Posted on February 2, 2007 - by John

Channel 6 Bites the Bullet

And about time, Channel 6 originally was in a little old dispute with SKY, because they wanted to be on the Sky Digital platform on one of the low numbers (on the EPG), near RTE1/2/TV3/TG4, which I suppose is fair enough, it is an ‘Irish’ channel, however SKY only offered them one of the high (and less watched) numbers in its channel line-up meaning that it was at the end of the entertainment package, also meaning less viewers for Channel 6. So CH6 decided not to go on SKY at all, but rather use NTL and Chorus, a mad move by all accounts, as this adds to their problems, leaving aside the fact that all their shows are years out of date, not being on SKY means the channel looses out on a percentage (be it small for them – based on the schedule) of SKYS 465,000 customers.

But now they have U turned on the decision and are launching on SKY (according to Billboards this morning, not sure if they have actually launched there yet, I’ve not seen anything on their website), on one of the high channels somewhere about the 223 mark!

This is great news on the other hand for SKY, who can now offer Irish Customers their favourite Channels, including Channel4 and the full Irish Channel line-up (RTE/TV3/TG4/CH6), meaning that the competition from other operators will be crushed in time. Sky also has some secrets up its sleeve I have been told, including a Special Offer for customers!

TV 3 Ireland, is also getting busy for its spring line-up, and have announced a new program which will compete with RTE’s Six One program, (big BIG mistake), this it seems (based on the Irish Times) is an entertainment type show, and will be an in-house production, although I am very unsure how they are going to pull this one off, it is nice to see in house productions on Irish TV stations, as the tendency is to buy in UK and US shows, not that those are not some good shows, but we need some good Irish original programming.