Boxer win Irish DTT, but pull out.

i think i'll go for freesat and save myself 9.99.

And if i want to pay /view anymore i'll get a sky sub.

I think a lot of people will be thinking the same as me

I have to agree guys. I think the their proposed offering won't go down well. I emailed em as such. January 2009 is the proposed date so that's good. But forget about T2 boxes. As others have said, we can wait til 2012 and just get a box exchange. I think if they go ahead with the offering, that Sky will just blow them out with an all singing all dancing 'get free UK channels' for €150 and UTV.

I expect with the deal with Boxer, that Freesat UK will stay out of the Irish market. On the bright side, boxes are to be offered free.

I think, they'll have to try and see low uptake of their offering. Then they'll retool, give partial refunds and retool along the lines of Onevision.

Why boxer? Probably and I'm not in the know but, Boxer involves not having a UK centric broadcaster in the bids or big telco like Eircom and not having UPC dominating.

Apart from BT, Boxer brings in new entrants to the TV business such as Boxer AB. The logical extension would be a bid by Communcorp for Eircom and a triple play company with different brands ie Eircom, radio stations, Meteor, Boxer.

Onevision was a chance for Setanta to get in against Sky. They're the main loser. A lost business opportunity for TV3.

Well when charged UK channels become public unless retooled I see Sky as the winners, unless Boxer change their plans which the can. An interesting article in http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/11062/digital-life/the-end-of-tv-as-we-know-it

The article by Sorcha Corcoran, talks about the the 'Gadgetiers or Cool Kids' presumably that's us and the lean back passiver people who should lead to the end of one size fits all TV. "Gadgetiers’ and ‘Kool Kids’ as they call them – will lead us to a world of platform-agnostic content, fluid mobility of media experiences, individualised pricing schemes and an end to the traditional concept of release windows." "To both protect current and grow future revenues, the report (IBM services) recommends leading companies do the following: dynamically profile consumer groups; tailor products and services by segment; cost-effectively operate tandem channels; and end the ‘one-size-fits-all’ marketing approach."

Can see this happening:

1: RTE mux launches as planned next month and rolls out slowly, probably in tandem with DAB
2: Boxer gets delayed
3: And again
4: Boxer launches off Three Rock, Spur Hill, Woodcock Hill in about 2010
5: Boxer hit the wall in about 2012 after never having expanded their network due to low takeup....

we've been waiting since the mid to late 90's for dtt

We could be waiting till the early to mid 20's for T2

I see Canal+ are launching DTT usb sticks. This would be a strong part of a DTT business strategy to increase subs see:http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/?p=5662. That is if they can revise the tier offering. Top up and a la carte is grand and the free box is good but my thinking is that broadcasters may push for FTA as a more successful option so I'd expect that Boxer will see the light and change as required. Any company that does poorly changes or fails. What you could find is that as subs fail, that the sports channels remain pay and the rest becomes free-to-air being carriage fees to boxer.

I think that they'll have learned enough from ITV Digital to test the Irish consumer, see how technologically inept or not they are. This will come down to Sky and whether they launch a FTA as an option with 'Free UK channels'. I still expect UPC to combo with Boxer, in fact they may want to buy into the Boxer consortium and drop their cable channels in return, converting their cable offering into other channels. Perhaps that won't happen but their could be combos, otherwise they'll begin to lose customers.

Also some consumers will look at Boxer's tiers and say, nah...same price as UPC I'll stay. UPC might take three's broadband lead and begin offering top-up options but with installation charges for DTV. Sky could do the same.

Boxer's future lies in becoming a half free-to-air platform half premium channel platform ie sport/Films/Adult as premium.

So I don't think they'll become ITV Digital and fail. I think it just be a different Boxer from the mainlypay mainly option. The pressure will come from failing subs and the desire of UK broadcasters to go FTA and get more advertising reach. Determining will be how quick Boxer will see the light or how the current tiers drives people to FTA satellite and in this regard Boxer would be well advised to combo with satellite perhaps Freesat UK in order to keep Sky out and mitigate the low subs. Certainly this is something that RTÉ should be pushing for.

So I think we'll have a Boxer Freeview and Boxer Premium like the UK emerge around 2012/3. Maybe Boxer will buy up Top UP TV UK also going forward.

That site is up over a month now with the recent incarnation there 2 weeks. So they must have got indications from the BCI before today but just kept stum out of respect to the BCI. So you know, I think we overlooked that, but I was saying on the boards how curious it was that they were the only 1 of the three with a website up.

