The digital death of RTE?

Shea O'Meara

With the launch of Saorview,

Saorview, Ireland's new free-to-air digital television service, has been launched today by the Minister for Communications.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0526/saorview.html

a few questions come to mind.
The licencing law states that you need a licence for any aparatus capable of receiving a broadcast signal. This was designed so one could not simply claim, 'I have a T.V. but I don't watch RTE, so I'm not paying.'.
However;

Saorview replaces the old analogue television service, which will be shut off across Europe at the end of next year.
If households which currently receive their television signal via an aerial do not switch to digital they will lose Irish television services when the analogue signal is switched off.

So if you own a T.V. for say gaming or watching DVD's etc., when this change over happens and there is no signal being broadcast, do you still need to purchase a licence, as your set is still capable, even though there isn't a signal for you to enjoy 'Ear to the ground' for instance?

RTÉ is investing €70m in the infrastructure needed to allow Ireland make the transition from analogue to digital television.

Also, as digital packages give you what you pay for, no more no less, (an advantage of analogue) is this 'free' service not out of pure generousity on behalf of our state but rather a prop to aid the continuation of the licence fee, for if we all had digital, but chose not to purchase Saorview, we could have a strong case for not funding RTE via the licence as our sets would be incapable of receiving RTE if we're not signed up?
Also I can see a time when individual households are simply cut off upon the lapse of or absense of a television licence, while still paying Sky or whom ever.

In my view, this is no more than a vehicle to carry RTE into an age where it's becoming increasingly difficult to strong arm the public into funding the nepotistic state broadcaster.

mike65

They are already thinking about this, I expect the "TV" licence will be replaced with a catch all poll tax for any equipment capable of receiving transmitted data be it a PC, TV set or PS3

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0502/1224295868067.html

mikom

mike65 wrote: »

They are already thinking about this, I expect the "TV" licence will be replaced with a catch all poll tax for any equipment capable of receiving transmitted data be it a PC, TV set or PS3

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0502/1224295868067.html

May they die roarin'

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

Seeing as Saorview will not cover large parts of the west coast, RTE would have some cheek to go looking for licence fees there.

mike65

Any bits that Soarview won't catch with DTT will be covered by Saorsat.

Mr McBoatface

To be honest I don't see any of this as a political issue but ....

Shea O'Meara wrote: »

With the launch of Saorview,

a few questions come to mind.
The licencing law states that you need a licence for any aparatus capable of receiving a broadcast signal. This was designed so one could not simply claim, 'I have a T.V. but I don't watch RTE, so I'm not paying.'.
However;

So if you own a T.V. for say gaming or watching DVD's etc., when this change over happens and there is no signal being broadcast, do you still need to purchase a licence, as your set is still capable, even though there isn't a signal for you to enjoy 'Ear to the ground' for instance?

Also, as digital packages give you what you pay for, no more no less, (an advantage of analogue) is this 'free' service not out of pure generousity on behalf of our state but rather a prop to aid the continuation of the licence fee, for if we all had digital, but chose not to purchase Saorview, we could have a strong case for not funding RTE via the licence as our sets would be incapable of receiving RTE if we're not signed up?
Also I can see a time when individual households are simply cut off upon the lapse of or absense of a television licence, while still paying Sky or whom ever.

In my view, this is no more than a vehicle to carry RTE into an age where it's becoming increasingly difficult to strong arm the public into funding the nepotistic state broadcaster.

The main reasons for the the switch to digital is actually quiet simple to understand, it's intended to :-

Free up the spectrum used by analogue TV signals. This freed spectrum can be used for such service as mobile broadband, it is a part of the so called "Digital Dividend". The digital dividend is expect to earn the state (not RTE) approximately 500 million euro in the next ten years (not a bad return on the 70million euro investment). For the end user digital TV is much more reliable and is better quality, the 20% of the national who currently receive only analogue will have a much better service provided to them. For RTE the running costs of the new digital network will be about 1/4 of the old analogue network. They can have HD broadcasts for the first time ever.

There are plenty of other reason I could go into but people will begrudge RTE no matter what the facts are. Regarding the TV license if you own any receiver a such as a Sky box, UPC box or TV you have to pay the license fee. You do raise a very interesting point should you only used your old analogue TV for watching dvd's and the likes and it can no longer get a signal as the signal no longer exists I can't see how they license fee could be applied to you. However as I understand it there is a plan to do away with the TV license and instead add a payment on the ESB bill to replace it.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

Seeing as Saorview will not cover large parts of the west coast, RTE would have some cheek to go looking for licence fees there.

