TV3's autumn menu includes Irish 'Come Dine With Me'

TV3 IS to screen an Irish version of the hugely popular Come Dine With Meseries.

The programme, where participants host and cook for each other to win a cash prize of £1,000, is one of Channel 4’s most successful formats.

TV3 will broadcast 30 episodes of the series around the country and guests will be able to apply to participate through the station’s website. The series will be a key part of the station’s autumn schedule announced yesterday.

It will be made for TV3 by ITV Studios and will feature the acerbic voice-over commentary of Dave Lamb, the British actor and narrator whose tart comments are one of the reasons why it has become so successful.

TV3's director of programming Ben Frow said Come Dine With Mewas a priority for the station for several years, but the issue was complicated by the fact that the station's former part-owners, ITV, were rivals of Channel 4 which own the rights.

"We are delighted to have it. It is the most successful food format in the world along with Masterchef, it is the show," he said.

The Apprentice also returns. The programme had a vintage year last year with the shenanigans involving many of the participants boosting the programme’s ratings.

The Apprentice boss Bill Cullen promised “fireworks” from the new series. “It is very entertaining, very tense. It will be a stronger boardroom this year, the tasks are more difficult and there are some very interesting characters.”

The Apprentice, You're Firedwill be presented by Anton Savage who replaces Brendan O'Connor.

Mr Frow said TV3 was able to make 150 hours of home-grown programme from a budget of just €20.5 million which included €1.5 million from the Sound and Vision Fund.

The new programmes will include a slew of serious documentaries.

One will be about the role of Irish soldiers who fought in the second World War and another on the 1911 census focusing on one tenement building in Dublin which housed 19 families.