Sky and BT have the rights for Scottish football (Inc irish right) for another two years. UTVIRE would have zero interest in aquiring these rights, it would be a total waste of money. I can't see them bidding for any sports rights. The only sporting rights I can recall Utv ever having was Gaa rights for the north in the mid 90's and it was a disaster.

People south of the border couldn't care less for UTV Live from Belfast.

I think it is RTE that has them as all UEFA qualifying rights come under the one umbrella now and RTE are the rights holders in Ireland. Setanta does't show any European qualifiers. Viewing numbers for England games here wouldn't be worth it especially as ITV is available FTA on satellite..

TV3 previously tried out showing English international games. It flopped pretty badly and was dropped fairly quickly. As already said anyone who really wants to watch the English national team can already do so without much difficulty.

No, that's what I had thought but RTÉ still only have Irish home and away qualifying rights with them also having a highlights programme of games across the continent.

UTV Media has more of a budget then TV3 ever did - they are a very successful media company. It will all depend on what UTV actually wants to do with the southern channel ... Irish news, Emmerdale, Coronation St and other ITV content will put them just ahead of where TV3 are now but to compete with RTÉ they will need Irish homegrown stuff and Sport.

Can you share a link that shows exactly what it is that RTE got under the rights obtained by the EBU?

http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/inter...p-2018-rights/ - Wednesday, 10 Apr 2013

I dont suppose it could arranged that UTV NI could be made unavailable up here like UTVi, is it?
Its complete arse.

Ha don't they say UTVNI is the most watched channel up north?.. UTVI is available on Saorview up both to the vast majority.

I'd agree with some of this. UTV Ireland will probably have the biggest soap in the Country within 12 months when Corries figures are combined (up to now viewership has been divided between TV3 and UTV) I would assume almost all of TV3's audience will head off to UTV as ITV shows leave TV3. There's enough room in the Irish Market for one station like this but not two.

There are big expectations for Red Rock but again I don't think the ABC1 audience is going to be watching. The real test for Red Rock will be in the Dark days of February when it's up against Operation Transformation on RTE ONE.

While RTE ONE will have Fair City right before Operation Transformation. TV3 has the Holiday Show (Which is awful and previous eps used to have viewership figures that TG4 would be disappointed with) and a reality show about a family who produce seafood. (which again might be good but will be blown out of the water by Fair City)

It is. It's also the only ITV region that regularly Beats the BBC audience wise when it comes to Local News Coverage. It might not be a great station but it knows it's audience and what they want. Those that say it's rubbish are not it's audience!

That's why if anyone was a betting individual you'd have to put your money on UTV Ireland being the second biggest station in the south within 12 months. There is no room for TV3 in it's current format (However there are others formats which would work but I don't think Current TV3 management are knowledgeable enough to implement them)

Utv will have blown most of their budget by outbidding TV3 for the Itv content, there won't be much left for buying sporting content. They have a lot of start up costs too that will have eaten into their budget. They are a moderately successful company in a small market, their resources are not endless.

Corrie's audience will still be fractured with UTvNI still available to a large portion of saorview viewers via the spillover. I don't think there is anything UTVIRE can do about this. Corrie's audience is in continual decline and may not be the be all, end all UTV are pinning on it. TV3 didn't exactly put up much of a fight to retain it. They have retained the X factor which is the biggest money spinner at the moment.

People say a lot of things though. Maybe it is, i dont hold much with the tastes of the Ulster public. I mean have you ever seen the muppets up in Stormont?

I dont know anyone with Saorview and we couldn't get RTE where i live and to be honest i would only want RTE for the football, or more accurately the punditry, which has something of a mythical status in the UK compared to the bland inoffensive golfing mates backslapping we are usually fed after matches.
When i first got satellite i was well pished off when i discovered that RTE scrambled the matches on Sky.

Funnily enough, in pre satellite days, where i live we could not even pick up a particularly strong UTV signal, due to the hills behind the village. Border and sometimes STV were stronger and most houses had their ariels pointing out over the North Channel to Galloway, just to watch the usual ITV fare of Coronation St or Emmerdale. I never heard anyone bemoan the fact that they were missing out on the delights of Frank Mitchell, Julian Simmons et al.
Though a few of the older folk in the village, who were then without any digital tv at the time, gurned like buggery when Border was one of the first UK regions to go from terrestrial to digital a good few years before Ulster did, and thèy had to get their ariels turned and rely on UTVs iffy signal for ITV.

You will probably see Saorview business picking up north of the border as Champions League rights go behind the BT paywall across the UK while RTÉ and TV3 have retained FTA rights in Ireland.