Not sure where you got that idea from there will be 97-98% coverage nationwide with Saorview, as Mike said Saorsat (which actually started testing today) will cover the rest of the country.

slimjimmc

Shea O'Meara wrote: »

With the launch of Saorview,

a few questions come to mind.
The licencing law states that you need a licence for any aparatus capable of receiving a broadcast signal. This was designed so one could not simply claim, 'I have a T.V. but I don't watch RTE, so I'm not paying.'.
However;

So if you own a T.V. for say gaming or watching DVD's etc., when this change over happens and there is no signal being broadcast, do you still need to purchase a licence, as your set is still capable, even though there isn't a signal for you to enjoy 'Ear to the ground' for instance?

Also, as digital packages give you what you pay for, no more no less, (an advantage of analogue) is this 'free' service not out of pure generousity on behalf of our state but rather a prop to aid the continuation of the licence fee, for if we all had digital, but chose not to purchase Saorview, we could have a strong case for not funding RTE via the licence as our sets would be incapable of receiving RTE if we're not signed up?
Also I can see a time when individual households are simply cut off upon the lapse of or absense of a television licence, while still paying Sky or whom ever.

In my view, this is no more than a vehicle to carry RTE into an age where it's becoming increasingly difficult to strong arm the public into funding the nepotistic state broadcaster.

Your description of the law is a little off, a TV set is an apparatus (comprising of one or more devices) capable of receiving and displaying a broadcast signal. It's an important distinction.

It's true your old "TV" with the built-in analogue tuner hooked up to an antenna will no longer be classified as a TV set since it can't receive and display digital broadcasts. However, once you hook it up to any other device capable of receiving broadcasts (SaorView set top box, Sky/SaorSat/FreeSat/other satellite, MMDS or Cable) it becomes a TV set again, and becomes subject to licence.

Very few TVs with built-in digital tuners are currently certified SaorView compatible but that doesn't mean they can't receive and display any SaorView broadcast; many can but certain features could be missing. These TVs would still be subject to a licence anyway so no change there.

All TV channels Europe will be changing over, RTE is just one of many so no, SaorView is not an excuse to keep the licence going, going digital is the only way RTE will be able to continue to broadcast.

Shea O'Meara

jobyrne30 wrote: »

To be honest I don't see any of this as a political issue but ....

A state impossed law, (TV Licence) and the expantion into the digital era, of a semi-state body under the free-to-air tag, with a 70 million price tag.

jobyrne30 wrote: »

The main reasons for the the switch to digital is actually quiet simple to understand, it's intended to :-
....There are plenty of other reason I could go into but people will begrudge RTE no matter what the facts are.

I wasn't intending on an analogue/digital debate. It's a given digital is better. Also RTE having a digital service is simply progress, not begrudging that issue what so ever.

jobyrne30 wrote: »

Regarding the TV license if you own any receiver a such as a Sky box, UPC box or TV you have to pay the license fee. You do raise a very interesting point should you only used your old analogue TV for watching dvd's and the likes and it can no longer get a signal as the signal no longer exists I can't see how they license fee could be applied to you.

Agreed.

jobyrne30 wrote: »

However as I understand it there is a plan to do away with the TV license and instead add a payment on the ESB bill to replace it.

Not sure about that but I've heard whispers of an all in licence for all multimedia so it can cover those who view on laptops, RTE programming or not.

slimjimmc wrote: »

Your description of the law is a little off, a TV set is an apparatus (comprising of one or more devices) capable of receiving and displaying a broadcast signal. It's an important distinction.

I was talking about the TV licence, so more of a given really.

slimjimmc wrote: »

It's true your old "TV" with the built-in analogue tuner hooked up to an antenna will no longer be classified as a TV set since it can't receive and display digital broadcasts.

I'm not sure that's true as it states broadcast signal, it doesn't stipulate digital or analogue.

slimjimmc wrote: »

However, once you hook it up to any other device capable of receiving broadcasts (SaorView set top box, Sky/SaorSat/FreeSat/other satellite, MMDS or Cable) it becomes a TV set again, and becomes subject to licence.

I'm wondering will it always fall under the licence law analogue or digital and, in my view, of course saorview is free to air, because they want everybody with a digital TV to be obliged to pay as RTE is there whether you watch it or not...same story, digital era.
It's 70 million of state money to ensure RTE is in a position to justify it's slice of the licence fee.

