City Channel demise stresses harsh reality

ONE MORE THING:THE DEMISE of the Dublin-based TV station City Channel is yet another blow to the independent commercial broadcasting sector.

It highlights that this State is too small to support standalone operations such as City Channel.

Founder David Harvey ran as low-cost an operation as he could from its Sandyford base and worked hard to drum up business, yet he couldn’t make it work.

It even had the backing of US-based Liberty Global, which owns UPC Ireland.

City Channel isn’t the first Irish TV station to run into trouble. Remember Channel 6? It was launched with great ambitions in 2006 but was eventually offloaded to TV3, where it has been successfully rebranded as 3e.

Music station Bubble Hits also bit the dust and Setanta Sports was forced to retreat from the UK a couple of years ago after overpaying for premium sports rights.

Thankfully, the Irish business was saved by founders Mickey O’Rourke and Leonard Ryan, with the help of concert promoter Denis Desmond.

Even Setanta’s Irish business though has been slimmed down.

TV3 has enjoyed considerable ratings success in the past couple of years. However owner Doughty Hanson is out of pocket on the investment, having paid €265 million at the peak of the boom.

The shakeout in Irish TV is now largely complete but what of commercial radio here? Can Ireland support six national stations, half a dozen regional operators and 27 local channels? Sadly, I fear we all know the answer to that question.