Channel 6

Niall1234

Well, we're treated today with the news that we are getting a new station (is it terrestrial) here in Ireland.

Question is, will we be getting the new station from launch on Sky Digital ?

Be fantastic if we did cause if the new channel is terrestrial, it mightn't have the best reception here for quite some time.

Would be nice if it were FTA aswell. Allow the foreigners to see a bit of irish programming.

Greenman

Found this here http://www.rte.ie/business/2005/0727/bci.html?rss looks like it won't be FTA on satellite!!!

BCI awards new TV contract to Channel 6

July 27, 2005 15:58[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland has awarded contracts - in principle - to Channel 6 for the provision of a new television service for the next 10 years.
Channel 6 says it will provide a broad format entertainment service providing movies, music, drama and comedy and aimed primarily at the 15-35 age group. The service will also include local programming on topical matters.
The new service will broadcast initially for 12 hours a day from Monday to Friday and 15 hours on Saturday and Sunday. Channel 6 will be carried on the NTL and Chorus analogue and digital platforms as part of the company's basic television subscription package.
The service will also be retransmitted on the Sky Digital Platform and will be included in the Sky basic television subscription package.
Channel 6 is owned by Muglins Broadcasting Limited.
[/FONT]

Sponge Bob

there will be feck all Irish programming except of the TV3 variety, their website is quite clear about that

Niall1234

When they say "will be part of standard package" maybe that just means it'll be on the Irish EPG ?

Was in most of the papers today saying it was going to be terrestrial.

That's clearly not the case by the looks of things though.

ricey

Ok so when will this happen?

Sponge Bob

It may very well be terrestrial but digital only as in DVB-T , not analogue PAL.

Niall1234

My thought though is why bother going to the great expense of going terrestrial when terrestrial will go to the wall within 10 years and considering the number of people with access to digital in ireland.

I think they're talking around march or april for the start of broadcasting. What they'll show no body knows.


BTW, I just noted its being carried on Chorus Analogue. For the moment unfortunately I'm stuck on Chorus Analogue with just 13 channels. Now I might see Discovery Channel scrapped, leaving me with just Eurosport, Sky One and Sky News for €30 per month. Shocking.

Sponge Bob

Niall1234 wrote:

My thought though is why bother going to the great expense of going terrestrial when terrestrial will go to the wall within 10 years and considering the number of people with access to digital in ireland.

They will not pay for their own DVB-T network (DVB-T IS DIGITAL) someone 'else' will . It won't be RTE either ....or will it..who knows ????

watty

There isn't really space for a 5th channel on terrestrial (as the UK found with its Five, which was originally never to be analog, but Digital Only).

It seems to me from what I read that it is a subscription only channel, only on pay TV platforms.

Charles Slane

Niall1234 wrote:

Well, we're treated today with the news that we are getting a new station (is it terrestrial) here in Ireland.

News yesterday about Channel 6? Where did you see it and what did it say?

Sponge Bob wrote:

there will be feck all Irish programming except of the TV3 variety, their website is quite clear about that

All I see on their website is a holding page with no information about programming or anything else. Am I missing something?

Has something new happened or is this just referring to the info we had from months ago?

Niall1234

It was in most of the broadsheets and tabloids yesterday. Saw it in the Cork Examiner.

Round Cable

Charles Slane wrote:

News yesterday about Channel 6? Where did you see it and what did it say?

http://www.unison.ie/business/stories.php3?ca=80&si=1537947 Not much new info though.

Charles Slane

Thanks Niall1234.

I'm guessing that this thread should be in the Broadcasting section.

Anyhow I found the article on the unison site, but I think it needs registration, so for the benefit of those who don't have access, here are some of the main points. The article is by Samantha McCaughren -

" CORK tea family the Barry's, the motor distribution family behind the Gowan Group, and Irish venture capitalists Act and Delta Partners are among those putting €14m into Ireland's new TV station Channel 6.

A launch date in spring is now on the cards for the entertainment station which will be based in Ireland and licensed by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI).

It will be aimed at 15 to 35-year-olds, and will compete for younger audiences against RTÉ Two and TV3, as well as several British stations such as Channel 4 and MTV.

The €14m raised was higher than the €10m which the company was expected to raise initially. Michael Murphy, station founder and director of programmes, said that €14m was "a very strong statement" and would allow the station to compete.

The company will be 100pc Irish-owned. Mr Murphy said: "We focused on the Irish market because we believed that was where the opportunities for investment were."

Channel 6 will employ 25 people and has recently appointed Daragh Byrne (TV3) and Nicky Kelly (Newstalk) to its sales team. It will be based in Dublin, and Mr Murphy said: "We will be an Irish channel, based in Ireland with an Irish licence."

