APFS Ireland

APFS Ireland was the first ever APFS Network (now Network Six) operator in the Republic of Ireland.

The Start
APFS Ireland was setup as a joint venture by Palmer Communications and Park Televison to operate a APFS service is Ireland bringing the best of the network on the channel. The channel attempted to get capacity on analoge and other forms of transmission and failed. After many set backs the station launched on Sky Ireland only.

Programming
The main APFS Ireland schedule was filled with Park and Palmers programming libary which mainly contributed to its failure. Some programming was also brought in by other APFS operators under deals with them. The news was produced in house by the now ceased Park News Network which was a sub-company of Park Television and produced the news for TVB and Magnet there two franchises.

Irish Programming
Under a deal with Sky Ireland and the operators certain times had to be Irish language programming, this was brought in from outside.

The End
The end of APFS Ireland came after the services performance was dying. Viewing fingures fell dramatically as top APFS programmes was pulled from the channel due to the fear that Park Television was trying to monopolise the network. Due to this problem many investors pulled out and APFS Ireland went into the red. The final event came when Palmer Communications pulled out of the joint venture and Park was left with full reponsiblilty of APFS Ireland. Park could not afford to run it single handed and the station went into administration. Shortly after this period the studios were sold and the channel was pulled without warning and a caption explaining why APFS Ireland was to go was shown over its Sky Ireland EPG slot. 8 days after this the EPG slot was removed and APFS Ireland was no more to public viewers.

Park Television then later on made plans to bring it back bigger and better than ever before. These plans never happened, and when the Republic Of Ireland was made a franchise by Network Control during the relaunch to 6-Net, Northern Ireland broadcaster SBC made a successful bid and launched TeleÉire.

The Future
The studios are still in CoastPark prosession and are leased to an office leasing company who lease them out to business. CoastPark havent announced any plans to either sell all there left over assets in Ireland or to make a rival bid to teleEire in the next franchise round