MR James Morris has been involved too long with the ups and more often the downs of TV3 to be overoptimistic. A "viable proposition" is how he describes TV3 now that it has the Canadian broadcaster, CanWest, on board. CanWest announced on Friday that it had taken a 48 per cent share in the TV3 consortium.
Mr Morris promised the IAPI media conference last year that he would return this year with TV3 actually on air. Since then UTV has pulled out, forcing Mr Morris to seek new investors.
He did return to the IAPI conference in Galway this weekend, and if he is not on air, he is nearer to it than a month ago.
He received a rapturous welcome from the advertising industry. Anything that increases the amount of advertising time available should have some effect on the cost inflation of advertising on RTE. Mr Morris spoke just after Ms Frances Marsh of McCann Erickson told the conference that the cost of advertising on RTE television had experienced inflation of 39 per cent between 1991 and 1996.
Interviewed by The Irish Times, Mr Morris did sound optimistic even if he was not willing to admit it. While insisting that anything could still happen and the deal could collapse, he said talks with the Independent Radio and Television Commission (IRTC) were already further advanced than they were when UTV was part of the consortium.
TV3 has had the franchise for the national TV station since April 1989. It was withdrawn by the IRTC for TV3's inability to list all its investors as demanded by the IRTC. It won it back in the courts and has since been seeking investors.
UTV's inclusion was seen as a marriage made in heaven, given UTV access to the British ITV network and its ambitions south of the Border.
Mr Morris suggests CanWest is similarly useful, in that it is the biggest purchaser of American TV output outside the US for Canada, New Zealand and Australia, where it is involved in television stations. It understands operating in a highly competitive environment and with a big neighbour. Its Canadian operations compete with US networks that can be received in Canada. TV3 hopes to benefit from CanWest's buying power.
Mr Morris said that soon after UTV pulled out, a number of major possible investors approached TV3. CanWest approached last December. By the end of January an agreement was reached and signed in February, conditional on a satisfactory due diligence.
CanWest's representatives have had talks with the advertising industry and the independent production sector. A programme schedule has been drawn up and other details for going on air are in place, but Mr Morris is not disclosing those plans as yet.
TV3, he said, would be a publisher broadcaster, with its own national news service. It would be a general entertainment channel and would have "as much home produced programming as is possible".
Home produced programming would make it stand out, he said, against all the competition from outside.
He said it was hoped that TV3 would significantly increase the audience for Irish television. "If we simply take from RTE it will do nothing to reduce the inflation of advertising costs, which has been caused partly by a reduction in Irish television audiences."
The consortium has to reach agreement with RTE for transmission facilities and contact has already been made, he said.
Negotiations had to start from the beginning. Nothing that was agreed before was relevant any more. Now the emphasis was on speed in order to get TV3 on air next year, he said.
A lot of work has already been done. The schedule is in place, the cost of programmes has been calculated and the technical aspects of the transmission have been worked out. Market research has also been undertaken.
"I do not want to be called optimistic any more, but we have a viable proposition," he said.
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