Cookie_Monster

Some interesting points

on a lighter note what's with the bastardised irish-english hybrid name? Why do we always have to have a special silly name for things, could it not simply be called "freeview"?

seamus

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Some interesting points

on a lighter note what's with the bastardised irish-english hybrid name? Why do we always have to have a special silly name for things, could it not simply be called "freeview"?

I imagine the issue there is that TVs for the UK market are usually shipped here with no localisation. However, Freeview in the UK is not the same as Saorview, and many TVs branded "Freeview Compatible" are not compatible with Saorview. Indeed, pretty much every digital TV sold before 2009 was freeview compatible but will not work with Saorview. So calling it "freeview" would likely have resulted in a lot of confusion as people complained that their "freeview-compatible" TV from 2007 doesn't work with Ireland's new digital service. "Can't RTE do anything right?", etc.

slimjimmc

Shea O'Meara wrote: »

I was talking about the TV licence, so more of a given really.

Fair enough, but others may not be aware of the distinction, so no harm in highlighting an important characteristic mentioned in the legal definition.

Shea O'Meara wrote: »

I'm not sure that's true as it states broadcast signal, it doesn't stipulate digital or analogue.

Agreed, it doesn't stipulate digital or analogue but when the analogue signal is turned off through out Europe there will be no broadcasts to receive, therefore an analogue TV won't be capable of receiving and displaying any broadcast without additional equipment. That situation is not the same as having a TV set and choosing to not receive broadcasts.

jakdelad

why should we pay for a licence??? to RTE
to keep messers duffy finucane kenny tubridy
on hunderds of thousands a year??/
we dont need a state broadcaster
let them survive in the commericial market

anyone seen the late late show recently???
no one on it from abroad its all their own rte crowd.

and if your promoting a book they dont have to pay you.....
like the seanad we need to dump RTE

BrianD

All that is actually happening is that RTE are switching from one set of transmission frequencies to another set. Older TVs will need an adaptor set top box but are technically still able to receive a TV signal if 'analogue' signals were available. There are parts of the country where no TV signals are receivable but you are still required a licence (though there are arrangements in place).

In regard to the cost - RTE NL have spent millions on the existing network and would consider to do so if no digital changeover took place. It's only being highlighted because basically they have to build a new network from scratch. In the past the network would have been upgraded over time.

Lefticus Loonaticus

jakdelad wrote: »

why should we pay for a licence??? to RTE
to keep messers duffy finucane kenny tubridy
on hunderds of thousands a year??/

Not only that, but if you dont pay you will go to prison. And incase you dont know whats going on inside our prison system at the moment, its not alot of fun.

Thats right folks, pay your TV licence or you will be stabbed, raped and drowned in a bucket of your own sh1t. Pat Kenny demands it!

jimmycrackcorm

jakdelad wrote: »

why should we pay for a licence??? to RTE
to keep messers duffy finucane kenny tubridy
on hunderds of thousands a year??/
we dont need a state broadcaster
let them survive in the commericial market

anyone seen the late late show recently???
no one on it from abroad its all their own rte crowd.

and if your promoting a book they dont have to pay you.....
like the seanad we need to dump RTE

I wouldn't like to see Irish TV replaced with TV3 style of just importation of US/British TV shows and an odd "Expose" show. Even the VB show is let down by the pitiful use of green screen background underlay.

When you look at shows such as Prime time investigates the Taxi trade, you can begin to appreciate what we are paying for. The problem is that the licence fee is not allocated the best way.

What should happen is that the money goes into a fund for Irish programming that any station can compete to buy. So the fund is used to buy Irish produced shows such as Prime Time etc but that any tv station can then compete to buy it.

syklops

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I wouldn't like to see Irish TV replaced with TV3 style of just importation of US/British TV shows and an odd "Expose" show. Even the VB show is let down by the pitiful use of green screen background underlay.

When you look at shows such as Prime time investigates the Taxi trade, you can begin to appreciate what we are paying for. The problem is that the licence fee is not allocated the best way.

What should happen is that the money goes into a fund for Irish programming that any station can compete to buy. So the fund is used to buy Irish produced shows such as Prime Time etc but that any tv station can then compete to buy it.

It also goes into funding a childrens radio station. I am yet to meet a child who listens to it.

thebman

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I wouldn't like to see Irish TV replaced with TV3 style of just importation of US/British TV shows and an odd "Expose" show. Even the VB show is let down by the pitiful use of green screen background underlay.

When you look at shows such as Prime time investigates the Taxi trade, you can begin to appreciate what we are paying for. The problem is that the licence fee is not allocated the best way.

