first home produced soap and first major offering following the loss of Emmerdale and Corrie. To say there is a lot riding on this is an understatement. TV3 can't really afford for it to fail. Having watched the first episode, I would say I am undecided, it has potential. That potential doesn't have long to turn into promise though. Opening episodes of a soap have their natural difficulties, so hopefully the pace can pick up now that the scene has been set. Will be interesting to see the figures, although going against Operation Transformation on RTÉ ONE would not be my idea of great scheduling. I reckon TV3 would be delighted if it could get in and around the 200,000 - 250,000 mark, given that OT usually rates upwards of 450,000.

Audience now confirmed as 323,000.

http://www.goss.ie/2015/01/tv3-celeb...-as-emmerdale/

Got sent a copy of Red Rock, first impressions are not great, the cast are dare I say it bordering on the side of amateur, the script was rather poor and it's unlikely to improve once its ratings tank and sensationalism takes over.

Ireland is know for it's pretty girls yet TV3 cannot even get one remotely attractive female actress for its soap. Did they purposely hire fuglies?

Article on Last night's Ratings on Irish TV

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/m...wers-1.2058996

CNN International used to be on Freeview on a time-share basis.

Well that is a very good start for Red Rock, getting a peak of 381,000 is fantastic, especially seen as Operation Transformation did as I expected and averaged 465,000 at the same time. It's all about how they can retain that audience now. Corrie audience on Utv is slightly lower than expected, it's not much ahead of Emmerdale, which it is normally well ahead of and it's even behind Eastenders, which is rare.

I think Viacom should of put Big Brother on TV3 with two telephone numbers for UK and Ireland.

That might have been why it was on there. I was at the hotel in the evening after getting off the ferry from Pembroke and I had come back from dinner and checked the TV. Don't remember if it was on there the next morning as I didn't turn on the TV.

It was a good start for Red Rock, However, I wonder if TV3 will put out a press release about tonights ep as there doesn't seem to be as much interest around. To be fair to TV3 you have to judge Corrie and Emmerdale year on Year as last 2 weeks ratings were up and down because of Christmas. If we do this, we see that Corrie on UTV Ireland is at almost the exact level as TV3 in January 2014. However, Emmerdale is almost 100,000 higher than this time last year on TV3 ( 120,000 + better than TV3 last week) It even beat Red Rock by 1,800 viewers. Has Emmerdale improved that much or was there a plane crash/Murder/something else? (It's being running 90,000 higher all week)

I think things really come into focus over the next few weeks for TV3 when there are far less special event programmes. (such as the Guarantee.)

Also to point out that the audience for Corrie is higher than expected. Most people expected a far higher fall in audience over the first few weeks including UTV management. They're supposedly ahead of target already.