Television in Ireland - Digital Terrestrial Television

Digital Terrestrial Television

• As of 17 March 2011 a public advertising campaign had launched to highlight the integration of digital terrestrial television within Ireland. Saorview Ireland's national free-to-air digital terrestrial television (DTT) service launched officially to the public from May 2011. The service initially aired services provided only by RTÉ, TG4 and TV3. Additional services such as a commercial DTT service will launch at a later date. The BAI have begun another round of negotiations to find a suitable service provider for such content.

• Previously, service providers for the commercial DTT varied between 2008 and 2010. Negotiations between the three key players which included Boxer, OneVision (DTT), and Easy TV were deemed unsuccessful. Both Boxer and Onevision failed to sign-off an agreement between BAI and RTÉNL. Easy TV considered its position on the license offer put to it on 29 April 2010. The Easy TV consortium informed the BAI on 12 May 2010 that it was declining their offer to pursue negotiations regarding the Commercial DTT Multiplex Licence.

• Public service channels are carried by RTÉ Network Limited, with this service operational to 90% of the country by 31 October 2010 and complete by 31 December 2011 (98%). However, publicly accessible tests of this system were available across large swathes of the country since December 2009 with further expansion since 29 October 2010 with a soft launch in Spring 2011 culminating in a hard launch before 31 December 2011 when the ASO phase was due to begin.

• The Irish system, being used by both RTÉNL and any subsequent commercial DTT provider is a MPEG-4 DVB-T service with an MHEG-5 interactive layer.

• RTÉ Television were awarded a licence to operate a single multiplex, with a second multiplex to follow once analogue broadcasting ceased after 24 October 2012. Other possible services to launch on the second multiplex include additional services from TV3 such as TV3HD, TV3+1, 3Kids and 3Classics and additional channels from RTÉ such as an arts channel and music channel.

• The Broadcasting Act 2009 provided provision for the launch of two additional public services. These include a Oireachtas Channel and an Irish Film Channel. The launch date for these services are unknown. The Irish Film Board will oversee operation for the Irish Film Channel.

• By 2012, SAORVIEW offered 98% coverage for all channels. This will be a significant improvement in free-to-air television coverage. Consumers should seek advice from their specialist retailer or manufacturer if looking to make a purchase in the immediate future. Similar services such as Saorview available in the United Kingdom (i.e. Freeview) and other parts of Europe (i.e. TNT) are not compatible with Ireland's DTT service. RTÉ recommends that consumers wishing to avail of the SAORVIEW service only purchase receivers that carry the SAORVIEW approved logo. In practice, however, most MPEG-4 DVB-T compatible equipment, such as that conforming to the UK's Freeview HD standard, is capable of receiving SAORVIEW transmissions, albeit with some limitations to the EPG function. As the Freeview HD system is based on the newer DVB-T2 standard, SAORVIEW reception is dependent on the backward-compatibility of such devices.