Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board (IFB) is delighted to announce it’s proposal for a new Irish TV Channel which will be dedicated to broadcasting the best of Irish, European and World Cinema.

A proposal for the channel has been put forward to the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources for inclusion in the new Broadcasting Bill which will be launched by Minister Eamon Ryan next month.

Good idea or a waste of time? Full press release is here. I hope they show short films. It upsets me greatly that fantastic short films are shown once (if we’re lucky) on RTE 1 at 5 past seven on a Saturday. Then they’re confined to the archives never to be seen again. Ideally, I’d like the BBC iPlayer ported to RTE so I can just fire up and watch all this stuff whenever I want online. The press release says:

Irish films screening on the channel are likely to have completed their own commercial cycle through theatrical, DVD and mainstream TV outlets before appearing on the film channel.

…So if it’s that kind of content, then it should be provided online as well.