There had been suggestions that some elements of the station would be based outside the State to avoid Irish regulation.

The station plans to outsource some of its functions, and is close to finalising a deal for its technical operations. It will also contract out the production of locally made TV content.

It is also expected to re-run series like 'Frasier' and 'Sex and the City'.

The station will hold cable/MMDS and satellite licences, unlike TV3 which has a terrestrial licence."

Sponge Bob

Charles Slane wrote:

The station will hold cable/MMDS and satellite licences, unlike TV3 which has a terrestrial licence."

cable , no licence required.

mmds all spectrum in the hands of Chorus or NTL and no spectrum available to licence . MMDS distribution could be organised by bumping some other channel like Nat Geographic or Discovery first.

satellite licence ????? surely this means an uplink licence (available to anyone ) to the astra sat which itself belongs to a different country

typical Irish tech journalism at its best

Richard

watty wrote:

There isn't really space for a 5th channel on terrestrial (as the UK found with its Five, which was originally never to be analog, but Digital Only).

I don't think this is true.

When the ITC originally advertised the franchise in the early ninties, it was not awarded as no-one came up to scratch.

When they readvertised it, they initially said that they were reducing the number of analogue terrestrial frequencies available in order to make more room for DTT when it launched.

By the time Channel 5 launched, they reverted to the original frequency allocation. I don't think it was ever meant to be digital-only, though the analogue terrestrial coverage was, for a time, to be greatly reduced.

Richard

Niall1234 wrote:

My thought though is why bother going to the great expense of going terrestrial when terrestrial will go to the wall within 10 years and considering the number of people with access to digital in ireland.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Analogue terrestrial may go to the wall, but Digital terrestrial probably won't (as long it actually launches sometime!).

watty

Richard wrote:

I don't think this is true.

When the ITC originally advertised the franchise in the early ninties, it was not awarded as no-one came up to scratch.

When they readvertised it, they initially said that they were reducing the number of analogue terrestrial frequencies available in order to make more room for DTT when it launched.

By the time Channel 5 launched, they reverted to the original frequency allocation. I don't think it was ever meant to be digital-only, though the analogue terrestrial coverage was, for a time, to be greatly reduced.

Well different from what Broadcasting professionals in UK tell me.

Even today Five coverage on Analog Terrestrial is only 80%. This is why Five was on Analog Sky.

A lot of people with Five in UK needed a second aerial.

Here of course vested interests coupled with lack of money scuppered complete changeover from VHF to UHF with result that in Dublin where it is all cable you can get 4 perfect channels with rabbits ears from Three Rock and in Irish Speaking areas they need VHF and UHF aerials and some can't get TG4.

Coverage of TV3 is poorer than five in UK.

A fifth terrestrial analog channel would be a disaster, esp when we haven yet sorted coverage for the existing four channels. There are plenty of major places (clonmel?) with substandard RTE reception, never mind TG4 and worse TV3 coverange.

Any the article only speaks of pay TV platforms.

Freddie59

watty wrote:

There are plenty of major places (clonmel?) with substandard RTE reception, never mind TG4 and worse TV3 coverange.

RTE has a separate fill-in mast at Clonmel....unless you're just talking about TV3.:)

BrianD

Sponge Bob wrote:

cable , no licence required.

mmds all spectrum in the hands of Chorus or NTL and no spectrum available to licence . MMDS distribution could be organised by bumping some other channel like Nat Geographic or Discovery first.

satellite licence ????? surely this means an uplink licence (available to anyone ) to the astra sat which itself belongs to a different country

typical Irish tech journalism at its best

You do require a licence to be on cable. This can be from any EU country afaik but you have to be licenced somewhere. The same applies to satellite. You can't get on Sky Digital without be licenced. The BCI have content licences for this medium. These licences are for content only and not for transmission. The technical licence is issued by ComReg. It's cheaper to uplink from the UK anyway.

I think what the journalist was trying to express was that Channel 6 will not be available terrestrially like TV3. TV3 of course now have their own sat/catv/mmds licences now as well.

watty

Well I think you can get on Satellite without a licence, but Sky won't let you on their EPG with out a licence from somewhere. Ironic since Sky's orignal analog service was deemed to be unlicecenced by UK government (They required DMAC at the time, Sky got round it by uplinking outside UK).

You do require a licence here to uplink from Ireland. But could feed via broadband (say radio) to Morroco or some less fussy place to uplink and use a Morroco licence for Sky EPG.

