Television in the Republic of Ireland

Television in Ireland uses System I with 625 lines and the PAL colour standard, with NICAM digital stereo sound where applicable. In the Republic both VHF and UHF are used but in Northern Ireland, in common with the rest of the UK, VHF is no longer used for analogue TV. VHF for TV transmission is slowly being phased out in Ireland - only RTÉ One and RTÉ Two are on VHF band III in some areas, and the more recently established stations (TV3 and TG4) have been only broadcast on UHF. VHF Band I terrestrial transmissions stopped in 1999 when RTÉ One from the Maghera (Co. Clare) transmitter moved from Channel B to E. Band I use on cable networks is decreasing due to bandwidth allocation for cable broadband and the phasing out of analogue cable TV services.

While many people in Ireland still receive their television via the off-air networks (run by RTÉ Network Limited in the Republic of Ireland, and Crown Castle and Arqiva in Northern Ireland), more than half subscribe to multichannel television networks. The biggest single multichannel TV network in Ireland is Sky Digital operated by British Sky Broadcasting, which broadcasts digital satellite television services to the UK and Ireland. UPC Ireland, Magnet Networks, SCTV, Smart Vision among others provide similar digital television services. Viewers in Northern Ireland can receive RTÉ and TG4 via this service, and viewers in the Republic of Ireland can receive the BBC and Channel 4 via this service.

History

Television in Ireland began with the launch of BBC in Northern Ireland (BBC Northern Ireland) when it began broadcasting television programmes in 1953. Followed in 1959 with the launch of Ulster Television (now known as UTV). In the Republic of Ireland television first became available in 1959. The public service broadcaster RTÉ Television opened in 1961, followed by an additional channel RTÉ Two in November 1978. TG4 launched on October 31st, 1998 it is a free-to-air public service broadcaster which targets Irish language viewers.

On September 20th, 1998 TV3 launched as the first independent commercial broadcaster in the Republic of Ireland. Since the 2000s television in the Republic of Ireland has expanded with the launch of Setanta Ireland, Bubble Hits (now defunct) and 3e which are available through cable and digital cable services.

As Ireland begins to switch over to digital terrestrial television from late 2009 it will provide viewers with greater viewing opportunities with an increase in public service channels i.e. The Irish Film Channel and commercial services.

Digital terrestrial television (DTT)

In Northern Ireland, the Freeview service is available, and it can also be picked up in other border areas. The Republic of Ireland started a limited DTT service in Dublin and the North East during, which was officially a trial and not publicly marketed. RTÉ NL have started expanding beyond this area since the end of the trial, and are now in testing phase across most of the main transmitters . In 2008 the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland awarded a contract in principle to Boxer TV Ireland to provide a subscription digital terrestrial television service on three multiplexes. However, a final contract was unable to be agreed between Boxer and the BCI, and Boxer withdrew from negotiations. The BCI have now offered the licence to the OneVision (DTT) consortium. RTÉ has also been awarded a licence to operate a single multiplex, on which the existing public service channels will be distributed. The Broadcasting Bill 2008 makes proposals for a Houses of the Oireachtas Channel and an Irish Film Channel.

Historical testing

DVB-T has repeatedly been tested from RTÉ Network Limited's Three Rock Mountain transmitter, with relatively long tests in 1998 and 2001, and shorter tests in 2004, with a single multiplex carrying the four Irish analogue terrestrial channels, and Tara Television while it was in existence, on both UHF (channel 26) and VHF (channel D). These were under temporary licences for testing, which are regularly awarded.

A contract to run a nationwide system, with six multiplexes from main sites, and four from relay sites was awarded in 2001 to ITS Digital Limited, led by former RTÉ executive, Mr Peter Branagan and trading as "It's TV", who intended to launch a pay TV and broadband service. ITS wanted to offer broadband internet access using the DVB-RCT standard (which while high bandwidth at up to 30 Mb/s, is not fast enough with 20,000 people on one mast). They had no broadband licence and no viable business plan without selling broadband, and due to lack of funding withdrew its application in Oct 2002.

