Analogue Switch Off - 24/10/2012

zg3409

I think it was a worthwhile process to review the results and overall effectiveness of the campaign. I know Saorview learned from the UK campaign, and this research could be very helpful for similar campaigns in Ireland and abroad.

I assume the cat and the dog have been sent to the pound or are they RTE pensionable employees too?

St Senan

Both the Saorview and Saorview tech and trade FB pages were turning out like the Saorview rep thread that was on here last year. People were asking for answers to problems they were having or experiencing and they were not getting straight forward answers just been fobbed off. Some people were even putting up Videos and pics of problems they were experiencing. Any posts regarding unapproved equipment, saorview logo misuse, that Saorview didn't want the public to see were removed. The country is left with lots of disgruntled people who got stung by an Installer/chancer and now see Saorview as a waste of money Which was predicted here on boards last year to the Saorview Rep. Id say Sky sales are on the up and up.

JonathonS

Navarre wrote: »

Both the Saorview and Saorview tech and trade FB pages were turning out like the Saorview rep thread that was on here last year. People were asking for answers to problems they were having or experiencing and they were not getting straight forward answers just been fobbed off. Some people were even putting up Videos and pics of problems they were experiencing. Any posts regarding unapproved equipment, saorview logo misuse, that Saorview didn't want the public to see were removed. The country is left with lots of disgruntled people who got stung by an Installer/chancer and now see Saorview as a waste of money Which was predicted here on boards last year to the Saorview Rep. Id say Sky sales are on the up and up.

I followed both. The Tech and Trade had so few followers its not worth talking about. The main Saorview FB was generally helpful. The only disgruntled people I see are those installers who thought the world owed them a living and didn't like competition.

STB

JonathonS wrote: »

I followed both. The Tech and Trade had so few followers its not worth talking about. The main Saorview FB was generally helpful. The only disgruntled people I see are those installers who thought the world owed them a living and didn't like competition.

hide.:)

Extinction

JonathonS wrote: »

I followed both. The Tech and Trade had so few followers its not worth talking about. The main Saorview FB was generally helpful. The only disgruntled people I see are those installers who thought the world owed them a living and didn't like competition.

And well you should hide as STB says. The reason installers like myself are disgruntled is because there was little or no effort from saorview with regards to fly by nights that became saorview installers overnight. The problem with these installers is that they were able to savagely undercut installers such as myself. They wern't concerned about things like paying insurance, vat, tax and so on so I couldn't and cant compete with them.
There then too was the situation where the cowboys outnumbered me by 10 to 1 in the area where I work and the uninformed public regarded my prices as being a rip off because anyone else they rang could charge much less. The cowboys who were also collecting social welfare could even undercut the fly by nights and that made things even worse.
I was an installer who could make a weeks wage in Ireland before saorview came along but I can't make a weeks wages here anymore and I'm leaving the country in 12 days to continue working in the business and to hopefully begin to earn a wage again.

St Senan

@ Jonathon S. I am an Installer and I am all for healthy competition but have it on a level playing field. Tax/Vat reg. PL insured, H+S cleared, Trade body registered.
If you want to see someone who you say is competition to Aerial rigging then go on to done deal search Saorview and choose Wexford .
You might call a chimney sweep competition to Aerial rigging but I call that something else.
Genuine Tax paying Installers who have been in business for years have had their livelihood ruined by the introduction of Saorview. Saorview was a cash cow opportunity for any handyman sam or bob the builder who could climb a ladder to make a killing on the unsuspecting public. The country is over run with Cute Hoors driving around with saorview plastered on their vans calling themselves Saorview installers and ripping off people.
Thousands of Aerials were unnecessarily removed and replaced all over Ireland. Thousands of unapproved systems were installed as approved Saorview. I also followed the FB pages on Saorview and saw the same brush off response ( Saorview Thread on Boards) to people who are experiencing problems. Plenty of threads on boards have been locked or deleted because we have guys popping up with comments like what you made. The Hierarchy on boards know that also. This is an open forum that aerial installers are also members of. Last year Saorview Brian couldn't answer straightforward questions from posters here on Boards everyone knows that and the same thing was happening on FB.

