Tara Television

Tara Television (or Tara TV) was an Irish cable and satellite channel aimed primarily at the Irish community living in Britain, it was set up in 1996 and began broadcasting a year later before being finally wound up in April 2002 by the High Court. The station was launched by a consortium that included Ireland's state broadcaster, RTÉ, and aired a compilation of shows that had previously been aired by RTÉ in Ireland. It was initially carried by a number of cable providers, before being added to Sky Digital on 1 October 1998. The channel's original owners were RTÉ, United Pan-Europe Communications (owned by at the time by Dutch company United International Holdings, now part of Liberty Global) and Riordan Communications (involved in telecommunications companies active in rural Ireland).

Tara Television had an exclusive option to purchase the majority of RTÉ's programming, and this accounted for about 80% of the total programmes broadcast by the station, with the remainder being filled by programmes purchased from other networks. It mainly broadcast news bulletins and current affairs programming, as well as extensive coverage of Irish sport, in particular, GAA.

It was anticipated that Tara would pay royalties RTÉ to air these programmes, and it was also envisaged that this could eventually be extended to the United States, Canada and Australia. However, Tara wasn't to make a single payment to RTÉ in respect of this and was wound up in March 2002 in proceedings brought about by the state broadcaster. At the time it was taken off the air, RTÉ's stake stood at 20% and 80% was owned by UPC, but Tara had acquired debts that exceeding its assets by €22.8m (including loans of €18m from United Pan-Europe (UPC) and €2.7m from RTÉ). [ [http://www.rte.ie/news/2002/0319/taratv.html RTÉ News: 'Tara Television wound up in High Court', 19 March 2002] ] At the time of its closure it employed twenty people at its offices in Derry and London. [ [http://www.rte.ie/about/pressreleases/19032002.html RTÉ press release: Liquidator appointed to Tara TV, 19 March 2002] ] [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/1883661.stm BBC News: 'Court turns off Tara TV', 20 March 2002] ]

In recent years, RTÉ have approached the issue of over-sea broadcasting through the use of its website to stream current affairs and news programmes, and through RTÉ International, the working title of a service which will operate in a similar manner to Tara Television.

ee also

* Media in Ireland
* Television in Ireland
* List of defunct Irish television channels

References

* Farrel Corcoran, 'RTÉ and the Globalisation of Irish Television' (Bristol: Intellect Books, 2004) ISBN 1-84150-090-9