The government also planned to privatise RTÉ's transmission network at this time but this too failed in Oct 2002 following the withdrawal of ITS Digital Limited DTT licence application and a number of other factors.

National digital terrestrial plan

It is expected that DTT will launch to the viewing public on a phased basis from Autumn 2009. As of February 2009 negotiations over the contract for DTT are still ongoing, according to the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland. Ireland will use the DVB-T standard with MPEG-4 compression. MHEG-5 will be used for epg and interactive services. The Broadcasting (Amendment) Act 2007 assigned one multiplex to RTÉ to ensure the continued availability of the four existing free-to-air services in Ireland – that is, RTÉ 1, RTÉ 2, TG4 and TV3. RTÉ will establish and run this DTT multiplex independently of BCI-licensed multiplexes in fulfilment of its public-service obligations. Under the 2007 Act, the BCI is required to licence commercial DTT in the State. In the first instance, the BCI will seek to licence three DTT multiplex operators for the establishment, maintenance and roll-out of commercial DTT in Ireland. In the future one further multiplex will be assigned to RTÉ and one multiplex to the BCI for licensing. A public DTT Information Campaign was planned from March 2009 but hasn't been initiated by end of March. The Campaign is currently being finalised according to the Department. Issues delaying the Campaign may be the switchover assistance fund for social welfare recipients in the current climate, finalisation of switchover date ie enactment of the Broadcasting Bill 2008 and clarity from the BCI regarding the Pay DTT operator.

TVAccess, a coalition of organisations in the disability and ageing sector urge the campaign to be initiated without delay so as to highlight the switch from analogue to digital television broadcast services in its contribution to the Oireachtas Communications Committee heard Wednesday 1st of April 2009. TV Access told the committee members of the need to start the campaign early to “make sure the most vulnerable and hard to reach don’t get left behind”.

2008 multiplex licensing

The Commission engaged in two phases of targeted consultation to assist in the development of its DTT Multiplex Licensing Policy. These consultations ran from May to December 2007 and involved the production of a comprehensive consultation document outlining policy proposals in relation to DTT licensing and the commissioning of independent research on DTT.

The BCI launched the commercial multiplex processes with a minimum of twenty-four channels specified. Interested parties submitted their applications as specified in ads in National Papers on Friday March 7 2008.

The BCI’s application process for the DTT multiplex contracts ran for a period of eight weeks. The application document sought a considerable amount of information including: proposals for programming; financial and business plan; the transmission/multiplexing proposals as well as details regarding the shareholding and management of the applicant group.

Nine applicants consisting of 3 bid consortiums for all 3 muxes made presentations to the Commission, which was open to the public at 1:30pm in the Westbury Hotel, Grafton Street, Dublin 2 on the 12 May 2008 and the award of contract was offered to the most suitable bid team shortly after July 21, 2008 following evaluation by the BCI on the applications received.

The BCI on 21 July 2008 announced Boxer DTT Ltd trading as Boxer as the sole winner to operate the three commercial multiplexes. Boxer DTT Ltd was a consortium made up of Communicorp, Boxer TV Access in Sweden and BT Ireland. The award of the contracts was subject to clarifications and the successful outcome of contract negotiations.

The Boxer service was provisionally to be roll out from January 2009, the latest reports suggest an official launch in autumn 2009 to of a Free-to-air and possibly Pay DTT launch (dependent on 2nd/3rd consortia accepting the license offer), with extension of geographical coverage from 75% to 93% (pay DTT operator) / 98% (RTÉ Mux) by 2013.

Pay DTT launch uncertainty

According to an article in the Irish Independent on February 26 2009, there could be further delays in a launch of Pay DTT slated for late 2009.. According to the article however, "While there is an obvious synergy between the commercial and public aspects, the department expects RTE to deliver on the 2007 (Broadcasting) Act obligations (to achieve analogue switch-off by 2012) and to ensure the project does not lose its momentum," informed the Department of Communications to the newspaper article's author.

