RTE should set up a satellite channel

Genghis

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
I'll say it again.

In ITALY when the terresterial channels show something they don't have rights to on Satellite they encryt that program. They do it for F1, Football, and movie premieres.

RTE could do the same, FTA for the homegrown stuff and for the foreign imports a nice restful image, and have the sound in the background.

Anyone who has a SKY box will be able to get much of the blocked stuff anyway. Films tend to be released at the same time - IRE / UK / Italy / Germany TV all show feature films with a month of each other - this is true for many old classics, premieres and even foreign language art films.

Better again, RTE could launch a digital channel with a dual purpose - a) Access UK / EU market for Irish content and b) Provide to its Irish viewers timeshifting for some programmes. Call it RTE Choice?

The channel would take programmes from both RTE1 and Network 2, with 'fresh' content predominating between 5pm and 11pm. Outside of these hours RTE could show archive material / re-runs. Rather than ending up with a channel full of crap, RTE Europe could begin broadcasting from 4pm and run until 1am.

A possible schedule could look like the following: (L=taken live, RR= Recent repeat of curent show, AR= Archive repeat)

16.00 - Leargas / Would You Believe / Nationwide (RR)
16.30 - Open House / Whatever replaces it (RR)
18.00 - The News (L)
19.00 - Last nights Fair City / The Lyrics Board (RR)
19.30 - No Frontiers / Househunters in the Sun / Off the Rails / Beyond Hall Door (RR / AR)
20.00 - Fair City (that nights) (RR)
20.30 - Telly Bingo / Other Game Show / Against the Head (Sports) (RR / AR)
21.00 - The News (L)
21.30 - Prime Time / Questions and Answers / Documentary (RR - not that nights show; Prime time never on both channels at once, etc)
22.30 - The Big Bow Wow / Batchelors Walk / No Disco / Other Voices / Just for Laughs / even Hector san Aise agus subtitles as bearla (RR/ AR)
23.30 - N2 News (RR)
00.00 - Re-run of old GAA Games / Concerts / Music Shows with Dave Fanning, etc (AR)


In addition you could have weekly shows such as the Late Late (which could be shown twice, live and as a re-run but a a diff time to re-run on RTE1), Sunday night drama RTE do, The Sunday Game Highlights show, as well as sasonal stuff like the National Hockey championships, The Citywest Snooker, Basketball from the Tallaght Arena, Racing, The Week in Politics, Oireachtas report, other Irish language programming (from TG4 / not) etc.

They could also have a limited budget for sourcing non-RTE produced material with an Irish angle - so, for example, pay for the UK & ROI rights for one Irish movie a week: Michael Collins, The Commitments, Far and Away, I Went Down, etc, or for documentary repeats from (say) the BBC that relate to ROI / NI.

Surely there would be a business case for such a channel? Tara was enormously poplular with Ex-pats and the general UK population in general, and RTE should realise more income in this way than might be possible from selling the limited number of shows they do to UK channels. As well as this, make the channel available to an Irish audience at home, where there would be a significant audience for the time-shift programmes.