UTV sell TV business to ITV

At least if they have to find.build new studios, that means news and any local studio programming we get from them will be in HD. The picture quality of UTV Live currently is bloody awful, not to mention the set!

Have they been holding off on going HD in anticipation of this deal?

UTV also own land around Havelock - they have the car park just down the road which is used for staff and also the space which is currently being used as a car wash. There were plans to develop it, but obviously these have now fallen to the wayside.

I can see it moving to the Titanic Quarter too.

BBC Northern Ireland have apparently been in discussions for quite a while about leaving Broadcasting House and moving to a new 'creative industries hub' in Titanic Quarter. If ITV NI moved there with them it would create the potential of a Media City type development in Belfast, situated beside the Titanic Studios where 'Game of Thrones' is filmed.

http://www.futurebelfast.com/25-ormeau-avenue--bbc-broadcasting-house.html

First time poster so be gentle.

Tightrope was saying about the possible move to the Titanic Studios however the Belfast Telegraph in the last few weeks think that BBC NI may move to a new location on Royal Avenue close to the new Ulster University Belfast Campus.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/news/bbc-could-move-to-royal-avenue-as-part-of-ambitious-belfast-city-centre-regeneration-plan-31548780.html

Probably a sheer coincidence (not ITV blocking it) but UTV Ireland HD is longer able to be viewed in the UK via the add channels on Sky, I was quite surprised it wasn't blocked on January 1.

That was a clever spot!!! I can't believe they didn't block it from launch!

And ITV 2, 3 and 4 in HD have now been blocked to ROI cards whereas they could have been tuned in and watched via Other Channels.

Both sets of channels were blocked on the same day or the day after the ITV/UTV deal was announced.

Time to get the tin foil hats out!

Oh this is going to cause all kinds of trouble now if ITV decide to broadcast 2, 3 and 4 in ROI.

Unless they do an RTE and show a blank screen for programmes that have an ITV contract on another channel?

All very interesting.

They are available on Virgin Media (though not in HD), but ITV4 has all sports programmes blocked. I don't understand how if they can do a deal with Virgin Media they can't do one with Sky though. The SD versions continue to be FTA and consequently can be tuned in on Other Channels anyway.

Interesting. Makes sense they block ITV4 sport programmes.