Thus at least with the rollout continuing with more transmitters starting test transmissions for DTT the Free-to-air launch looks at least on-target. Whether FTA DTT gets formal public marketed launch or not is the open question but without doubt FTA DTT will be receivable at least in test form and odds on are that free-to-air DTT will get a public launch, with or without pay DTT launch. No doubt the situation will clarify itself in coming months either OneVision the 2nd consortia, or if they decline the offer, Easy TV concluding contracts or the BCI revising license conditions and restarting the license contest process.

On April 20th, the BCI confirmed that Boxer had withdrawn from contract negotiations and will not be operating any service. The BCI has offered the opportunity for OneVision (a consortium made up of TV3 Group, Setanta and Eircom and who came second in the bidding process.[2]). to open negotiations on a contract. If One Vision do not take up on this opportunity, then it is likely that contract negotiations will be offered to Easy TV, the consortium made up of RTE and UPC. If this fails, the options will be for the BCI to seek further expressions of interest, or for the Government to intervene on the issue.

On May 1, 2009 Fintan Drury chairperson of the OneVision consortium announced that OneVision is to enter negotiations with the BCI) with the view to takeover operations of the the pay DTT service. If negotiations are deemed successful it may see the launch of DTT in late 2009/early 2010 at a proposed operation cost of €40 million. OneVision aspire to offer 23 channels coinciding with the free-to-air channels.

Cable

Cable television is the most common system for distributing multi-channel television in Ireland. With more than 40 year of history and extensive networks of both wired and "wireless" cable, Ireland is amongst the most cabled countries in Europe. Forty percent of Irish homes received cable television in September 2006. The figure dropped slightly in the early years of the 21st century due to the increased popularity of satellite reception, notably Sky, but has stabilised recently.

Virgin Media owns the cable television licence for Northern Ireland. In the Republic of Ireland, UPC Ireland, which trades under the brand name Chorus NTL, is by far the largest cable and MMDS operator, owning all of the state's MMDS licences and almost all of the state's cable TV operators. UPC offers analogue and digital cable television services in cities and towns throughout the country (with the exception of Cork, where the network is digital-only). It offers MMDS services in rural areas. In areas previously served by NTL, the network is digital-only, while Chorus areas still have both analgoue and digital services. Other than UPC, the only other operator providing analogue and digital cable is Casey Cablevision, which operates in Dungarvan, County Waterford. There also exists a small number of analogue-only cable networks such as the Longford service Crossan Cable.

History

Cable first started in the 1960s, when several companies, including state broadcaster RTÉ, started re-broadcasting the UK's (then) three terrestrial TV channels in some cities and larger towns.

The first major City outside Dublin to build a purpose-built Cable TV network under the new 1974 regulations was Waterford, which initially delivered service to some 6,000 homes in 1974. It now supplies an analogue service to an estimated 14 - 16,000 homes in Waterford City, along with almost 5,000 cable broadband customers, and is now commencing VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephony services.

Other cities followed suit, but not until the 1980s. First Cork, then Galway and finally Limerick were cabled. However, due to draconian legislation regarding the use of microwave links at the time, companies were forced to lay untold kilometres of cable to get from the headend to the City.

The cable connecting Cork to the Comeragh Mountains was 100 km (60 mi) in total: the longest cable TV route ever built in Europe. Casey Cablevision of Dungarvan, County Waterford held the Irish record previously, with a 25 km (16 mi) line connecting to the Comeragh Mountains headend. The Cork cable TV operator had initially built a head-end in the Knockmealdown mountains but reception there was less than satisfactory and a deal was done after a few months in 1982 to use Casey Cablevision's headend.

The majority of major cable systems in Ireland now use a mix of both microwave links and satellite, along with various fibre-optic feeds.

Effectively CATV systems, those owned commercially generally began adding additional services in the early 1980s as English-language services started to appear on satellite, and with most new houses cabled from construction by the late 1980s, it has become the most common multi-channel television reception system, beating satellite television and long-distance UHF reception of foreign channels in to second and third places.

While "cable" television generally refers to services provided by cables, as the name might suggest, legally MMDS television distribution systems, which are widespread in rural Ireland, are classified as cable television. MMDS propagation began in 1989, with the network of 29 cells forming a "national grid" being regulated for, if not intact by 1998.

