Nidge, Fran and Tommy, the somewhat likeable but ruthless criminal characters in RTÉ’s hit series Love/Hate will be making an earlier than expected return to our TV screens following a decision by the broadcaster to rejig its Autumn schedule to accommodate the underworld villains.
The new series will kick off on Sunday October 6th– four weeks earlier than planned- and RTÉ is finalising a substantial promotional campaign in the run-up to the series 4 debut. In addition, the station will be making presentations to ad agencies as it tries to drum up additional advertising revenue on the back of what is likely to be an explosive season. Love/Hate is already one of the top series ever to be broadcast by RTÉ and it enjoyed record audiences last season which culminated in one of the murder of Darren, one the main characters in the drama. At one stage during series 4, it had a reach of 1m people. Since then the TV rights have been sold to other broadcasters while the DVD of Series 1-3 has become one of the top grossing DVDs over the last 12 months.
The decision to pull Love/Hate back by several weeks  means that it will be competing head-to-head with Downton Abbey, the popular ITV series which will be shown on TV3 while on the same night, the X Factor will continue its “live finals” format up until early December.
