British broadcaster ITV has confimred a €135 million takeover of UTV Media’s television channels including the recently launched UTV Ireland.
It means that Britain's main commercial broadcaster will now own an all-Ireland television network. The sale of UTV will mark the first time the station has passed out of local control since it was set up in 1958.
ITV is understood to have been able to drive a hard deal owing to the launch of UTV Ireland, which is on track to make a €15.6 million loss in its first year.
UTV blamed weaker-than-expected daytime and weekend audience figures for that poor performance, despite the presence of such high profile names as Pat Kenny and recently departed news anchor Chris Donoghue.
Kenny recently revealed his shock over the decision by UTV Ireland to cancel his chat show In the Round. The show featured interviews filmed at Dublin's Mansion House with the likes of Tyrone manager Mickey Harte, astronaut Chris Hadfield and singer Daniel O'Donnell and his wife Majella.
"I was very disappointed. I thought it was a good show but I don't know the reasons. Things work in mysterious ways", Kenny said.
UTV Ireland's main peaktime audience still comes from British soaps Coronation Street and Emmerdale which is poached from TV3.
In a statement today ITV said it intended to "strengthen the channel further with high-quality ITV programming at its core”.