DMC

watty wrote:

Ironic since Sky's orignal analog service was deemed to be unlicecenced by UK government (They required DMAC at the time, Sky got round it by uplinking outside UK).

Yep, the then authority, the IBA, only licenced BSB for direct-to-home satellite broadcasts in the late 80's. Sky Television was unable to uplink directly from the UK, but was able to broadcast under UK licence, as it was on cable, regulated by the Cable Authority, but uplink via Luxembourg.

Charles Slane

Michael Murphy was on Media Matters on Newstalk106 a few minutes ago. I just caught the end of it, but he said that they'd launch in the Spring and they should have an exact date with four to six weeks.

Apparently they're going to spend 10% of their budget on home-produced shows. As these shows will be a lot more expensive than bought-in programming, we can expect the actual percentage of home-produced programming to be much lower than 10%.

I think Newstalk's show are available to listen to again on their website. If there's any more info I'll get back.

DMC

Media Matters isnt, Charles, but I e-mailed Newstalk late last year, and they will be podcast soon. Its repeated at 10pm.

Charles Slane

Thanks Damo.

The interview should be on between 10pm and 10.30 tonight so.

BrianD

watty wrote:

Well I think you can get on Satellite without a licence, but Sky won't let you on their EPG with out a licence from somewhere. Ironic since Sky's orignal analog service was deemed to be unlicecenced by UK government (They required DMAC at the time, Sky got round it by uplinking outside UK).

You do require a licence here to uplink from Ireland. But could feed via broadband (say radio) to Morroco or some less fussy place to uplink and use a Morroco licence for Sky EPG.

Realistically you are not going to get onto satellite without a licence. Sure you could uplink from an non-EU country (though you would need dedicated fibre to transmit to the uplink station BB wouldn't be reliable enough). I heard that Radio Limerick One was using some sort of Norwegian satellite licence to continue their existence.

Furthermore, you will need libel and slander insurance and having a licence is a pre-requisite of this.

Many niche stations depend on a combination of platforms to achieve audience penetration e.g satellite + cable + MMDS. You won't get onto either catv/mmds anywhere without a licence.

I would guess that the satellite owner/operators will also want a piece of paper otherwise they could find themselves in hot water for broadcasting material that may have legal ramifications.

It's like many new technologies. It starts out as a grey area outide the legislative framework and the law and regulation catches up. For example you could start a broadband TV station spouting all sorts of slander and incitement to hatred and there doesn't seem to be any official regulation (in fact the Broadcasting Act excludes the Internet). Though there are other non-broadcasting laws that could be used to halt it.

Charles Slane

From the Sunday Business Post http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=MEDIA%20AND%20MARKETING-qqqs=mediaandmarketing-qqqid=10826-qqqx=1.asp

"Channel Six to name managing director

08 January 2006 By Laura Noonan
Ireland's new TV channel, Channel Six, will announce the name of its newly-appointed managing director this week.

The station will also announce its launch date and programming schedule “in the next week or so'‘, according to its executive chairman Pat Donnelly.

Last week, Channel Six, which is due to go on air this spring, announced that it had secured €14 million in funding from Irish investors.

The station's main investors are consortium ACT (which own 25 per cent), Delta (15 per cent), tea family Barrys (10 per cent), the Gowan Group (10 per cent) and Domhnal Slattery's Claret Capital (10 per cent).

Founders Donnelly and Michael Murphy hold 17 and 13 per cent respectively.

It is understood that the new managing director has a background in TV, but is not a well known name. He is working his notice at another company and is expected to take up his new position in the coming weeks.

Station bosses are meeting producers to try to line up original programming for Channel Six. The station will have a lot of US programming, and it is believed that re-runs of popular series Sex and the City and Frasier have already been secured.

Donnelly said that Channel Six would not carry popular soap operas such as Coronation Street and Emmerdale.

“The station targets under-35s and those programmes generally attract older audiences,” he said.

Channel Six has already done deals with NTL and Chorus, so it will be on their digital and cable services nationwide. The TV station is about to begin talks with Sky to try to secure a deal before its spring launch.

Donnelly said the station would make a profit within three years. But he said he wouldn't hazard a guess at the losses in the first year.

“I wouldn't want to scare our investors,” he said. “Next thing you'll be asking me the colour of my underpants.”"

rlogue

Why are they calling themselves Channel 6? What's meant to be Ireland's "fifth" TV channel then?

Niall1234

rlogue wrote:

Why are they calling themselves Channel 6? What's meant to be Ireland's "fifth" TV channel then?

Incase it gets mixed up with Channel 5 in England I think.

They are also showing that Setanta Sports is Irelands 5th channel.

