UTV sell TV business to ITV

Well yes... ITV own all of it.... I was commenting on the presentation rather than the "Integration"

The Consumer Protection and Competition Commission today cleared the sale of UTV Ireland to Virgin Media.

Not really much point in a competition commission then when one company can buy effectively its only competitor.

Now all eyes are turning to Virgin whether or not UTV Ireland survives, either turns into a TV3 sister service, or worst case scenario, closes. Since both channels competed to capture the same audience, it's obvious that ITV content will move to TV3.

If it does get closed, Virgin will follow the footsteps of ITV and Sky of closing channels that are far too similar in remit to services already owned by the same company.

Of course, there has been speculation that Liberty Global (owners of Virgin media) are going to buy ITV. They slready own 10%. So UTV and what's currently called "UTV Ireland" could still be reunited.

As regards the CPCC ruling, I suppose they feel that TV3, 3e, and UTV together still don't control a television advertising market where RTE is dominant. Smaller than TV3, but still competing for advertising, are TG4, Channel 4, and Eir Sport as well as a chunk of UK satellite channels whose adverts are sold by Sky. Even UTV NI still gets a bit of advertising from the Republic (although now mainly from companies wanting to reach an all-Ireland audience, and nothing on what it was getting a few years ago).

Once the remaining clearances are obtained and the deal closes I am certain UTV Ireland in its present form will close. That doesn't mean that TV3 won't still operate a third channel using its EPG and ITV Studios content, but I'm pretty certain that Corrie and Emmerdale will move to TV3 and that the TV3 Group won't be airing ITV shows that directly compete with its own, as much of the ITV daytime schedule (which UTV Ireland airs in almost its entirety) does.

When UTV Ireland did launch, TV3 lost rights to some ITV shows as a result - and both have competed for the same audience. 3e itself targets more of an ITV2 and E4 audience, so if UTV Ireland survives, it could well be just a sister channel to TV3, as the latter is trying to consolidate their audience.

This isn't the first time a channel has been threatened with possible closure due to a similar remit from a sister channel. Sky did it with Channel One, as it and Pick had a similar remit to act as a shop window for pay TV and faced the dangers of spreading content too thinly, and ITV pulled Plus off the air because it's remit and programming was far too similar to ITV3, not least to mention a lucrative Sky EPG slot.

No one can expect UTV Ireland in its current form to survive, given the current situation with the acquisition by Virgin Media IE. The best it can do, is morph into an offshoot of the TV3 channel.

But 3e is a sister channel to TV3 and look at the absolute mess they made of that. If they can't even manage to do 3e properly, what hope do we have for UTV Ireland or whatever name it will have?

I had to look at the schedule for 3e, it screams ITV2 for the most part. Repeats for the most part until prime time, by which currently its mainly showing programming like the Xtra Factor and Celebrity Juice.

Since they've lost the Europa League I've hardly watched the thing, unless there's an episode of Family Guy/American Dad that's taken my fancy.

3e takes Big Brother from Channel 5 too.

But it is effectively ITV2 - that's the point of it's existence. How UTV would fit into it remains to be seen - presumably between them TV3 and UTV have a bigger share than TV3 and 3e ever did, so they're not going to say goodbye to it without some consideration.