Cesium Clock

Navarre wrote: »

@ Jonathon S. I am an Installer and I am all for healthy competition but have it on a level playing field. Tax/Vat reg. PL insured, H+S cleared, Trade body registered.
If you want to see someone who you say is competition to Aerial rigging then go on to done deal search Saorview and choose Wexford .
You might call a chimney sweep competition to Aerial rigging but I call that something else.
Genuine Tax paying Installers who have been in business for years have had their livelihood ruined by the introduction of Saorview. Saorview was a cash cow opportunity for any handyman sam or bob the builder who could climb a ladder to make a killing on the unsuspecting public. The country is over run with Cute Hoors driving around with saorview plastered on their vans calling themselves Saorview installers and ripping off people.
Thousands of Aerials were unnecessarily removed and replaced all over Ireland. Thousands of unapproved systems were installed as approved Saorview. I also followed the FB pages on Saorview and saw the same brush off response ( Saorview Thread on Boards) to people who are experiencing problems. Plenty of threads on boards have been locked or deleted because we have guys popping up with comments like what you made. The Hierarchy on boards know that also. This is an open forum that aerial installers are also members of. Last year Saorview Brian couldn't answer straightforward questions from posters here on Boards everyone knows that and the same thing was happening on FB.

Well said,

The whole "saorview" debacle forced upon us by the greed of the bandwidth corporations has been mismanaged and poorly implemented from the start,

A cat and a dog telling us how fantastic saorview is,

Two successive ministers of "communication" telling us there is no need for a RDI scheme

An post being used as a vehicle for the sale of saorview equipment to benifit an ex sky salesman

The GAA being used to advise people

9 east KA band, 1.2m dishes in places of outstanding beauty, that according to "the expert" on all things TV, places no more stress on a building than himself leaning on said building.

All for what? the same channels ? Businesses closed?

A complete disaster from the start,

And yes ***** [EDIT] you know who I am, I am not hiding, you may of stalked me on this forum, but...

And Tony I have no problem with you or your accusations, in fact good luck with your endeavours, but when your subbies don't turn up, or are incapable of installing anything more than a sky dish, I unfortunately will not be able to take up the slack for you,

Good bye and may your alignments work first time

Steve

ftakeith

saorview has performed well

http://www.businesspost.ie/#!story/Home/Media+And+Marketing/Saorview+sets+sights+high/id/d5fce079-c8a7-4a54-9053-3e58574d5275

It's shaping up to be a very competitive year for Irish television platforms, with Saorview set to up the ante in the coming months.
RTE has told The Sunday Business Post that Saorview now has 558,000 subscribers, well in excess of RTE expectations. This means that Saorview has more subscribers than UPC's television offering and is within reach of Sky's lead of over 700,000 customers.
It had been expected that Saorview's relatively late entry to the market after a protracted tendering process would limit its ability to attract customers. However, there is anecdotal evidence that customers are considering moving to the free Saorview combination at the expense of pay TV.
RTE is currently reviewing the brand and the future strategy for the platform.
But the cat and dog characters of the switchover ads will go. Although they are instantly recognisable, they are closely associated with the switchover in people's minds.
"The brand needs to be changed, the markets needs to be sized and we need to decide what we are aiming for," said Mary Curtis, RTE's director of digital television. She is in the process of submitting proposals for Saorview's future to chief technology officer Richard Waghorn and director general Noel Curran.
What RTE has found is that, while former analogue customers have signed up Saorview, tens of thousands more have adopted Saorview in a second room in the house or holiday home.
Of the 558,000 Saorview users, 198,000 use it exclusively, while the remaining households are combining Saorview with other services, including free-to-air satellite.
The take-up has surprised and pleased RTE.
"We wanted people to know about Saorview and we wanted them to make an educated choice. If they chose not to go with Saorview, that's absolutely fine. We were in a scenario where you have very sophisticated platforms like Sky and UPC and they were spending a lot of money, so it was a very competitive time," said Curtis. "We just didn't know with all the big platforms swooping, would people just say we're not interested in that service [Saorview]."
The next few months may see some pay TV customers switching to Saorview.
"What will be interesting to see is will there be a migration? A lot of what we've seen was switchover and now people will need to see it as a separate brand," said Curtis.
There will be challenges to keep Saorview relevant, given the new offerings from others in the market.
"It'll be very important to make sure that technology keeps pace," she said.
The combination boxes which provide access to Saorview and free-to-air European and British satellite platforms have proved very popular. Retailers and manufacturers pushed this option very hard.
"We would need more services on the platform," said Curtis of Saorview's ability to grow. "RTE 1 HD, and hopefully TV3 HD and TG4 HD."
There is a possibility that BBC will become available to Irish free-to-air customers, due to a clause in the Good Friday agreement, although rights issues complicate the matter somewhat.
The concept of Saorview-approved boxes was also an unexpected success and came to represent a sort of guarantee for consumers.
This aspect of the brand may be something which can be leveraged by RTE down the line.
The Saorview rollout also highlighted for Curtis the rural-urban divide, with customers outside the cities far less likely to have pay TV.
The question now is whether or not Saorview will increasingly appeal to urban customers with concerns about financial outgoings.
Will more and more people see the free-to-air combi-box as an acceptable alternative, with a one-off cost?
Sky doesn't plan to make it easy for Saorview to win any of its customers, however. It currently has just over 40 per cent of the market. The industry TAM figures show a higher figure as it includes all people with Sky boxes, but reliable sources said the real figure was just over 40 per cent. The boxes continue to be used by some people who no longer subscribe to Sky.
Market sources said that Sky did not win as many analogue customers as expected in the switchover, although Mark Deering, director of Sky Ireland said that the switchover had given the company a boost.
"As consumers reappraised their TV options with analogue switched off, it was an opportunity for Sky to make them aware of the benefits of pay television, and many chose for the first time to sign up," said Deering.
"We saw accelerated demand for Sky in the months leading up to digital switchover (DSO) as consumers opted for the increased choice of channels available to them on satellite, compared to terrestrial," he added.
In terms of Saorview being a threat, he said its offering was significantly different from Sky's due to the number of channels available.
Sky last week announced the launch of a home broadband and calls package, and expects this will prove an added incentive for consumers to chose Sky.
Sky Atlantic and Sky Go, which allow viewing on tablets and other devices, also give Sky the competitive edge, Deering believes.
UPC's Simon Kelehan, head of content for UPC Ireland, said: "I think pay TV is a different market, and if you look at the TAM measurements in TV reception, they give an indication that pay TVs' [which is mainly UPC and Sky] share of overall viewing is growing."
UPC digital television's number of customers - around 384,000 - is relatively static, according to Kelehan, although the total number of customers using other services including broadband and phone services is growing and now stands at over 969,000.
He said that cable was very much an urban service and there was not much expectation that the analogue switchover would result in them gaining new customers.
However, there is more of a possibility of existing UPC customers switching to Saorview.
"We haven't seen a major shift from cable to free terrestrial in our markets anyway," said Kelehan.
"From a business perspective, we anticipated a [possibility of] a switch going the other way, from pay to terrestrial services.
"So what we've had to do was to add value, increase our channel line-up - an extensive range of digital channels, HD channels. We introduced an on-demand service in May 2012 and that has seen very good customer take-up, and we have digital recorders."
A number of new offerings are expected from UPC this year, with a service similar to Sky Go expected to be rolled out in the coming months.
Saorview is unlikely to be able to compete with all of the technological offerings of commercial competitors, nor will it have the breadth of channels. However, it seems set to up its game in 2013 and it is inevitable that customer interest will be piqued by the value side of the package.

