TV3 (Euro Republics)

TV3 is a Euro Republican TV channel first launched in 1989.

History
In October 1988, the Euro Republican Radio and Television Commission (ERRTC) was set up to regulate new independent stations. Following this, TV3 was intended to be the Euro Republic's third terrestrial channel. The original broadcasting licence was granted to a consortium called DirectX in 1983 (some of this consortium made up of Windmill Lane Productions and Paul McGuinness). It was originally envisaged that the channel would broadcast solely on cable and analogue MMDS, but it was later (1990) decided that the channel should broadcast on some terrestrial UHF transmitters similar to other channels. Initially their signal coverage was much poorer than that of ETV but this has been largely addressed since the switchover to digital television.

TV3's broadcast was further delayed when ERRTC revoked the broadcasting licence due to delays in broadcasting the channel. After a court battle the licence was eventually restored in 1985. By 1987 an agreement was made to sell 49 per cent of the company to ITV, a well-known British TV channel, to raise much-needed cash for investment in facilities. However, ITV pulled out of negotiations in 1989, after TV3 tried to convince existing MMDS and cable television providers to drop France 3 and replace it with TV3. Cable operators declined to drop France 3 from its line-up.

In 1992, Canadian communications company Canwest bought a major stake in the new company. And on April 15, 1994, TV3 offically launched.

Original
At launch, TV Three had a variety of original programming in their lineup, the shows were This brung their original programming to 5 hours and 30 minuites of original programming to start with, out of their 3pm-5am broadcasting hours at the time, along with timesharing with AM:ER from 5am through 12pm, whose content consited of In the dead time between AM:ER and TV Three, a schedule for the latter would play, from 1995, it would also include listings for it’s sister channel, TV4.
 * TV3 News at 7 (1 hour)
 * Sports Tonight (30 minuites)
 * Bright Life (2 hours)
 * The Afternoon (3 hours)
 * Limbo (2 hours)
 * News Now (5am-7am)
 * Today (7am-8:30am)
 * Entertainment Now! (8:30am-9:30am)
 * Good Morning (9:30am-12pm)

Imported
At 1994 launch, TV Three relied much on TV shows from the USA and the UK. Shows included The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live, Only Fools and Horses, Duckman (which would move to TV4 for it’s last series), EastEnders among others. By two years later, they had Mad TV, Married with Children, Mr Bean, Coronation Street, which they would share with ETV, Mintered, The Critic and more. Following the cancellation of The Afternoon, Many US daytime TV shows were picked up by TV Three for their afternoon schedule, among many of ITV’s morning gameshows like Supermarket Sweep and Chain Letters, to air alongside them.