UTV Ireland, the first new commercial terrestrial TV broadcaster to launch in the Republic since TV3 in 1998, arrived on air on New Year’s Day with a line-up including Emmerdale and Pat Kenny’s Out With the Old and In With the U.
The new offering by Belfast-based UTV, the channel 3 broadcaster in Northern Ireland and TalkSport owner, is up against TV3 - for 16 years the country’s only significant commercial terrestrial TV broadcaster - its spin-off service 3e, and public service broadcaster RTE’s two networks.
UTV Ireland’s schedule relies heavily on an output deal with ITV for the UK broadcaster’s top shows - bagged in November 2013 from previous rights holder TV3 - including Emmerdale, Coronation Street, The Cube and daytime regulars such as Lorraine, Loose Women and The Jeremy Kyle show. The new arrival has also nabbed the The Graham Norton Show from TV3.
The rival broadcaster has responded by upped its locally-produced content, including new police drama Red Rock, which launches this week.
UTV Ireland’s flagship evening news programme, Ireland Live, launches on Monday night, hosted by Alison Comyn at 6.30pm before Comyn and Chris Donoghue team for a late bulletin at 10pm.
@Independent_ie @MW_UTV THIS is the interesting bit of the front page today. ;) pic.twitter.com/cqGIuIBomt
— Alan R Adair (@RadarRadar) January 4, 2015
Ireland’s newest channel’s viewing figures have been billed as disappointing in the Irish media - although new TV networks always take time to bed in, with viewers having to find the new service and get into the habit of coming back regularly (the trick is to make sure they do come back).
The Irish Independent noted only 73,000 tuned in for Kenny’s new year party show, which peaked at 105,000 viewers during broadcast before tailing off during it by 22%.
The one-hour Emmerdale special which aired on 1 January following a five-minute introduction of the channel and its ambitions garnered an average of 185,000 viewers.
The Nine O’Clock news on RTE One was the most watched show that evening, scoring 572,400 viewers.
Here’s Irish media blogger Dan McGinn’s take on UTV Ireland’s first night:
There was no big party thrown or fireworks display a la RTE2 or TG4’s opening night.
UTV Ireland simply got down to business, declaring itself the new home of ‘Emmerdale’ before broadcasting the latest episode of the Yorkshire soap.
A brief sting in the first ad break puffed up the return to TV by “the legend that is Pat Kenny”.
Pat was back with the channel’s first homegrown programme ‘Out with the Old, In with the U’, wandering in smart rain gear around windswept cliff tops and the cobblestones of Trinity College Dublin.
The Journal is running a poll on its site asking readers if they were planning to tune into Ireland Live, with one of the options to click “Maybe to one of them - but two shows is pushing it”.
Here are the details on Ireland's latest news programmes which start tonight on @UTVIreland http://t.co/PqPqyPq48L pic.twitter.com/yWA08YFaMW
— TheJournal.ie (@thejournal_ie) January 5, 2015
On the eve of launch the The Irish Times noted the only thing that was missing for UTV Ireland was an audience as the channel, which broadcasts out of Dublin with news gathering and reporting operations in Cork, Galway, Waterford and Limerick staffed up creating more than 100 jobs.
UTV Ireland and UTV Television managing director Michael Wilson described the launch of Monday’s live news broadcasts as the latest piece of the editorial jigsaw for the nascent channel.
Wilson, whose resume boasts a stint as head of Sky’s Washington DC bureau during the Gulf War, said: “Two major new news, analysis and current affairs programmes. This is a major investment by UTV Ireland in news – it’s on television, online and social media.”
Donoghue tweeted a message of support from his breakfast news radio show co-host Ivan Yates ahead of tonight’s TV show.
Got a lovely card from my @BreakfastNT wife, Ivan, ahead of @UTVIreland tomorrow #DontF**kItUp pic.twitter.com/52TU8nHjRx
— Chris Donoghue (@chrisrdonoghue) January 4, 2015
And there were other humorous contributions across social media from Donoghue’s colleagues to alleviate any debut night nerves with radio show producer Rebecca Meehan tweeting a link to his rehearsals for this evening.
I got a behind the scenes look at @chrisrdonoghue's rehearsals at UTV Ireland. He goes on air at 10pm tonight. https://t.co/UOkQd91mtv
— Rebecca Meehan (@rebeccameehan) January 5, 2015
UTV Ireland will be hoping that Ireland Live helps viewers develop the habit for tuning in, along with Kenny’s show, which will be another regular fixture.
McGinn described Kenny’s first New Year’s Day outing as “a mix of celebrity interviews, profiles of ordinary people doing extraordinary things and a succession of talking heads predicting the year ahead in the arts, sport, business and politics”.
The UTV brand had been known in Ireland for more than 50 years – its Northern Ireland ITV service has been available to viewers in the Republic due to terrestrial signal overspill and more recently on cable.
UTV’s ITV franchise in Northern Ireland began broadcasting in 1959. In the past decade, it has expanded into radio and owns a number of stations in the Republic, including FM104 in Dublin.
