The board of UTV Media have approved an “action plan” to address the stall of audience growth at UTV Ireland.
Making an unscheduled trading update, the Belfast-based company stated that they now expect UTV Ireland, which launched at the start of this year, to incur losses of £11.5m (€16.2m) in 2015.
The statement said that audience growth has “stalled in the last month” after seeing signs of growth in the first quarter of this year.
“Whilst weekday peak time has performed well, with viewership almost 40% greater than both RTE2 and TV3, daytime and weekend viewing has been disappointing. Overall share of commercial impacts is therefore around 11% which is lower than the target set for the channel’s first year of operation, ”the statement read.
This update follows ratings reports that only 4,700 people tuned into its main news bulletin on Monday afternoon with TV3’s news show attracting 93,000 people at the same time.
The statement goes on to state that the Board have approved an “action plan” to address the audience shortfall. It also states that the board is “now assuming no significant improvement in overall audience levels for the second half of the year.”
Despite the losses and the stall in audience growth, the Board re-affirmed their belief that “ UTV Ireland will be the second most watched channel in the Republic of Ireland by 2017” and remains confident that they will create long-term strategic value for their shareholders.
UTV Ireland launched on January 1st of this year with an original news service ‘Ireland Live’ airing twice during weekdays as well as topical entertainment series ‘Pat Kenny in the Round’ featuring veteran broadcaster Pat Kenny airing on Monday nights.