BrianD

rlogue wrote:

Why are they calling themselves Channel 6? What's meant to be Ireland's "fifth" TV channel then?

Perhaps the have plans for greater things ...

Richard

watty wrote:

Even today Five coverage on Analog Terrestrial is only 80%. This is why Five was on Analog Sky.

That is true. And they did make plain in 1997 that the forthcoming launch of digital services would increase the reception further.

I get the impression that they never really thought the frequency plan through. Why else would they have put Cambret Hill (south west Scotland) and Black Mountain (Belfast) on the same frequency?

Charles Slane

From today's Irish Independent -

"NEW entertainment TV station Channel 6, which will launch in the Spring, will be headed up by Martin Drake, who has worked in senior TV management rolls across Europe.

The station expects to shake up the Irish TV market for younger viewers with a mix of homegrown programming and favourites such as 'Sex and the City'.

Prior to taking up the position with Channel 6, Mr Drake was director of finance for Discovery Networks Europe and also held senior positions at the BBC and Channel 5 in Britain."

SPDUB

http://www.medialive.ie/Notice/notice.html

Channel 6 - Update (17/1/06)

New TV channel, Channel 6, is currently working to a launch date sometime towards the end of March.

Senior sales and management personnel are now in place.

The service will broadcast initially for 12 hours per day Monday to Friday and 15 hours Saturday and Sunday.
..................

It is not yet clear if the station will be available on analogue from start up.

It is also planned ......will be included in the Sky basic television subscription package. However, this has yet to be finalised and it is could be towards the back end of the year before it's inclusion.

BrianD

What do they mean by analogue? Cable?

byte

Yeah, possibly cable. The term "analogue" alone is very vague! I reckon there is absolutely no chance of them appearing on analogue terrestrial, so I'd say they must mean cable? God only knows!

BrianD

Absolutely no chance at all. They have a Digital Content licence only. This enables them to get onto digital platforms. In fact, technically this would exclude analogue cable so perhaps this is what they mean about being on analogue.

watty

Analog Cable and Analog MMDS has already such a limited line up, customers would be unhappy about losing an existing channel to make way for Ch6.

I remember about 2 years ago big publicity about a new Irish 24hr news channel , even "opened" by somebody in Government. It came to nothing. They may be on Internet. Even at launch reading their info carefully it was hard to see that it was going to be more than Internet. But it was hugely hyped as a multi-platform Broadcast station.

I'll take it half serious if it actually appears on NTL digital cable in Dublin and entirely serious if it is FTA on Sky/Satellite. Well OK even in a Mix pack...

L1011

That news channel was run by the guy who devised the Lyrics Board, Andy Ruane. I could only find it by googling for him first - http://www.irelandlivetelevision.tv/

Website dates from 2002/2003 still

Scarily enough, their feed is still running :eek:

watty

Yes today or yesterday news. Who watches it and how they make money.

a 2" video is not my idea of TV. Even if it was Baird's.

JohnC.

I didn't even know that "channel" existed!

SPDUB

watty wrote:

Analog Cable and Analog MMDS has already such a limited line up, customers would be unhappy about losing an existing channel to make way for Ch6.

Well I have always assumed they would pull CNBC to make way for any new channel.

Apart from Jay Leno,Conan O Brien and maybe the NBC Nightly News I don't think most people would miss it.I know they are the only programmes I watch on it.

icdg

Unfortunately the BCI has deleted the press release from its website (along with an archive going back to the mid-1990s - the BCI website used to be very useful in this regard, the promised return of the archive has yet materalise. Anyway...) so I can't say for sure, but from all the news reports, I believe its a Cable/MMD Content Contract that Channel 6 have, not a digital content contract (which is intended for DTT, if it ever comes).

Anyways, as I read the relevant section of the act, a digital content contract is good enough for analogue cable:

"37.—(1) A holder of a licence granted by the Director, being a licence that authorises the transmission by means of a cable or MMD system of programme material, shall not transmit, by such means, a broadcasting service unless the programme material, the subject of the broadcasting service, is supplied for such transmission—

(a) by—

(i) the Authority,
(ii) Teilifís na Gaeilge,
(iii) the television programme service contractor,
(iv) the holder of a digital content contract or satellite content contract and the programme material so supplied by him or her is the compilation of programme material authorised by that contract to be supplied by him or her for transmission otherwise as a broadcasting service, or
(v) an excepted person,

(b) pursuant to—
(i) a local content contract,
(ii) a community content contract, or
(iii) a cable-MMD content contract."

I think Channel 6 needs to be on analogue cable if it is going to be regarded as a national television service - there is a substantial amount of homes, particularly in Dublin, that still only have analogue cable. Otherwise it will be just another digital channel, doomed to get an audience around the likes of Paramount or Bravo, at best.

