Popular Irish soap opera ‘Fair City’ celebrates its 2000th episode this week. The RTÉ Drama has been running on Irish television since September 1989.
Cast and crew of the long running soap gathered in McCoy’s Pub on the ‘Fair City’ set to toast the triumphant milestone for the show. Original cast members, Jim Bartley (Bela Doyle), Tony Tormey (Paul Brennan) and Sarah McDowell (Suzanne Doyle) joined many of the more recent additions to Carrigstown including, Rachel Kavanagh (Lauren), Rachel Sarah Murphy (Jo Fahey) and Gemma Doorly (Sarah O’Leary), to celebrate the show’s success.
‘Fair City’ first aired on September 18th, 1989 for one episode a week and for a limited run. This first episode attracted an audience of 1.06 million viewers. By 1999, the show was entertaining viewers three times weekly and now as ‘Fair City’ celebrates 2000 episodes, fans can enjoy the soap four times a week.
The drama has built a strong following over the years with the average audience for the current season of Fair City is 447,000 with an audience share of 35%. The highest rating episode to date in 2006 was on the 19th January when 666,000 people tuned in to see notorious crime boss, Sylvester Garrigan, being shot in a one hour special.
Jane Gogan, Commissioning Editor, RTÉ Drama said, “In this increasingly competitive environment it’s a huge achievement for Fair City to attract average viewing figures of 450,000 per episode. This is attributable to the immense talent and professionalism of the production team, the cast and crew and, of course, the writers. The amount of work and dedication required by them to achieve this success can never be underestimated. We hope Irish audiences continue to enjoy the serial.”
Niall Mathews, Executive Producer of ‘Fair City’ said, “The show has gone from strength to strength over the past seventeen years, and the popularity of the show is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the wonderful cast, writers and crew’.”
The 2000th episode of ‘Fair City’ will air on RTÉ One Thursday 30 November 2006.