Technology

Analogue cable television in Ireland generally operates by providing unencrypted System I PAL television channels in Band I, Band III, Hyperband and possible Band IV, depending on area. Premium services may be provided scrambled, with most providers using Jerrold or General Instrument decoders for this purpose. Beyond premium services, set top boxes are only provided if the customers television is unable to handle VHF signals, as some imported from the UK (which has no VHF television and generally encrypted cable television may). However, in Cork the analogue cable network was entirely encrypted since the late 1980s and a Jerrold set-top box was required for access to almost all channels. There is no set frequency plan. Most cable networks for analogue use Harmonically related carriers (carrier frequencies of exact 8MHz multiples). Some cable networks such as Limerick use Irish terrestrial channel alignments or even a mixture of the two channel plans.

Digital cable operates using DVB-C, although encryption, as well as other platform details varies by provider. Certain channels may be unencrypted, such as EuroNews or Channel 6 which are unencrypted on NTL.

Smaller, older networks are usually, for analogue, standard coaxial cables boosted and tapped at regular intervals, which can lead to serious signal degradation problems, particularly on overhead networks. Digital networks have far more sophisticated trunking systems. The five main Cities (Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick,and Waterford), along with towns like Dungarvan, Clonmel, Kilkenny etc now enjoy state of the art Fibre optic-driven networks which are used to deliver a myriad of services, including analogue and digital TV, broadband, and VoIP phones.

Overhead cables are common in areas constructed before the foundation of the local cable firm, or where the cable firm did not have a construction agreement with the builders; underground cables are more common in developments build post-1985.

Analogue MMDS specifications were legally set in 1998 by the then Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation in the document "Technical conditions for the operation of analogue programme services distribution systems in the frequency band 2500-2686 MHz"

Digital MMDS uses a DVB-C variant on ex NTL MMDS and a variant of DVB-T on ex Chorus MMDS networks.

Regulation

Early cable television operated in an unregulated grey market, with providers laying cables wherever possible from their signal collection point, often the local electrical store. The system was eventually regulated by the Wireless Telegraphy (Wired Broadcast Relay Licence) Regulations of 1974 in to an exclusive franchise system, where one company holds a franchise to provider analogue cable television and radio services to a specific area. Franchisers under this system are referred to as having "1974 licences"

Further modifications to the Wireless Telegraphy Act allowed for the start of MMDS in 1989.

The major revision of the legislation, Wireless Telegraphy (Programme Services Distribution) Regulations of 1999, brought in a new class of licence. This introduced the concept of non-exclusive franchises, which had existed in theory with competing cable and MMDS firms in certain areas, and allowed for the introduction of digital cable and MMDS transmission.

Cable companies are obliged to carry national terrestrial television and RTÉ radio by both Regulations, although analogue MMDS operators are exempted from carrying all but TV3 of these.

Regulation will include free-to air and commercial DTT shortly, putting it on a similar footing to cable and satellite in terms of copyright, regulations and so forth under the soon to be enacted Broadcasting Act 2009 currently Broadcasting Bill 2008. For more see the article on it and debates and status

Satellite

Direct broadcast satellite service has been available in the Republic of Ireland since 5 February 1989, when Sky Television launched. British Satellite Broadcasting, which was also available in Ireland, launched in 1990 and the two merged to form British Sky Broadcasting in 1990. For most of the 1990s however, Sky's DBS customer base in Ireland was dwarfed by the large numbers receiving its channels via cable. Sky Digital, Ireland's first digital television service, launched on 1 October 1998. However, in the absence of any subsidy for the Sky Digibox in the Republic of Ireland - viewers in the UK could avail of both a Sky subsidy and one from British Interactive Broadcasting - the cost to initially acquire Sky Digital equipment was very expensive ( IEP 450) and subscriber numbers did not rise until both these subsidies were introduced into Ireland in 2000. In 2001, UK and Irish terrestrial channels became available to Irish Sky customers for the first time, although UTV is still not available via the Sky electronic programme guide (as it broadcasts free to air, it can be manually tuned however).

