So whats the story with the other Muxes?

So come October we can expect to have 4 TV channels and 10 Radio channels launch as Irish Freeview.

Not much is it when you compare it to the UK`s freeview set up!

But does Ireland have the same number of muxes available as the British do, could we carry 50 TV channels on all the available muxes if we so wished?

Are their any plans for the other muxes? Who owns them and are we likely to see anything anytime soon?

watty

No, no no

There was going to be initially 3 Commercial Mux and 1 PSB mux.
Now just 2 PSB Mux with review of commercial situation in 2012 to 2013.

We don't have enough indigenious channels for a UK sized Freeview

HD is now defacto the standard, so all main channels will be HD which takes x4 the space of an MPEG4 SD and x2 the space of an MPEG2 SD

No-one owns them. In fact for most of the country Mux 3 and Mux 4 won't exist physically. There may never be more than 2 Mux as Pay DTT is unlikely to be viable except in very reduced form.

So say I wanted to launch my Own TV channel, what obstacles would be in my way?

Could I just get a licence and broadcast through RTENL or would I have to apply for a licence and await RTE NL do open up another mux?

Also can any more channels fit onto the current mux? Or is 6 the limit?


Thanks

watty

You need to pay the transmission costs, distribution costs and Content costs. Satellite is cheaper.

You get a licence from BAI.

The current Mux is overpacked. Even with two mux, they will find it hard to fit RTE1, RTE2, TG4 and TV3 in HD (which they will be, RTE2 part time and at least 3 of them by 2012). There will be a separate RTE News, Children Channel from the start. Oireachtas TV and an Irish Film channel are likely in late 2011 or early 2013 on the two planned mux.

So you have to wait for 2nd Mux. Maybe Mid to late 2011. Then you need about €8M in revenue from adverts a year to pay for your channel. You can't charge for the channel. PayTV is only Mux3 & 4 and BAI wants (currently) a single PayTV operator rather than separate operator for each channel. Such a pay TV operator is viable. Only the Individual Channel concept is viable. Though you still need one umbrella company to manage the PayTV viewing cards and encryption. Since RTE NL would be installing and maintaining the program feeds and Transmitters, they could do this. However UPC already has the call centres and infrastructure, so might be a better option. Then the Pay TV channel would have to pay RTENL or UPC for EPG, Encryption and Card services. But that would be a tiny fraction of the amount Sky charges. This is not quite the Same as BAI concept where the pay TV platform operator decides all the Channel line up and does all the Marketing.

If you uplink outside Ireland, no BAI content licence needed and you can be on air on satellite over UK and Ireland (or even half of Europe) for a fraction of Irish Terriestrial Transmission cost.

watty

watty wrote: »

You need to pay the transmission costs, distribution costs and Content costs. Satellite is cheaper.

You get a licence from BAI.

The current Mux is overpacked. Even with two mux, they will find it hard to fit RTE1, RTE2, TG4 and TV3 in HD (which they will be, RTE2 part time and at least 3 of them by 2012). There will be a separate RTE News, Children Channel from the start. Oireachtas TV and an Irish Film channel are likely in late 2011 or early 2013 on the two planned mux.

So you have to wait for 2nd Mux. Maybe Mid to late 2011. Then you need about €8M in revenue from adverts a year to pay for your channel. You can't charge for the channel. PayTV is only Mux3 & 4 and BAI wants (currently) a single PayTV operator rather than separate operator for each channel. Such a pay TV operator is viable. Only the Individual Channel concept is viable. Though you still need one umbrella company to manage the PayTV viewing cards and encryption. Since RTE NL would be installing and maintaining the program feeds and Transmitters, they could do this. However UPC already has the call centres and infrastructure, so might be a better option. Then the Pay TV channel would have to pay RTENL or UPC for EPG, Encryption and Card services. But that would be a tiny fraction of the amount Sky charges. This is not quite the Same as BAI concept where the pay TV platform operator decides all the Channel line up and does all the Marketing.

If you uplink outside Ireland, no BAI content licence needed and you can be on air on satellite over UK and Ireland (or even half of Europe) for a fraction of Irish Terriestrial Transmission cost.

Thats a lot of info Watty, thanks for that.

Very intreasting reading, It sort of shows you the complicated nature for something that should be so simple!

watty

Read about the start of BBC TV from 1936 to 1955. Read about how Comercial TV was started in UK. You know the "BBC" sets even had "Set-top" boxes to add ITV in mid 1950s?

Then read how the ITV franchises became amalgamated.

Then read up on the UK equivalent of RTE, C4 a Commercial Station but unlike ITV also a Public Service Broadcaster!. Then Five which was supposed to be the 2nd Commercial only channel, on Digital only. But Digital had hiccuped with the failure of BSB and take over by Sky to become BskyB. So Five launched on Analogue Satellite, Free to air, with a "Fake" encryption flag to block reception on European mainland boxes that had encryption enabled! (ignored if the box had no CAM!). Five never had good UK analogue coverage.

