In case you may have forgotten in all the New Year's celebrations, today is a bit of a momentous day in Irish television as another national channel joins our midst. The long awaited UTV Ireland launches this evening with its flagship presenter Pat Kenny making his return to television after more than a year off our screens.
His show 'Out with the Old - In with the U' will kick off at 8.30pm tonight and will see the presenter travelling around the country in this one hour special meeting a range of high profile personalities as well as some of the 'ordinary folk'. He will even chat to international star Hozier, along with an exclusive performance from the artist.
Pat himself has said; 'We have captured some intriguing insights from interviewees and I think the programme really encapsulates the sentiment of the nation right now.’
The channel itself will go live at 7.25pm this evening with 'Welcome to UTV Ireland' which will generally just be an introduction to the channel (we're expecting a five minute montage of sorts).
Then after that at 7.30pm Emmerdale will air at its new home as both that soap and Corrie have now left TV3 and will broadcast on UTV Ireland.
Following on from Pat then, at 9.30pm the channel will start as they mean to go on with The New Year Movie, then at 11.30 we can see 'A Night with Olly Murs' which has aired previously but sure he's a lovely chap.
Tomorrow then it will be business as usual as proceedings kick off at 7.30am with Loose Women and continues broadcasting all the way up to 12.30 that night, and the same from there on out.
So there you are now, will be interesting to see what homegrown offerings the channel will have over the coming year, but no harm in a bit of a competition to make the other lot up their game 'ey?
