Sky News Ireland
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| Sky News Ireland | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Launched | May 24, 2004 |
| Closed | November 2, 2006 |
| Owned by | British Sky Broadcasting |
| Website | sky.com/news |
| Availability | |
| Satellite | |
| Sky Digital | channel 501 (ROI) |
| Astra 2B | 12207 V |
| Cable | |
| NTL Ireland | channel 202 & VHF analogue |
| Chorus | channel 9 & VHF analogue |
Sky News Ireland was a television news channel broadcast in the Republic of Ireland by British Sky Broadcasting. It was carried by on Sky Digital, and the Liberty Global Europe owned cable companies Chorus Communications and NTL Ireland.
Launching in May 2004, the channel broadcast the same programming as the main Sky News (UK), except for two thirty-minute weekday evening, at 7pm (later 6:30pm) and 10pm, presented by Gráinne Seoige. The channel also broadcast adverts and programme trailers aimed to the Republic of Ireland.
Others presenters, who stayed with the service until its demise were Ray Kennedy and Brian Daly. The bulletin was also available to UK viewers via the Sky News Active service. (Technically Sky News Ireland in its entirety was available to UK Sky Digital viewers, as a non-EPG service, requiring the user to manually tune their satellite receiver to its frequency). The channel was available to anyone with a DVB-S satellite receiver across Europe.
Reporters for the service included Ray Kennedy, Brian Daly, Jonathan Healy, Gráinne Seoige, and sports reporter John Sherwen. Weather on Sky News Ireland was usually presented, from London, by Lisa Burke.
Sky News Ireland was relaunched along with its parent service on 24 October 2005, this included a new logo and graphics package for the service, and the move of its 19:00 bulletin to 18:30 (placing it in direct competition with RTÉ News: Six One and TV3 News at 6:30. This relaunch meant that Sky News Ireland was the first Irish news service to be broadcast in widescreen, beating plans by RTÉ News and TV3 News to go widescreen in the near future.
On 27 December 2005 it was announced that Sky News Ireland's 18:30 bulletin was to be simulcast on Sky One Ireland from 9 January 2006. This, however, came with criticism due to a corresponding loss of the programming scheduled at that time. The main point of criticism is that all platforms which carried Sky One in Ireland, also carried Sky News Ireland anyway.
On 31 October 2006 it was announced that the Irish bulletins would cease at the end of November[1]. However, from 3 November 2006 no further Sky News Ireland bulletins were broadcast, with the scheduled programmes Sportsline and Sky News at Ten replacing the 18:30 and 22:00 bulletins respectively. No public announcement was made regarding the reason for this, however media reports suggested that the staff had walked out of the station.
Although the Irish-specific programming has now ended, the Irish version of Sky News still carries advertising and trailers specific to the Republic.
It is possible that Sky News may re-enter the Irish market at some point in the future[citation needed].