It's not easy or cheap to have a "real" TV station and has never been simple. If you don't mind losing €500,000 a year, it's fairly simple and "cheap" (for a Broadcaster sense of the word, especially if bitrate is very low, i.e. low quality) to get on Satellite only. Hence all the rubbish premium sex chat line and shopping channels all over Europe.

lawhec

Technically, Ireland has nine DTT multiplex frequencies cleared (8 UHF & 1 VHF) for most of the important transmission sites (including the current main sites) from the Geneva 06 ITU conference, however some of these frequencies have analogue transmissions current in place and are unavailable until these are switched off. Also some allocations run the risk of co-channelling with neighbouring transmitter sites which could cause problems during an analogue/digital simulcast period. Also, a European-wide agreement in 2007 to clear some of the UHF broadcast spectrum from E61-69 for non-broadcast use will mean that broadcasts on these frequencies will need to move starting around 2013. Some of the frequencies cleared for broadcast for transmitter sites in Ireland will have to be allocated different frequencies, but this may not be a future problem if there are no more than 3 or 4 UHF multiplexes per site.

The BCI had advertised (and awarded) 4 multiplexes for a commercial (1 PSB & 3 commercial) operation as any more would require analogue services to be shut at some sites at least. Since this has now fallen through, launch efforts are now being concentrated on starting with a FTA PSB content launch. One mux to soft-launch in two months time, with the possibility of another next year to accommodate HD content

Remember that in the UK, in non-DSO areas (including Northern Ireland) they are having to run DTT multiplexes at low power and in some cases with different directional restrictions to avoid interference issues. Presently some transmission sites in the Republic have temporary restrictions but not to the same coverage extent that there is in the UK - the Saorview soft-launch will provide reliable coverage for a large majority of the population.

As to content, it's unfair to directly compare with the UK on this as quite simply it's a different scale of economy (61 million vs. 4.5 million) aligned with the fact that most UK broadcasters freely broadcast into the Ireland from Britain via satellite or cable (terrestrial in some areas). A lack of indigenous TV broadcasting outside of RTÉ and TV3 means that Irish viewing choice apart from them comes mainly from the UK, independent attempts are either highly localised, short lived or both. To expand on what Watty pointed out, cost per viewer and cost per transmitter via DTT would be more in Ireland than in Britain, where in London one transmitter (Crystal Palace) can serve around twice the entire population number of the RoI.

If a broadcaster from outside the state wished to be available via Saorview, it may be possible that they could be available without needing content licencing via the BCI as long as they are licenced in another EU country under the Television Sans Frontiers rules although they could be taken off-air if they were to break any statutory broadcasting rules. International broadcasters like Euronews or Deutsch Welle would be the most likely to investigate such options, however no one has indicated such a possibility and hope shouldn't be held out for such unless such a broadcaster makes an announcement.

The current 1 mux RTÉNL test is the same nationally, there are no local opt-outs. It is possible for one or more future multiplexes to be regional based if required.

The Cush

Deleted User wrote: »

But does Ireland have the same number of muxes available as the British do, could we carry 50 TV channels on all the available muxes if we so wished?

The current Europen digitial tv frequency plan goes back to mid 2006 and the ITU Region 1 RRC-06 (Regional Radio Conference) which developed a DTT frequency plan for ITU Region 1 countries (Europe, Africa, the Middle East west of the Persian Gulf including Iraq, the former Soviet Union and Mongolia) known as the GE06 Agreement, Geneva 2006.

At the conference the UK were allocated 8 national UHF layers (frequency channels/multiplexes) plus Ch. 36. Six of the layers will be used at 80 large coverage transmitters with three at approx. 1,000 other relays.

Ireland were allocated 8 national UHF layers and 1 VHF layer at the conference. The Broadcasting Act allocates 6 for DTT. The VHF allocation is not currently planned for DTT as indicated by Comreg. Of the 6 allocated the Broadcasting Act gifts 2 to RTÉ (1 now and 1 at ASO), the 4 other allocations are to be licenced by the BCI for pay DTT.

As Ireland uses the more efficient MPEG-4 video compression standard and the UK the less efficient MPEG-2 the Irish DTT multiplex allocation could carry more channels than the UK multiplexes but that's unlikely to happen in the current circumstances.

Deleted User wrote: »

Are their any plans for the other muxes?

2012/13 at the earliest for the 4 pay DTT multiplexes. The second RTÉ mux has no official start date and no proposal for it has been submitted to the Dept for approval. RTÉ has previously indicated it will be primarily High Definition but does not yet have all the infrastructure for HD at their studios but they have said that second mux will achieve 98% population coverage by the third quarter of 2013 or possibly earlier.

The Broadcasting Act allows for extra muxes, probably regional, above the six national ones if required and if the spectrum is available.

Deleted User wrote: »

Who owns them and are we likely to see anything anytime soon?

The multiplexes are 8 MHz slices of spectrum and spectrum is a national resource of the State. Comreg is tasked with management of the spectrum in the State and issuing spectrum usage licences for a fee. The Broadcasting Act describes how multiplexes are awarded.

The only thing happening soon is the Oct launch of the single national public mux, the second one maybe 2012 after the full national public launch and pay DTT 2012/13 maybe.

@lawhec: some duplication in our posts, didn't see yours until I posted.