I see your from Co.Down .. its probably the least Saorview covered county in the country. There is coverage between Downpatrick and Greyabbey but apart from that its very poor - your unlucky because the vast majority of the north have access to Saorview - It is though ridiculous that RTÉ have to block coverage on sky in the north with so much overspill but I suppose its not up to them,

As for the "muppets up in Stormont" ... we try and keep out of that stuff here as we have our own s.hite to deal with ... don't matter if they catholic, protestant, unionist or nationalist if they politicians (be that from Down or Cork) the are all a bunch of w.ankers ... the border doesn't change that!

Ya I agree, I think their budget for 2015 is now spent... ITV rights, main studio construction, regional offices, staff, carriage on sky, UPC, eVision etc.

They reportedly bided for the recent CL rights which TV3 eventually won - one thing they do have on their side is time in relation to sports rights ... all major sporting rights are tied down for the foreseeable future but I wouldn't be surprised if they did bid when they become available.

Yes it is very annoying and some of the most ridiculous content on RTE is blocked out up there, whilst some content which you'd expect to be blocked isn't, eg RTE's euro 2016 qualifications coverage is not blocked out, even though Rte just has ROI rights and Sky has the UK rights, yet the euro 2012 and world cup 2014 finals were blocked out on SKY up north. Frustrating lol!!! And bizarrely home and away is now blocked out on RTE up north -only started this season! Yet Homeland is not encrypted on RTE and is obviously a much bigger and more lucrative show than home and away. Although same thing happens down south particularly on Channel 4, they encrypt quite a few movies on Channel 4 in Ireland. Again it's a bit pointless with Saorview and UPC etc not encrypting.

You should have heard my swearing when i found out the RTE WC coverage was blocked, even though i expected it to be. I still held on to a small hope that at least any games not shown on BBC or ITV would be available. Instead we had to put up with a stumbling Phil Neville looking scared in front of an increasingly louche looking Lineker on the BBC or on ITV watching Lee Dixon continuing his coma as Chiles pathetically tried to ingratiate himself with an increasingly hostile and visibly angered Roy Keane. Though not being a Man U or RoI fan, by any means, it was the saving of ITVs coverage to see Keanes growing disdain and contempt for Chiles' constant Uriah Heep like grovelling.

That's why I doubt TV3 Management have any idea what they're doing. If anyone looks at the figures X factor is down 33 percent year on year. It's not the ratings giant it once was. On the other Hand Corrie has gone up and down over the years (More than once in the 80 and 90's the UK press would say it was going to be canceled because of poor ratings) But it's still pulling in 300,000 plus several nights a week.... X factor is off until Sept. What Corrie and Emmerdale did was to grab an audience for the station. If you look at the viewing figures Irish made programmes that were on at 8.00 or 9.00 right after a Corrie had respectable figures, on the other hand when that lead in wasn't there, the shows had terrible figures.

The Soaps were the be all and end all of this theory and UTV management would be in agreement. More than once they've said that if they didn't have the soaps they probably would not have been able to launch in the Republic. We will know the full effect of this within a few weeks but I would assume it will be panic stations in TV3 by March or April if not sooner.

I'd assume that if money was needed for rights in a rush that it would be found. I'm looking at the Rugby rights here. TV3 are very likely to sell off secondary rights if not the whole lot of them if finances go wrong in next few months.

I think TV3 will manage (just) with the RWC coverage - they will have the big games on TV3 and the lesser games on 3e .. they can use the international commentary teams provided by the IRB for most matches and their own for the Irish matches.

It will be ITV HD for me anyway.

It will be ITV HD for everyone I know as well. I would agree with you that TV3 would manage if the event was taking place in May or June, but all these jewels in the crown Rugby, Xfactor, Downton Abbey are all 9 months away. Advertisers are unlikely to stick with the station long enough to get to that point. From April onwards they will have used most of their proper home produced programming so all they'll have that is fresh will be their Soap and the cheap studio based shows. Everything else over the summer is likely to be repeats. The big problem TV3 will have is that they'll have worse that RTE2 viewing figures, but no back up of the RTE organisation. Advertisers won't stick with a station that has a low audience.

TV3 could have avoided all this by aiming for a different audience but they're addicted to Housewifes... Even looking at their new schedule it's aiming at the same people that watch UTV soaps

This is the same station that shows Falling for a Dancer in prime time (15 year old RTE/BBC co-production) 3 TIMES in 12 months.

Yep I agree, its now a matter of surviving 2015 for TV3 ... If their new soap Redrock flops then that could be that.

We could very well see news output reduce further and a big increase in the showing of films at primetime - the only thing that will probably save them is Saturday nights where its actually UTV who look very light.

And the elephant in the room that will have to be revisited is the license fee - by restricting the funding to public broadcasters, does it amount to anti-competitive practices by allowing RTE to outbid rivals for sporting and movie rights? Of course, one can argue that TV3 themselves did little to bolster their argument for the last 16 years, with only Vincent Browne and Ireland AM proving durable domestic successes, in contrast to private radio outperforming RTE consistently (admittedly, economies of scale are a significant factor here).