UK Five may be less likely to be FTA

watty

UK Five may be less likely to be FTA see:
http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/

BroadbandTv News wrote:

German FTA to encrypt
Marking the end of Germany’s large number of television channels available on a free-to-air basis, the two largest commercial broadcasting groups RTL and Pro Sieben SAT.1 Media have decided to go scramble their content.

RTL now have a majority share of UK's Five. Other RTL channels such as RTL9 are encrypted.

Also interesting:
http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/archive_uk/251105.html

See Irish DTT article

recyclebin

i dont see any mention of this on the rtl website. Are you sure that rtl will encrypt?

watty

It could be total bilge water. I don't know. I just read the article linked.

maisflocke

At the moment it would appear to be a -speculated- avenue that RTL & Pro7Sat1 are supposedly looking at.

The rumours go as far as saying that these broadcasters are exploring ways of receiving extra revenue by charging viewers 3 euro per month to carry on watching the current private FTA channels.

However, at present it remains sheer speculation.

The German market is one of the hardest markets to convince, so if freeTV suddenly becomes payTV it could be a fatal decision. First, broadcasters will have less viewers (most Germans do not let commercial enterprises dictate their lifestyles- and can happily live without commercialisation) which in turn would mean the Advertisers will demand reduced advertising fees. This reduced Advertisement revenue would put those Broadcasters back to square one because the lost revenue from advertisements would only be offset by subscriptions.... offset. not increased.

me reckons that the rumour will never become reality. And if it does, sod them.

TVDX

A fatal decision it would be indeed.
Germans will be outraged if this goes ahead as well as Swiss people who get RTL Schweiz.

channelsurfer

Agrees. it could be highly unlikely especially if the majority of germans are used to getting fta satellite. Maybe they are just putting feelers out and seeing what the reaction would be. In relation to the UK that is a different story. If in 2008 itv bbc and c4 are fta then c5 would be left with a disadvantage as they would have to probalby join the sky family pack because there would be no point in issuing ftv cards just for c5

Sin e an Fear

watty wrote:

Other RTL channels such as RTL9 are encrypted.

I think it always has been - it started out on cable in Belgium and so was based on conditional access from day one - everything on the channel is either in French or dubbed in French.

TVDX wrote:

Germans will be outraged if this goes ahead as well as Swiss people who get RTL Schweiz.

Surely the whole point of having separate RTL channels for Switzerland and Austria is to ensure that viewers there get advertising targeted at their countries, not Germany, and that RTL gets its pound of flesh for clearing rights for those countries? SRG and ORF only clear rights for Switzerland and Austria, which is why they've been encrypted.

Anyway, who's going to miss American shows dubbed 'auf Deutsch'?

watty

ORF? (or was it ORT?) or some Encrypted Austrian Broadcaster is supposed to be going FTA.

SRG because Switzerland is NOT in EU can offer a non-Geographic Swiss national only FTV card scheme. EU goods/services by law can't be limited by national identity of seller, but can be devlivered exclusively to a geographic boundary (i.e. we only ship to the UK Midlands etc).

Anyway, who's going to miss American shows dubbed 'auf Deutsch'?
I wouldn't miss most of them in English. "Babylon 5" was good though. "Home Improvement" OK until I had seen about 10 episodes.

L1011

ORF already run ORF2 FTA for about 3/4 of the day, and drop to showing teletext screens on the FTA feed when stuff they haven't cleared is on - this amount has been reducing and reducing in the past while, though...

Sin e an Fear

watty wrote:

EU goods/services by law can't be limited by national identity of seller, but can be devlivered exclusively to a geographic boundary (i.e. we only ship to the UK Midlands etc).

Programme rights can apply to people rather than territories - AFN and BFBS TV can only be watched by US and British forces and their families, wherever they happen to be based.

L1011

Or Falkland Islanders, in the case of the BFBS - its the only station on their cable TV!

Sin e an Fear

MYOB wrote:

Or Falkland Islanders, in the case of the BFBS - its the only station on their cable TV!

No, BFBS1's their only terrestrial station - BFBS2 is only available in the Mount Pleasant military base, but its schedule looks crap anyway. The local cable operator KTV shows BBC World, People+Arts (BBC/Discovery joint venture) and ESPN.

In Germany, you can pick up BBC and ITV on Astra 2D with the right size dish, and in Cyprus with an even bigger one, so who needs BFBS? Come to think of it, who needs Five?

watty

Originally Posted by watty
EU goods/services by law can't be limited by national identity of seller, but can be devlivered exclusively to a geographic boundary (i.e. we only ship to the UK Midlands etc).

Sin e an Fear wrote:

Programme rights can apply to people rather than territories - AFN and BFBS TV can only be watched by US and British forces and their families, wherever they happen to be based.

That is a special case, the service is NOT sold to ANY member of the public, it is a "private system" so they can make their own rules, EU goods & Services law deosn't apply.

Ulsterman 1690

What about RTL's terrestrial transmissions in Germany and Luxembourg will these be encrypted too ?

The whole point of RTL being FTA on satellite is for the benefit of parts of Germany that dont recieve the terrestrial signal (like C5 in the UK terrestrial coverage is not 100%) I thought the German regulator (unlike its counterparts closer to home) still had enough spine to stop crap like this happening.

The whole "regionalised advertising" thing is a bit of a red herring anyway I mean Sky Digital (and FTV) viewers here in the UK (and now Ireland) have had the option of selecting out-of-region ITV channels via the "other channels" menu for several years now bit few people realise this can be done and even fewer people bother (lets face it why would your average Belfast resident want to watch ads for businesses in the Channel Islands ?) actually I strongly suspect that If RTE were to go FTA tomorrow morning (but not on the UK EPG) few people in outside Ireland (bar Irish ex-pats) would even notice

Charles Slane

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

actually I strongly suspect that If RTE were to go FTA tomorrow morning (but not on the UK EPG) few people in outside Ireland (bar Irish ex-pats) would even notice

I'd agree to a point, but I think big shows that are shown on RTE weeks before appearing on UK TV stations would get people tuning in. "Lost" being a prime example.

Sin e an Fear

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

Irish ex-pats

An expat is an expatriate. An ex-pat is somebody who is no longer a pat.

maisflocke

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

What about RTL's terrestrial transmissions in Germany and Luxembourg will these be encrypted too ?

Its not going to happen.

Relax.