Executives at TV3 have had plenty to brag about over the last two months. Last month, they revealed they had plucked the Irish rights to one of sport's most important television events from under RTE's nose. From September of next year, TV3 will have the exclusive Irish rights to soccer's Champions League, an event with attracted audiences as high as 500,000 in its Network 2 slot, even before Manchester United reached the final.

The announcement concerning Ireland's first breakfast TV service came as a surprise. The fledgling station will go head-to-head with everything from Morning Ireland to The Big Breakfast with a mix of news, entertainment and lifestyle features between 7.30 a.m. and 9 a.m. every weekday morning.

Further good news for the station came in the form of recent ratings figures which suggest TV3 has already achieved its first year target audience share of 6 per cent. While RTEs services still hold the attention of 50 per cent of the State's viewers, TV3 say it never saw itself as competing directly with the State broadcaster for market share, and that it is more concerned with attracting viewers back from UK stations.

The channel came on air in September of last year, promising to target a niche audience of 15-44 year olds - an age group which accounts for half of TV viewers and spends most of its viewing time watching foreign stations. While TV3s official IRTC mission statement envisages it tapping "into the qualities of community pride, independence, creative talent, humour and determination that are a vital part of Irish society", the station's executives never portrayed it as anything more than an entertainment channel. The new channel's first week viewing figures were encouraging - in all 900,000 people watched at some stage on the opening night, rising to 1.17 million a week later, as more people tuned their televisions to receive the station. However the critics were unimpressed. "The bastard son of Sky" was one label that stuck, with commentators expressing disappointment at TV3s mix of "Australian soaps, American sitcoms and re-runs of British shows", even though that was a mix very much in line with other stations controlled by TV3s major shareholder, Canadian broadcast giant CanWest.

Mr Michael Murphy, the station's Director of Programming, says the pundits' disappointment with TV3s output was based on a misconception of what the station is about.

"Many critics were expecting an Irish version of Channel 4, which is an example of how self-serving the media can be. What the viewer wants is to be entertained and I have to do that on a tight budget in a small market with a lot of competition".

Mr Murphy admits that there were some programmes broadcast in TV3s first months which he would have preferred not to have screened. "We went from start-up to being on air in less than nine months, which was incredible. A lot of our scheduling was dictated by lack of time. We were buying what was left. If we were in the market buying programmes a year earlier, things would have been very different. We had to buy a number of programmes which wouldn't necessarily have been our first choice", he concedes. Murphy feels the schedule has started to settle down since then, with series such as Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Eastenders returning respectable ratings. However, the advertising agencies have yet to be convinced of the strength of TV3s schedule.

Mr Steve Shanahan of advertising agency QMP, is pleased with the station's "steady" performance, but worries that TV3 has yet to have an identifiable hit series.

"They've increased the share of viewing to local television and that's a bloody good thing which should be very much acknowledged. They deliver a young audience fairly cost effectively which is important to us.

"However, they still seem to have a heavy dependance on movies to achieve higher rates. They don't seem to have attracted a regular audience to their ordinary programming - there's no real banker there. We would have expected a bit more progress from them at this stage".

Mr Aidan Dunne, a director of the MCM agency is also disappointed with the station's "cruising altitude".

"If you compared TV3 to an aeroplane, you could say it lifted off the runway quite effectively. The problem is the height it's cruising at, which is about 10,000 feet, when it should be 25,000.

"The issue is the lack of progress - the breakthrough to becoming a bigger station that's taking time to achieve. Over the summer, they will appear to be doing well because small stations are less affected by seasonal factors. But they'll need a significantly improved schedule in September if they're going to maintain that progress."

Mr Dunne is also concerned that TV3 may be over-stretching itself by promising a breakfast TV service. "Breakfast television tends to be more talked about than watched. It can be quite expensive and the amount of revenue it brings in is quite modest. It tends not to be a get rich quick scheme. It could also suck resources from prime time programming".

However, TV3 executives see the breakfast service as a means of drawing in new viewers and heightening the station's profile. They point out that the morning radio audience is falling in this State and that breakfast TV ratings here are only a quarter of what they are in Britain. This could be changed if there were "an Irish alternative", they argue.

Mr Murphy says it will take a while before the station has a broad range of draws. "It can take three to five years to get to a position where you have a mature schedule and established programmes with a broad viewership.

While "banker" series like ER and Friends "only come along a couple of times a decade", Murphy says the fact that the station now has a better foothold in the programme acquisition market will become evident through improvements in the schedule in the coming months. He expects evidence of consolidation in the autumn, when new series make their debut and the station screens three of the Republic of Ireland soccer team's European Championship qualifying matches in quick succession.

The autumn figures will be watched keenly by the ad men, keen to see evidence of a breakthrough by the station. In the meantime, nobody is betting on the long term prospects of Ireland's sole independent commercial TV station.