http://www.businesspost.ie/#!story/Home/News/Saorview+exceeds+RTE+expectations/id/bf399ad4-adff-4109-b91c-f59ccd274274

Saorview has clocked up 558,000 customers, new figures show, far exceeding original RTE expectations of up to 400,000 customers. The popularity of the free-to-air television service means that competition is set to intensify in the digital television market as RTE weighs up plans to develop Saorview's services and technological capabilities.
There were 330,000 analogue or aerial customers which RTE expected to move over to Saorview during the switchover from analogue television to digital, and some additional takeup was forecast. Latest figures show that, of the 558,000 customers, there are 198,000 customers that are exclusively Saorview. The remaining households are combining Saorview with other services, including free-to-air satellite.
Many of the customers using Saorview use the service in a second or third room in their house or in a holiday home where they do not want an additional pay television bill. These numbers put Saorview ahead of UPC, which has 383,000 digital television customers, according to the cable company's latest figures.
Sky Ireland has more than 700,000 customers and got a boost in numbers from the switchover.
There is anecdotal evidence that some pay-TV customers are switching from Sky and UPC to Saorview, which requires a one-off investment but no monthly fee. However, there is no evidence in the TAM/Nielsen figures of this yet. But both Sky and UPC say their product is very different from Saorview's and both have been expanding their services to "add value" to their packages.
While Saorview does not have as many channels as its pay-TV rivals, Mary Curtis, RTE's director of digital television, who oversaw the switchover, is to submit proposals on developing Saorview to RTE director general Noel Curran and chief technology officer Richard Waghorn.
"We've had a full review of the campaign, and now we're taking in the figures, we're looking at the strengths of the brand and putting together proposals for Noel and Richard, saying this is where we should bring this," said Curtis.
She said that issues being looked at include adding new channels to the service and internet connectivity for set-top boxes which would allow customers to access the RTE player and TV on demand.
There is also the prospect of being able to have a 'Go' service, which would allow customers to watch Saorview on multiple devices, such as tablets. "A lot of what you get from Sky and UPC is the wealth of channels and we're never going to be able to match that, but being a technological leader is a lot of what RTE is about," said Curtis.

