Ireland’s plans to put in place a three-multiplex commercial DTT service are again in limbo after the collapse of negotiations between RTE Network Services and licence holder OneVision.
The gulf between the two parties has been highlighted by a report from former Comreg chair Isolde Goggin, who has concluded the distance between the two parties is so wide that it is pointless to resume conversations.
This leaves the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the difficult decision of whether to strip OneVision of its licence and instead offer the contract to the RTE-UPC consortium Easy TV. Although not yet up and running, this will be the second terrestrial operation in which UPC’s parent Liberty Global has an involvement, having in February reached agreement with the transmission company Norkring België.
Were Easy TV to be offered the licence then it would be the third commercial operator to attempt to launch pay DTT services in the Republic, four if the 2002 Its TV project from former RTE executive Peter Branigan is included.
OneVision was offered the opportunity to run the commercial multiplexes after the Swedish Boxer withdrew from the process, having also failed to negotiate a contract with RTE.
At the time Boxer cited “difficulties in getting acceptable distribution on the network operator RTENL and the sharply deteriorating economic situation in Ireland.”
However, Boxer through its parent Teracom will continue to have an involvement in the launch of DTT services, having been appointed to provide test facilities for the set-top receivers.
Ireland will use MPEG-4 transmission, meaning that anyone who has purchased a Freeview receiver in the UK will find that it does not function correctly. The Irish rules are based on the Scandinavian NorDig Unified Requirements 2.0 and include MPEG-4 AVC, HDTV and the MHEG-5 middleware that is also used in the UK. The receiver specifications may well end up close to those of the Freeview HD receivers currently entering the UK market.
Ireland’s receivers will be given the ‘Saorview’ logo – as opposed to the UK Digital Tick or Freeview branding.
The failure to come to an agreement with RTE is not the only problem to have been faced by OneVision. In December 2009, telco Eircom took control of a restructured consortium with a 65% holding. In the new shareholder structure, UK-based transmission company Arqiva holds 25%, Setanta 10% with the Irish commercial broadcaster TV3 taking a nominal holding.
While the commercial multiplexes are in limbo, communications minister Eamon Ryan has ordered RTE to make its free-to-air DTT service available to 90% of the population by October 31, 2010. Originally a September 2009 launch had been envisaged, but later delayed, initially because of an initial desire to simultaneously launch both public and commercial services.
In the meantime RTE continues to run a series of technical test transmissions, with varying power levels, meaning that it is impossible to put a figure on how much of Ireland is currently reached by DTT signals. All this against the background of the 2012 European Union deadline for switch off of existing analogue services to which Ireland has committed.
Ireland has for many years enjoyed spillover transmissions from the UK, in the South East from Wales and towards the North from Northern Ireland.
In February, Ryan signed a Memorandum of Understanding with his UK counterpart Ben Bradshaw to put in place North-South co-operation on the transition to Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and analogue switch off. This includes the carriage of TG4 in Northern Ireland and for the BBC to be carried south of the border.
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