What should happen is that the money goes into a fund for Irish programming that any station can compete to buy. So the fund is used to buy Irish produced shows such as Prime Time etc but that any tv station can then compete to buy it.

Hang on a second. If RTE weren't doing these programs, there might be a market for them. As it stands, RTE making these programs ensures no private operator can compete with them fairly.

Besides if we sold RTE, they company that bought it would get their studios to host prime time etc... or we could hold on to the studios and rent them to private companies wanting studios to make such programs and make money off them.

There is no need for state television channels IMO and no reason why we couldn't have a private company making prime time and the late late shows. Some of these shows are RTE's highest rated. No way a private company wouldn't want to take over the market if RTE were sold off.

slimjimmc

thebman wrote: »

Hang on a second. If RTE weren't doing these programs, there might be a market for them. As it stands, RTE making these programs ensures no private operator can compete with them fairly.

Besides if we sold RTE, they company that bought it would get their studios to host prime time etc... or we could hold on to the studios and rent them to private companies wanting studios to make such programs and make money off them.

There is no need for state television channels IMO and no reason why we couldn't have a private company making prime time and the late late shows. Some of these shows are RTE's highest rated. No way a private company wouldn't want to take over the market if RTE were sold off.

So how do you reconcile the fact that TV3 have their own news, documentaries and current affairs programmes?
There's nothing stopping any competing channel (domestic or foreign) producing and broadcasting similar programmes. That's like saying others can't produce news programmes because RTE already do.

Shea O'Meara

I'm actually all for a national state broadcaster.
The current one needs a complete clean out/over haul.

I believe private TV caters 100% to advertising and therefore any pap such as the myriad reality shows and promo/advertising shows in the guise of cheesy magazine programs. Add to that re-runs of sitcoms long past their sell by and falling over themselves for the next sex and the city type show.

The state broadcaster should make Irish centric programming. It's a tough balance I'll grant you but making poor Irish produced copies of this trash TV is not what their remit is.
RTE always blurs the line between state funded and advertising revenue. We end up with embarrassing attempts at copying the worst the rest of the world has to offer.
As it stands RTE should offer more substance and drop the advertising if all it does is fund commercially driven garbage. Whats the point in arguing they need advertising on top of the state funds to create shows to appease to the advertisers? It's just a ridiculous loop.

As for RTE itself, I for one am sick to death of the generational dynasties popping up every few years. One needs only look at the production credits for the off camera ones. The quality is awful and the fact that they sit around deciding they need to fill a slot so give jonny a call is just plain wrong. New blood. Productions based on quality not having Gerry Ryan's daughter on the crew.
We bitch about the Public Servants....RTE started as such but is 100 times worse and generational.

The minister of communications announcing 'saorview' like they're doing us a favour, when in reality they are assisting the RTE anchor remain around our neck in the digital age, is just insulting.

Well you will all be delighted to know that public sector waste extends to this saorview thing.
They are using two muxes when pretty much everything that we need will fit into one mux.
That means they have 2 transmissions going at each trans mitter with for example 200 kilowatts of electricty being used 24/7 instead of 100kw at some main transmitters.
They are also renting new satelite space to set up saorsat which gives all island coverage via satelite when they are already on sky digital's satelite which should be legally mandated to carry them for free via a licence payer only card...but instead you have to pay to decrypt their sky versions.
They caved into sky for that at our,the licence payers expense.
We,the Dáil or nobody was consulted surprise surprise.
It means when you cancel your sky sub,you lose RTE but not the BBC...how irish!
For programme rights reasons,RTE etc has to be Ireland only but a card system operated by sky to licence holders would fix that.

The waste of money,lack of vision,you couldn't make it up.

All this at a time when RTE are making a LOSS of 30 millions...

mikom

Deleted User wrote: »

Well you will all be delighted to know that public sector waste extends to this saorview thing.
They are using two muxes when pretty much everything that we need will fit into one mux.
That means they have 2 transmissions going at each trans mitter with for example 200 kilowatts of electricty being used 24/7 instead of 100kw at some main transmitters.
They are also renting new satelite space to set up saorsat which gives all island coverage via satelite when they are already on sky digital's satelite which should be legally mandated to carry them for free via a licence payer only card...but instead you have to pay to decrypt their sky versions.
They caved into sky for that at our,the licence payers expense.
We,the Dáil or nobody was consulted surprise surprise.
It means when you cancel your sky sub,you lose RTE but not the BBC...how irish!
For programme rights reasons,RTE etc has to be Ireland only but a card system operated by sky to licence holders would fix that.

