Set up by former Carat Ireland boss Pat Donnelly, Channel 6 has attracted funding from venture capital firms and two well known Irish private companies.

New investors ACT Venture Capital, Delta Partners, Domhnal Slattery's Claret Capital, Gowan Group car distributors and Barry's Tea will collectively own about 70% of the venture, with Donnelly and co-founder Michael Murray retaining the remaining 30% between them.

ACT will be the largest single shareholder in Channel 6, with about 35%, followed by Donnelly with about 18%. The Gowan Group and the Barry family will each own about 10%.

The station had raised more than originally planned, Donnelly said, and the additional 4m in funding would give the company greater "flexibility" and allow it to invest more in programming if necessary. The 14m investment will fund the business until it becomes profitable in year three, he added.

Channel 6 will be carried as part of the basic package on Ntl/Chorus and is also in talks with Sky about being shown on its digital platform. While 6 would dearly love the additional potential audience that Sky could bring, Donnelly stressed that carriage on Sky "was not a deal-breaker" in terms of the new company's business plan.

Six will be an entertainment channel aimed at the 15- to 35-year-old market and will show new programmes, reruns of classic series such as Sex and the City, movies and some home-produced programming. Initially, music and movie shows are likely to form a key part of local programming.

"This is a pure entertainment channel. . . we won't be doing news, " said Donnelly.

He said that, while some commentators take a jaundiced view of re-runs, they are an important part of attracting viewers to a new channel, particularly in a digital environment.

"You scroll through the programme guide and if you don't recognise anything you don't stop, " Donnelly added.

Channel 6 has already signed output contracts with three US studios and is in talks with a number of other programme providers.

The backers of the new channel are hoping that it can fill a perceived gap in the domestic market with TV3's move more into the mainstream. "When TV3 started it was aimed at the under 35s, but when they did a deal with Granada the programming they got [such as Heartbeat, and Coronation Street] effectively repositioned them."

Donnelly refused to reveal Six's revenue targets for year one, but said that it would be somewhere between 5m and 10m. Since Irish television advertising has traditionally grown at a faster pace than GDP, Channel 6 could take all of its required revenue merely from the expected growth in the market, he added.

Media launches can be fraught with difficulty, but Donnelly argues that Channel 6 has one great advantage over some newspapers and radio stations that initially struggled to attract advertising.

"Television is different. Your success is determined the day after. If we get the audience, we'll get the advertising."