The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland announced today that UTV Ireland will start broadcasting in the Republic of Ireland from January 2015.
The knock on effect of this move, which has long been in the pipeline, is that TV3 will not be able to show the soaps such as Emmerdale and Coronation Street as UTV will have exclusive access to the popular shows. UTV plan to open offices in the Dublin Docklands area and hope to employ up to 100 people. The good news for independent producers here in Ireland is that TV3 now has all that spare money to spend on home-grown productions.
UTV managing director Michael Wilson said defiantly ‘we are aiming to go head-to-head with RTE and TV3.’ That’s fighting talk right there. It’ll be interesting to see if they do become a welcome addition to the TV landscape here in Ireland.
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