You could smell the confidence in the air at the launch of TV3's new schedule in the National Concert Hall. "Now is our time," group managing director Pat Kiely told an enthusiastic audience mostly composed of independent television producers and advertising professionals, all of whom stand to gain from a re-energised TV3 competing aggressively for market share.
Kiely spoke with the bullishness you might expect from a company which has had its fair share of existential crises in recent years, but now finds itself on the sunlit uplands of expansion and investment, courtesy of new owner Virgin Media, which has also added UTV Ireland to the roster.
With former controller of RTÉ2 Bill Malone due to take over as the group’s three channels, TV3, which a few years ago seemed to be on life support, is now expanding its Irish-produced output and clearly looking to put a dent in its competitors’ ratings.
The current affairs offering is strong. There's a new Wednesday night show presented by Pat Kenny and Colette Fitzpatrick, reprising the double-handed format deployed during this year's general election debate. And Agenda, David McWilliams's Sunday magazine programme, which was one of the first home-produced shows onTV3, returns after a gap of 12 years.
But insomniac political anoraks will be disappointed that Vincent Browne is reducing his output from four to three nights a week, and will be starting at the earlier time of 10.30pm.
Statement of intent
The real meat of the new schedule, though, is in drama and entertainment, where TV3 is making a clear statement of intent.
Red Rock, which has already been sold internationally to the BBC and Amazon Prime, is shifting from two half-hour episodes per week to a single hour-long slot at 9.30pm on Monday nights. This seems to imply a move away from its soap opera origins (and suggests Coronation Street will be returning to TV3 once the formalities of the acquisition of UTV Ireland have been completed).
A new three-part drama, Small Town, starring Pat Shortt and written and directed by rising Irish talent Gerard Barrett, is starting on Thursday night. And through co-financing arrangements with independent producers and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, the channel appears to have become the platform of choice for showing acclaimed Irish-made feature films such as A Date for Mad Mary, begging the question of why RTÉ doesn't do the same.
Speaking of RTÉ, having previously picked up format television such as The Restaurant from Montrose, TV3 has also now acquired the rights to Celebrity Masterchef, and has accomplished the not always easy feat of assembling a team of recognisable people for the task.
And from the UK, it has bought the format rights to Channel 4's Gogglebox, with Deirdre O'Kane and Mrs Brown's Boys star Rory Cowan doing the narration. Other new shows include a consumers' rights series with Irish Times journalist Conor Pope.
The old reliable – Champions League on Tuesday, X Factor at the weekend – are still there and still important, but this new TV3 is unrecognisable from the import-dominated bargain-basement broadcaster of a few years ago. According to Kiely, it’s producing more prime-time content than ever before, while the Virgin connection and UTV acquisition will be “the catalyst to achieve growth and scale”. Interesting times ahead.