Also channelsurfer I spoke with that person 3 months ago, but the email has never worked. The other Irish contact works. I said the same a week ago re the offering. Better bet emailing the Swedish rather than Irish contact. More likely to listen I'd say. Y'know some Irish, know-it-all ego. I think they need to engage with those who contact them, generate positivity.

They've spoke in the proposals about Boxer customer service in Sweden, so they need to deliver on that and engage. True points about ASO avoiding failure unlike ITV Digital.

But you know, its a question of how soft the Irish consumer is on prices. Australia has now gone for Freeview model in recent days. This seems to be the successful model for the most part.

Maybe some Irish customers will show themselves soft. If so then Boxer may do well on the current plan. That's business. But some may not sign up. How many is the key question that will determine remodelling of the tiers.

I see Liberty looking to buy a stake in Boxer Irish DTT soon and buy into the consortium and also into Boxer's Danish, Irish and Swedish DTT to grow their business. I also see them going after Eircom to grow their UPC business as a telco.

I also see them do a deal with Denis O'Brien as part of a deal for Communicorp's radio interests.Perhaps they might also buy out Digicel and expand in that part of the world and expand Boxer in that part of the world.

Boxer AB could become a subsidiary of Liberty Global. This may give O'Brien an alternative for Digicel sale to Carlos Slim of Movil.

This could give Liberty growth potential securing UPC Ireland into the future with Cable-DTT combo and telecoms.

I expect TV3 to go for UTV as UTV3 (merged name using both brands) which could add NI programming to TV3 News and UTV News to TV3 enabling it to go head to head with RTÉ News.

In the process of acquiring Channel 6 this would solve programme rights issues to maximise advertising and to resolve programme rights and give it scale in programming for TV3 and an in into the radio business. Onevision was probably always for the benefit of Setanta against Sky.

In terms of rights it may do a deal with ITV to buy its programming from these channels under its 3 Expose channel with Channel 6 supplementing both 3 and 3 Expose. ITV may see more sense in rebuffing this for advertising reasons meaning Doughty might wish to launch a bid for ITV proper and extract economies for programme rights in both territories.

By buying UTV it gets into radio to grow its opportunities and also will have the NI advertising. Perhaps Doughty may take a stake in ITV and brand ITV Ireland as 3 Expose.

Perhaps O'Brien might buy into Liberty as an investor when he sells Digicel to Carlos Slim (second wealthiest person in the world) and run Communicorp and run Communicorp's and Boxers European interests and thus Eircom, Boxer and the radio side of the business as part of Liberty Global. As such it would be a merger of Communicorp, Digicel and Boxer into Liberty with O'Brien as a key Board member. He may well buy Boxer AB in the near term to grow his DTT interests.

See: http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/obrien-has-battle-on-his-hands-as-slim-moves-in-on-his-home-patch-1067214.html

and
http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=MARKETS-qqqm=nav-qqqid=34524-qqqx=1.asp

http://www.dtg.org.uk/news/news.php?class=countries&subclass=0&id=3061

This would gave Liberty huge scale in Europe as a telco-media networks company.

crawler wrote: »

well - at least they were fast out of the traps on the website

http://www.boxer.se/?page=1365 (also resolves http://www.boxer.ie)

Mayo Exile wrote: »

Aren't RTE 1, RTE 2, TG4 and TV3 being provided anyway free of charge, (regardless of Boxer winning the license), under RTE's own public service obligations?

They will

I expect TV3 to go for UTV as UTV3 (merged name using both brands) which could add NI programming to TV3 News and UTV News to TV3 enabling it to go head to head with RTÉ News.

UTV is a huge company in comparision to TV3, if anything UTV would buy into TV3 if it was up for sale. TV3's owners have put their eggs all into the one basket and have found if difficult to gain any ground outside of TV3. They will be hoping that it is just a case of TV3 being given 3TODAY or 3EXPOSE without any competition for the licence (IMO I don't think the BCI should give TV3 any more licences they have ruined the one they have). As soon as TV3 get those licences Doherty Hanson will put the channel up for sale.

I cann't imagine 3TODAY or 3EXPOSE being part of the pay packages for very long and will certainly be FTA in about a year.

So far we know the following channel will be FTA: -

RTE 1, 2, TV3, TG4, IFB Channel and OTV. With the possible extension of RTE services to include RTE 3 and RTE 1 +1

watty wrote: »

I predict 500,000 households with Free DTT simply for the free Irish channels and less than 100k PayTV subs in 5 years unless an imaginative change to the packages.

Am I correct in my understanding that RTE are rolling out a "freeview" of the basic channels and that this Boxer thing is another package altogether which just happens to be the same as the "freeview" with a couple of extra channels for 9.99?

Are RTE providing a set-top box that is a different box from what Boxer will be providing?

Thanks.