Thargor

Strange wording in that article, nobodies going to switch from UPC to Saorview like he's claiming, they're switching to FTA satellite channels, completely different and nothing to do with RTE. Nobodies saying 'oh RTE/TV3/TG4 are digital now and there's a sh1tty looped news channel and RTE +1? Well Ill just dump BBC 1/2/3/4, ITV, Sky News, Discovery etc then...'

St Senan

Some of the comments in that article are Laughable.

For example

RTE has told The Sunday Business Post that Saorview now has 558,000 subscribers

Saorview is a Free service of about 6-7 and a half channels people dont pay monthly or subscribe to saorview. It is not like sky or Upc and should not be classed as a competitor to either.

There is a possibility that BBC will become available to Irish free-to-air customers, due to a clause in the Good Friday agreement, although rights issues complicate the matter somewhat.

BBC along with 60-70 other decent enough Free channels are available for years to Ireland through Freesat.

The concept of Saorview-approved boxes was also an unexpected success and came to represent a sort of guarantee for consumers.

Everyone in Ireland who is involved in the TV business knows that unapproved boxes such as Aria, 4life and TVstar out sold saorview approved boxes.

The combination boxes which provide access to Saorview and free-to-air European and British satellite platforms have proved very popular. Retailers and manufacturers pushed this option very hard.

But what happens when poor Mrs Mulcahy from the country who signed up through on post when she was collecting her widows pension starts to lose UK channels on her Saorview combi box which on the satellite side of it is only a generic FTA receiver. And I saw 1st hand what retailers were pushing on the run up to OCT24th all anybody had to do is visit the big retail outlets any Sunday as i did to see what these approved shops were pushing at people instead of approved equipment.

Sam Russell

Also strange is that nobody 'signed up for Saorview'. They just bought a bit of gear. Maybe they just stopped paying unecessary bills for something that is free for anyone that has the right equipment, and a well kept secret that you can get BBC etc for free, legally, and easily.

There is a disposition within the media that assumes payTV is the norm and universal. Listings in the papers assume Sky and UPC. I suspect that few, of any, of RTE's staff get their TV from a free source. I imagine they all have UPC or Sky.

The whole switch-over was run as a marketing exercise. Why advertise that the analogue channels were being switched off other than on those channels? Why not just reduce picture size on the analogue channels and put a ticker-tape message top and bottom on the new free space? Gets the message across for free, directly to those who need to hear it. Look how parking changed when the cars that parked illegally were clamped - message getting directly to those involved without affecting anyone else.

As for TV3, once Saorview was launched, they should have been told by BAI that Saorview was the transmission madium now, and payment was required to be on that, and payment would be required if they wanted to continue on analogue (which had then become a legacy service) and they could choose to be on it or not. Instead, the switch off was treated (by RTE and all others) as a launch of Saorview. Another marketing success (over reality).

Overall, the whole process was a display of incompetence by the marketeers, and a long series of disappointments for us on boards.ie, and I suspect, the public at large.

MiCr0

The next person who reference or infers anything about any other posters is getting a month ban.
Discuss the topic only, not each other.
If you want to make any acquisition about another poster do it on your own website, not here.

marclt

Well said Micr0.

In fact, I'm not sure why there needs to be any further discussion on this thread. Saorview is here now. How we got here is history. Move on!

The Cush

STB wrote: »

Brian Geraghty is the Interference Manager in RTENL. Mary Curtis was the Deputy Director of Programming prior to heading up the switchover. ASO/DSO was always a short term priority project.

I see from the article in today's Sunday Business Post Mary Curtis, previously RTÉ's Director of Digital Switchover, has a new job title - RTÉ Television's Director Of Digital - managing RTÉ television's digital strategy, services and channels.

... Mary Curtis, RTE's director of digital television, who oversaw the switchover, is to submit proposals on developing Saorview to RTE director general Noel Curran and chief technology officer Richard Waghorn.

"We've had a full review of the campaign, and now we're taking in the figures, we're looking at the strengths of the brand and putting together proposals for Noel and Richard, saying this is where we should bring this," said Curtis.

She said that issues being looked at include adding new channels to the service and internet connectivity for set-top boxes which would allow customers to access the RTE player and TV on demand.

There is also the prospect of being able to have a 'Go' service, which would allow customers to watch Saorview on multiple devices, such as tablets. "A lot of what you get from Sky and UPC is the wealth of channels and we're never going to be able to match that, but being a technological leader is a lot of what RTE is about," said Curtis.