UTV Ireland was an Irish privately owned television network. It launched on 1 January 2015, becoming the country's third commercial broadcaster and a competitor for state broadcaster RTÉ and TV3. Being an affiliate of UTV (the Northern Ireland version) and thus, ITV in Britain, it handled most of their programmes, having thus dealt a very big blow to TV3, which used to own the rights to most of these programmes.
Confusingly, the title, if literally taken apart, would be Ulster Television Ireland, which is sort of an oxymoron since this channel caters only to the Republic of Ireland.note
Its original programming was mainly news and entertainment shows, as well as regionalized versions of UTV's local programmes Rare Breed and Lesser Spotted. Its only signifigant venture was Pat Kenny in the Round, which folded after a single season. Only six months after its launch, it was reported that the channel had amassed €16.2 million in losses, citing low daytime and weekend viewership.
After UTV sold its television businesses to ITV, the company decided that they would be better off selling it to TV3 and giving them the rights to ITV programmes that they lost to UTV. In January 2017, the channel was replaced by the new be3.
