Cocktails flowed freely at TV3's third birthday celebrations this week, at which the channel also announced details of its autumn schedule. The most newsworthy announcement was of a new drama co-production agreement with Jim Sheridan and Arthur Lappin's company - Hell's Kitchen. TV3 has secured exclusive Irish broadcast rights to show a feature film dramatisation - made by Hell's Kitchen - of the events of Bloody Sunday. The film, Bloody Sunday, which has already been completed, stars James Nesbitt and will be shown on TV3 in January. And there were hints of further drama initiatives in the near future. One to watch.
The much-hyped Irish version of The Weakest Link hosted by Eamon Dunphy will go head-to-head with Eastenders (RT╔1, BBC1) at 8 p.m. on Monday nights, from September 17th. Champions League coverage returns to TV3 next Tuesday with analysis from Mick McCarthy, Mark Lawrenson, Kevin Moran, Frank Stapleton, Mick Martin and John Aldridge. New series's from the US include Snoops from David E. Kelley (Ally McBeal) and hospital drama Gideon's Crossing. The schedule also sees the return of the popular Sex & the City and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
TV3 also confirmed it had begun to replenish its depleted newsroom stocks, after four of its journalists defected to RT╔ this summer. Tom Swift of Today FM and Will Goodbody of the Sunday Business Post will take up positions within the TV3 newsroom shortly.
RT╔ Radio's Peter Browne has been awarded the Deutsche Welle World Music Award 2001 for his documentary, Pipe Maker's Journey. The commissioning editor for music programmes for Radio 1, Browne was in Germany to receive the award last Sunday, during the World Music Festival in Bonn. Deutsche Welle is Germany's international broadcasting service and the competition attracted entries from all over the world. Second place went to the BBC while third place went to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Pipe Maker's Journey tells the story of Andreas Rogge, an East German folk musician and former prisoner, who has become a master maker of the uilleann pipes. The programme was recorded in Rogge's workshop in Germany and at various gatherings of uilleann pipers in Ireland and Germany. Browne - who is also an accomplished uilleann piper - described getting the award as a great thrill. He both presented and produced the documentary, which will get a second broadcast on RT╔ Radio 1 in the near future, although no date has yet been confirmed.
Would you consider Brendan Shine's Do you want your old lobby washed down? to be representative of the cream of Irish music? Or Put 'em under pressure! by the Irish World Cup Squad? Well RT╔ music producers and presenters obviously do, as the two songs are on the shortlist of 150 "best Irish songs" recently compiled within the station. From that list, radio listeners are being invited to vote for their favourite 50 songs and from the listener's poll the "definitive" list of the Top 75 Irish songs will be culled. The poll is being organised by RT╔ Radio 1's arts show, Rattlebag, and the Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) to mark 75 years of Irish radio. The list (from which to select your favourite 50 songs) is nothing if not eclectic and can be viewed on the Rattlebag website www.rte.ie/rattlebag. You can vote online or by post up until September 30th.
In a further twist on the reality TV format, Channel 4 is set to launch a new series, which has been billed as a cross between Survivor and Ibiza Uncovered. Bar Wars pits two teams of five against each other as they compete to see who can run the most successful bar. Set in two real bars on the Greek island of Corfu, the elimination element is provided by firing the least productive staff member of the bar, the one with the lowest profit, each week.
The all-male and all-female teams were each given £2,500 sterling in cash and provided with bar facilities, bouncers and a licence to sell alcohol. "What we were trying to do was create a show which possibly for the first time would work in a real place with real life going on around it, not just in a controlled or isolated environment," said the show's creator Tim Hincks.
The eight part series kicks off on Channel 4 next Friday at 11.00 pm.
A Brooklyn man has set two new world records - for watching TV. Kevin Keaveney (32) watched 51 episodes of NYPD Blue for 46 hours, 30 minutes and 50 seconds. In doing so, he set new records for viewing the most consecutive episodes and for watching the most consecutive hours. The contest, which was held in New York's Times Square, allowed opponents to take a five-minute break after each episode and a 15-minute rest after eight hours of viewing. Keaveney outlasted his 19 opponents but failed to match the record for movie-watching of 51 hours. Towards the end of his marathon session he was hallucinating, before he fell asleep in his chair. The Yale graduate, who had never seen NYPD Blue before, said he just wanted his parents to know his college education didn't go to waste.
mkearney@irish-times.com