TV3 Unveils Autumn Schedule & Three Year Plan for Production

TV3’s schedule has over 150 hours of new home-produced peak-time programming across all genres. Over 40% of TV3’s output this autumn is to be home-produced, up from 20% three-years ago. Highlights of the new additions to the schedule include ‘The Apprentice: At Home’; ‘Take Me Out’ presented by Ray Foley; ‘Cocaine Wars’; ‘Come Dine With Me’; ‘Farmers: A Life on the Land’, ‘Boozed Up Irish Abroad’ and ‘The Road to Dublin’ .

Other programming highlights on TV3 this autumn include the return of the ‘X Factor’, which comes back to Dublin; ‘The Xtra Factor’; ‘The Apprentice’ followed by ‘The Apprentice: You’re Fired’ which will be presented by Anton Savage. Documentaries include, ‘The Truth about …’ and ‘Behind Bars’ and premiere movies include ‘Pineapple Express’ and ‘Wanted’. For sports fans the station will present the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League.

This new TV3 schedule has looked to build on the steady growth in TV3’s audience over the past three years. The 2010 schedule is the first of a new three-year plan to become the most relevant and entertaining channel for Irish audiences. TV3 has announced a target to exceed 50% of output to be home-produced by 2012. To facilitate this growth TV3 has also confirmed its plan to build a major new studio in 2011 which will be fully HD capable with audience capacity. Development is scheduled to commence in early 2011 and will be completed before the year end.

Commenting on the launch today, David McRedmond CEO of TV3 said: “This schedule marks the emergence of TV3 out of recession. We have solid financing in place; a digital strategy with 3e and tv3.ie; real audience and advertiser momentum and ambitious but realistic plans for growth.”

TV3’s Director of Programming, Ben Frow further commented, saying: “This Autumn our schedule reflects TV3 at its most ambitious. Last year’s favourite shows are back and we’ve also got brand new Irish entertainment, factual, feel-good drama and international sport. Best of all 40% of our programming is home produced, with over 150 hours of new Irish content in peak-time alone. I have every confidence that this will be another great autumn for TV3 viewers.”

For more information about the TV3 Autumn Schedule visit www.tv3.ie.

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