Irish TV on Saorview

IRELAND’S first international TV channel, Irish TV, is set for a massive expansion when it launches on the Saorview service within the next few weeks.

The move was announced at the channel’s autumn schedule launch at which over 30 hours of original programming a week were revealed.

The channel, which is currently hosted on the Sky, Eir and Freesat platforms, will soon be freely available to 676,000 Saorview users around the country.

“We are in the final stage of testing and with our upcoming Saorview expansion to 43% of Irish homes, we will now be available on the two largest television platforms in Ireland,” said Irish TV CEO Pierce O’Reilly.

“And from October, Irish TV will also provide on-the-go High Definition access to 40 million Irish Americans in the US as well as to the UK and Ireland, via Tata’s industry-leading intuitive app.

“We will produce 480 hours of original home-produced programmes over the coming season.

“We are proud of the fact that we encourage new ideas, commission independent content and show it to a worldwide audience.”

Irish TV’s autumn schedule features a host of engaging and original programming.

In Are We There Yet, soap star Charlie Dawson (Coronation Street’s Jim McDonald) and former Emmerdale actor Daniel Coll embark on an audacious vintage Land Rover road trip around Ireland – with no cash.

The penniless duo charm celebrity guests into joining them for novelty fundraising ideas to hopefully pay for their accommodation and food on this epic 10-day journey covering 2,400km.

And if they don’t raise enough money – they sleep in the jeep.

The five-part series Young, Irish and Living the Dream features young Irish entrepreneurs from distillers and bloggers to multi-millionaire undertakers who have all made it big in New York.

Heartbreaking documentary Living with Lyme Disease looks at how a tiny tick bite has destroyed a multitude of lives and chronicles the struggle faced by a large number of Irish people to get a correct diagnosis and treatment.

Irish TV chef Paul Treyvaud navigates the country’s longest waterway armed only with a fishing rod and a frying pan in Treyvaud’s Travels on the Shannon.

The Rose Experience goes behind the scenes at the Rose of Tralee, and features unseen on-stage interviews with all 64 contestants, including all those who were unsuccessful in getting through to the live televised final.

Irish TV are currently broadcasting seven hours of coverage per day live from the National Ploughing Championships, anchored by journalist Ken Murray.