Business

UTV Ireland losses revised upwards to £11.5m

UTV Ireland launched in January
UTV Ireland launched in January UTV Ireland launched in January

UTV has admitted losses at its new TV station in the Republic will be four times more than anticipated this year.

In a trading update, UTV Media said it now expects UTV Ireland to incur £11.5 million in 2015.

It said signs of audience growth seen in the first quarter of the year had stalled in May "demonstrating the difficulty of predicting audiences for a start-up channel in a competitive market".

It said audience performance "remains volatile" after six months on air.

In a statement, UTV Media said: "Whilst weekday peak time has performed well, with viewership almost 40 per cent greater than both RTE2 and TV3, day-time and weekend viewing has been disappointing. Overall share of commercial impacts is therefore around 11 per cent which is lower than the target set for the channel’s first year of operation."

It said the UTV board "approved an action plan to address the audience shortfall but recognises that this will take time to deliver the required improvement in viewership".

However, UTV still insists the channel will be the second most watched station in the Republic by 2017.

"It is clear, however, that the channel will take longer than originally anticipated to become profitable," it added.

"In the light of this, the Board has agreed with its bank lenders for the net debt/ebitda covenants on its facilities to be raised from 3.5:1 to 4.5:1 for a period of one year."

UTV Ireland launched in January prising major ITV series such as Coronation Street and Emmerdale from commercial rivals TV3