Television in Ireland - Satellite

Satellite

Direct broadcast satellite service has been available since the late 1980s with the arrival of free-to-air satellite Astra and subscription service Sky Television.

In 1985 a pan-European satellite service was launched through SES. The service provided viewers with pan-European channels which targeted the entire continent. On 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 October 1998. However, in the absence of any subsidy for the Sky Digibox in 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.

While Sky is the biggest satellite service in Ireland, it is by no means the only satellite broadcasts available. Most free to air broadcasts available in Europe are available in Ireland via the right receiver (set top box) and a dish pointed at the correct satellite. In 2008, Sat4free, an adapted version of the UK Freesat equipment, began selling in Ireland. It is a fixed NI post code version of a Freesat receiver. Some retailers in Ireland sell actual Freesat setboxes. Both Freesat and Sat4free are superior to generic satellite receivers for the reception of UK television, only old stock of Sat4Free is now available and new purchases should be "Freesat HD" even if the TV set is not HDTV. Imported "Grey market" (as the contract the operator has doesn't permit direct sales outside the intended Geographic area) satellite receivers are sometimes used to watch both FTA and subscription channels from visitors home countries (e.g., Cyfrowy Polsat)

Following the failure of the commercial DTT process in May 2010 RTÉ submitted a revised DTT plan including a FTA satellite option to the Dept of Communications in mid June 2010 for approval. RTÉ publicly announced at an Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications discussion in mid July 2010 that a free-to-air satellite service, called Saorsat, would be offered to complement the terrestrial DTT service. Saorsat will enable Irish public service channels to be made available free to air and unencrypted, for the first time, as a means of covering the last 2% of the population who will be unable to receive the Saorview terrestrial service.

RTÉ said the combined offering was designed to be the most cost-effective solution for viewers and broadcasters; to offer for the first time 100% coverage of free-to-air public service television services in Ireland; and to provide full national back-up coverage on satellite in the event of an emergency or catastrophic failure of the DTT system.

Approval for the revised National DTT plan and the new Saorsat satellite service was announced by the Minister for Communications at the end of July 2010.

It is anticipated that the Saorsat satellite service will be available publicly from Autumn 2011 as tests commenced at the end of May 2011.