L1011

watty wrote:

Yes today or yesterday news. Who watches it and how they make money.

a 2" video is not my idea of TV. Even if it was Baird's.

I think they dump a fullsize stream of it onto some cable systems in the areas of the US with Plastics who'll pay for "news from home". Note the stage-oirish accent of the bird who reads most of the news, etc...

andrew3

I wonder what the "churn" is for digital services in the republic, I dropped NTL digital because the epg was so hard to use and I wouldn't consider getting it again!

As regards a terrestrial service - there would have to be a major change in the broadcasters operating on it, to make it anyway worth while to pay the 100bucks or so for a DVB-T adapter!

I like the TPS package in france and the HBO package in Hungary --
The language barrier is a real pain in europe - its what seperates it from being a really lucrative market!

but what I cant understand is how come so few stations it the EU don't simulcast the audio in a variety of languages -its not difficult technology to implement

watty

andrew3 wrote:

but what I cant understand is how come so few stations it the EU don't simulcast the audio in a variety of languages -its not difficult technology to implement

Rights. Hollywood / Sport "divide and conquer" philosphy that makes them FAR more money out of Europe than USA.

Euronews and Ebs have lots of languages.
Arte and Terranova have German and French.

Also cost. If you are reading news it is cheaper to have different languages at different times rather than simultanous "dubbed" translation.

Examples:
DW Tv, NileTv, IBA ch33 all broadcast different languages at different times.

JSTV (japanese news) has in theory English and Japanese, but mostly Japanese with occasional broadcasts (FTA) in English and Chinese sequentially.

NCTV @15W has all presenters in Arabic (?, or Farsi, not sure) but all films in English with onscreen english subtitles.

Some Arabic and Turkish channels have English language US TV series or Films in French, German or English all with local language on screen subtitle, rather than DVB subtitle.

Subtitle is a lot cheaper than dubbing a language track.

Oddly the Polish channels tend to simply reduce volume of English slightly and dub over on SAME audio channel a Polish translation/ commentary by one speaker. Native Polish drama on one channel often has on screen English Subtitless.

So not only is little use made of audio channels (Up to 9 or 4 stereo & 1 mono on analog satellite, often rented out for radio) a standard featuree of Satellite, but almost no use of user selectable teletext or DVB subtitles. Even on UK tv a lot of subtitles are teletext rather than DVB.

TG4 is like Polish TV, they like to have on screen English subtitles when using Native audio. How many people watching TG4 irish language programs that want English don't have Teletext or DVB subtitles?

S4C~digidol sometimes has English on screen. Very rare dual sound track. Often choice of English OR Welsh subtitles on Teletext.

SRB

A lot of the (movie) channels in Greece, France, Spain and Italy carry a choice of the original language as well as the dubbed version, quite a few programmes on German Channels also carry duel soundtracks, but with the German FTA channels the original audio is not broadcast on the Sat versions of these channels for the rights reasons Watty outlines. It's OK with the movie channels as they are sub based and can't be viewed outside the country showing them. (Before anyone starts, "oh yes you can", legally you can't). The Polish channels are the only ones I've ever seen which just "talk over" the original soundtrack, it's very odd, as you have the same person voicing entire programmes.

channelsurfer

according to the sunday times today channel 6 will not be available to sky viewers due to a row over where exactly on the epg it woul be placed. channel 6 wanted 105 while sky offered 250 - 290. It will be available on chorus and ntl. Article states that perhaps ntl and chorus did a deal with channel 6 to keep it off sky.

mike65

Ah the machinations of the media! Not sure why the cable cabal would feel the need. No-one is going to get one or other other cos of Channel 6 shirley?

Mike.

JohnC.

Surely C6 are the ones losing out there. Sky probably wouldn't really care about the lack of that channel.

watty

I doubt the conspiracy theory. But I do think they are not likely to get 105 or 106. It they are serious about Satellite they will take the 250 -290 offer.
Why would they want 105 when they are Ch6?

IMO RTE, TV3, TG4 should not have those spots. Sky is a UK service (that is ultimately not even British) that happens to sell in Ireland too. I'm sure everyone here would prefer BBC / ITV etc on 101 to 105 and Irish channels on 111, 112, or 201, 203, or 251, 252, etc. etc

Charles Slane

watty wrote:

I doubt the conspiracy theory. But I do think they are not likely to get 105 or 106.

Yeah, very unlikely they'd get 106 - considering that's where Sky One is.

watty

Exactly , and called Channel *SIX* they can hardly demand 105.