The waste of money,lack of vision,you couldn't make it up.

All this at a time when RTE are making a LOSS of 30 millions...

Can you live with the shame?
They've heard all the answers and none of them work.

thebman

Deleted User wrote: »

Well you will all be delighted to know that public sector waste extends to this saorview thing.
They are using two muxes when pretty much everything that we need will fit into one mux.
That means they have 2 transmissions going at each trans mitter with for example 200 kilowatts of electricty being used 24/7 instead of 100kw at some main transmitters.
They are also renting new satelite space to set up saorsat which gives all island coverage via satelite when they are already on sky digital's satelite which should be legally mandated to carry them for free via a licence payer only card...but instead you have to pay to decrypt their sky versions.
They caved into sky for that at our,the licence payers expense.
We,the Dáil or nobody was consulted surprise surprise.
It means when you cancel your sky sub,you lose RTE but not the BBC...how irish!
For programme rights reasons,RTE etc has to be Ireland only but a card system operated by sky to licence holders would fix that.

The waste of money,lack of vision,you couldn't make it up.

All this at a time when RTE are making a LOSS of 30 millions...

The reason they are on sky is to lock it to Irish Sky subscribers as far as I know. This is because they don't have broadcast rights for most of their content outside of Ireland and if they broadcast free to air then anybody will be able to receive it from that satellite which most likely require massive increases in licensing US content.

BBC shows much more BBC content and so doesn't have such issues.

I could be wrong though, just figured that would be the reason for doing that as it seems logical enough.

Red Alert

The reason there are two MUXes is to improve picture quality. You don't get something for nothing - it's just that on Digital the broadcasters can decide to have more channels at a lower bitrate, or less channels at a higher bitrate. Transmitter power input is not going to determine the overall costs of Saorview.

bk

The cost of running a second mux is relatively low compared to the cost of the transmission network.

Also once the analogue network is switched off next year, they will go from the cost of running 6 channels/mux today (4 channels/mux last year), to just 2 channels/mux per year.

So RTE will actually save money in the long term, this is just a temporary blimp for 18 months when both systems have to be run in parallel.

BTW Saorsat may actually save them money also as it can be used to distribute the service to isolated transmitters, thus saving money over expensive microwave transmission.

Finally the second mux will allow for other channels to be carried if they want. Some possibilities might include UTV, C4, Setanta. Along with HD versions of RTE 1, TV3, etc.

All in all, pretty good value for money.

Shea O'Meara

Quantity is actually more of a concern. Who cares about four or five RTE produced niche channels when they make a hames of two?
Already showing repeats of their weekly programs coupled with re-runs of 'Hands' from the 1970's for example, I can only believe extra channels means jobs for the in-laws.
Like with most digital sold on quantity, it's usually repeats of low quality with the odd filler show.

slimjimmc

Deleted User wrote: »

Well you will all be delighted to know that public sector waste extends to this saorview thing.
They are using two muxes when pretty much everything that we need will fit into one mux.
That means they have 2 transmissions going at each trans mitter with for example 200 kilowatts of electricty being used 24/7 instead of 100kw at some main transmitters.
They are also renting new satelite space to set up saorsat which gives all island coverage via satelite when they are already on sky digital's satelite which should be legally mandated to carry them for free via a licence payer only card...but instead you have to pay to decrypt their sky versions.
They caved into sky for that at our,the licence payers expense.
We,the Dáil or nobody was consulted surprise surprise.

How can Ireland force a foreign owned broadcaster to carry Irish based channels FTA on their foreign owned satellite?
Do you think any threat by officialdom here to pull the RTE feed to Sky would carry much weight? I really doubt it, they'll just continue broadcasting their other channels and let Irish customers pick up Irish channels using the same method as everyone else who's not a Sky customer.

Not everybody has or wants Sky. Don't you need to subscribe first before you can get a Sky decoder, and doesn't that lock you into a minimum 12 month contract term? Why should Irish licence payer's money be used to fatten the coffers of a foreign broadcaster or are you suggesting Sky should sell their decoders totally free from subscription to that people in Ireland can pick up RTE?

Deleted User wrote: »

It means when you cancel your sky sub,you lose RTE but not the BBC...how irish!

Err, British actually.

Deleted User wrote: »

For programme rights reasons, RTE etc has to be Ireland only but a card system operated by sky to licence holders would fix that.

The waste of money,lack of vision,you couldn't make it up.

All this at a time when RTE are making a LOSS of 30 millions...

See first response above.