How keen is TV3 on rugby right now? Well, the climax to the broadcaster's autumn launch event at Dublin's Aviva Stadium featured Phil Coulter performing a new version of Ireland's Call on a baby grand piano, with backing from folk group The High Kings.
So that’s pretty keen then.
TV3 has paid a handsome sum for the rights to the Rugby World Cup and is planning on showing all 48 matches, with Ireland's pool game against France on October 11th and a possible semi-final clash against England identified as key viewer magnets.
Advertising bookings have “exceeded expectations”, chief executive David McRedmond said. “We could sell it two or three times over.”
Its rugby coverage, anchored by Matt Cooper, will be complemented by a documentary on the origins of Coulter's 20-year-old anthem, as well as The Sin Bin, a "cheeky, topical entertainment show" fronted by Newstalk's Joe Molloy and comedian Andrew Maxwell.
TV3 director of content Lynda McQuaid described the Rugby World Cup, which begins on September 19th, as “one of the most hotly anticipated sporting events that I can remember”.
Of course, it is only six weeks long. “The 31st of October will come around all too soon and the final whistle of the Rugby World Cup will blow.”
For the "post-rugby comedown", Ms McQuaid has lined up the third series of The Great Irish Bake Off, which she believes will serve as a "guilty pleasure on a wet, miserable November night".
The Irish Times columnist Lilly Higgins is a new judge this year and one of the light smattering of new faces heading to the channel.
Some of the programmes highlighted - such as Vincent Browne's four-part series on Gerry Adams and the Great Irish Menu - were first announced in June, but others have only just been commissioned.
More ‘Red Rock’
Among the eye-catching titles yet to be filmed are A Rough Guide to the Future, a travel science series presented by Jonathan McCrea, who will explore topics like the Northern Lights and Yellowstone National Park.
Also coming to the channel in 2016 is Geriatric Mums, Pamela Flood's series following women who, like Flood, became mothers over the age of 35 - the point at which a pregnancy is labelled "geriatric" by medics.
The three-part series Life After Rape will examine how victims of sexual violence are treated by the legal system, while Donal MacIntyre's Dare Films will collaborate with filmmaker Jim Sheridan on a four-part investigation into the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier.
After a summer hiatus, soap opera Red Rock is back on air. The Garda-themed drama was "in many people's eyes, a major risk", Mr McRedmond said, but it is one that seems set to pay off.
Mr McRedmond said that the soap is likely to continue beyond its initial order of 160 episodes and he would ideally like it to run straight through the year.
But what TV3 and sister channel 3e do in the future will depend on how much money its new owner Liberty Global, via Irish subsidiary UPC Ireland, which is soon to rebrand as Virgin Media Ireland, is willing to invest.
The deal is yet to be cleared by regulators, but once it is, “we can really get motoring”, Mr McRedmond said.
While TV3 has acquired formats such as the game show Wish List and renovation series House Rules, Ms McQuaid is also busy developing original formats - "big entertainment pieces" that will be co-produced with NBC and Sony and can be sold abroad.
She expects that Liberty Global has "aspirations" for TV3 to produce more drama, and in the meantime she is chasing more "landmark" television events, such as Heart Surgery Live, pencilled in for 2016's Heart Week.
If the Irish rugby team somehow can’t manage to set pulses racing, a live broadcast from an operating theatre should certainly do the trick.
