On the night of the 17th of October 1999 something quite unique took place in the city of Londonderry in Northern Ireland. On that Sunday at around 6.30pm Irish Television history was made. Despite many obstacles a small group of dedicated people launched Channel 9 Television from a tiny one room Portakabin on top of Sherriffs Mountain, the highest point overlooking the city.

Channel 9 was the first ever local terrestrial TV station in Ireland and the first TV broadcaster to exist outside of Dublin, Belfast and Galway.When the project was first announced in the local press two years earlier in 1997 there were many, both locally and further afield, who scoffed and said it couldnt be done and that it would never happen. But now finally Channel 9 was on the air, one of the first 3 local terrestrial TV stations in the whole of the UK to begin operations under the then ITC's new local licensing regime.