While Sky is the biggest satellite service in the Republic of Ireland, it is by no means the only satellite broadcasts available. Most free to air broadcasts available in Europe are available in the Republic of Ireland and can be received via an appropriately sized dish pointed at the correct satellite, and an appropriate satellite receiver set top box. In 2008, Sat4free, an adapted version of the UK Freesat equipment, was made available in Ireland.

Other technologies

O2 Ireland and 3 Ireland have commenced trials of DVB-H. Vodafone Ireland and 3 Ireland already have significant digital video content distributed over their 3G and 3.5G (HSDPA) networks

UPC Digital provides a wireless cable service over an all digital MMDS network reaching over 80% of the country. This network operates at 2.5 GHz to 2.7 GHz.

SCTV Digital provides an advanced digital television service to Cork City and parts of County Cork. It is licenced to operate all over Munster. Operating at 11.7 GHz to 12.5 GHz (MVDDS) it delivers approximately 75 digital television channels and video on demand services from "Sky By Wire".

Digital satellite is the only form of subscriber satellite transmission available in the country and is provided by Sky Digital (and Sky+ HD). The British Freesat service is also available in the country, as are FTA satellite channels from several other European countries.

Two companies provide digital television via IPTV; Magnet Entertainment and Smart Vision (from Smart Telecom).

Deflectors

In rural areas where neither cable or MMDS are available, UHF Television Programme Retransmission systems or deflectors pick up the UK terrestrial channels (either from Northern Ireland or Wales), and retransmit them on local UHF signals along with other channels. These operators faced legal action in the late 1990s from MMDS operators, as they did not pay royalties to the relevant broadcasters, and were not licenced. When the deflectors were shut down, there was such an outcry in those areas that an independent election candidate in County Donegal, Tom Gildea, was elected as a TD on a platform of supporting legalisation, which occurred in 1999.
Deflectors were first licenced in 1999 by the then spectrum regulator, the ODTR. The current regulations, "Wireless Telegraphy (UHF Television Programme Retransmission) Regulations, 2006" will be the last for deflectors, all deflector licences expire in Dec 2009 and will not be renewed due to the roll-out of DTT in Ireland.

Television licence

Main article: Television licensing in the Republic of Ireland

In the Republic of Ireland, a television licence is required for any address at which there is a television set. In 2008, the annual licence fee is €160. Revenue is collected by An Post, the Irish postal service. The bulk of the fee is used to fund Radio Telefís Éireann, the state broadcaster. The licence must be paid for any premises that has any equipment that can potentially decode TV signals, even those that are not RTÉ's. The licence is free to anyone over the age of 70, some over 66, some Social Welfare recipients, and the blind. The fee for the licences of such beneficiaries is paid for by the state.

Most-viewed channels

The channels with the largest viewing share among those which take part in AGB Nielsen's measurements as of April 2009 are:

Position	Channel	Owner	Share of total viewing (%)
1	RTÉ One	Radio Telefís Éireann	23.5
2	TV3 Ireland	TV3 Group	10.9
3	RTÉ Two	Radio Telefís Éireann	10.8
4	BBC One Northern Ireland	BBC	5.1
5	UTV	UTV Media	4.4
6	Channel 4	Channel 4	3.6
7	BBC Two Northern Ireland	BBC	3.2
8	TG4	Teilifís na Gaeilge	2.8
9	Sky1	Sky Ireland	2.5
10	Sky News	Sky Ireland	1.5
11	Setanta Ireland / Living	Setanta Sports / Virgin Media Television	1.3
12	E4 / Comedy Central	Channel 4 / MTV Networks Europe	1.2
13	Sky Sports 1 / Sky Sports 2	BSkyB	1.0
14	MTV	MTV Networks Europe	0.9
15	3e	TV3 Group	0.7

See also

• List of television channels available in Ireland

External links

• Broadcasting Commission of Ireland
• MAVISE - TV market in Ireland
• Broadcasting Complaints Commission
• Polytron Technology Ireland
• Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources - Broadcasting