Getting a local tv station onto FTA

omega42

Hi folks

A group of us is looking to set up a community TV Station, I have searched the interweb but cant find an answer to my question.

How hard is it to get carriage on a FTA satellite and where would I go to get cost's etc?

Thanks in advance

Omega

snaps

I would say satellite tv carriage is extremely expensive. Im sure Watty will be along to confirm this. Have you thought of internet only broadcasting?

Atlantic Dawn

Costs would be prohibitive. Have you thought of streaming it online inside, atleast initially?

omega42

Thanks guys,

Yea We are going to stream online and we have access to a community channel on our local cable company but just wanted to get a rough cost for the future.

The broadcasting act also mentions that saorview can broadcast the following "and that such other television services, having the character of a public service, as may be designated by the Minister by order may be broadcast on saorview"130 (1)a(iv)

Is there any provision for community TV on the saorview multiplex?

watty

Anyone that pays the transmission fee can get a BAI content licence (easy unless content is objectionable, after all TV3 have a licence for 3e) and be on Saorview. That is 20 to 50 times more expensive than satellite.

Satellite is cheap if you are not on EPG (that nearly doubles cost) and probably the break even with Streaming in decent quality is about 10,000 simultaneous viewers, but might be much lower. Streaming costs more the more simultaneous viewers. Also maybe only 1/2 households have good enough Broadband and/or Cap to watch proper quality TV via internet. Very few can stream two channels to different viewers at once.

For satellite you only need the licence from where it's uplinked. This is why some Swedish Satellite channels were technically based in UK.

Basically your options are only really limited by your cash flow.

Streaming online is only cheap if almost no-one is watching (simultaneously) and the bit rate is rubbish.

omega42

watty wrote: »

Anyone that pays the transmission fee can get a BAI content licence (easy unless content is objectionable, after all TV3 have a licence for 3e) and be on Saorview. That is 20 to 50 times more expensive than satellite.

Satellite is cheap if you are not on EPG (that nearly doubles cost) and probably the break even with Streaming in decent quality is about 10,000 simultaneous viewers, but might be much lower. Streaming costs more the more simultaneous viewers. Also maybe only 1/2 households have good enough Broadband and/or Cap to watch proper quality TV via internet. Very few can stream two channels to different viewers at once.

For satellite you only need the licence from where it's uplinked. This is why some Swedish Satellite channels were technically based in UK.

Basically your options are only really limited by your cash flow.

Streaming online is only cheap if almost no-one is watching (simultaneously) and the bit rate is rubbish.

Would you have any names of companies that would uplink / sell satellite space?

L1011

Your best choice is probably to talk to Information TV, they sell partial (or full - IrishTV has 24/7 now) time on their channels, effectively allows you to see if the concept is viable.

watty

omega42 wrote: »

Would you have any names of companies that would uplink / sell satellite space?

Entire Transponder = SES-Astra (but depends on Satellite used, see Lyngsat)


Part time = Information TV

see www.lyngsat.com

For in between solutions:
BT, Arqiva etc.
Note that 28.2 (sky box, freesat or generic) is the MOST expensive satellite. The freesat EPG is expensive and Sky EPG very expensive (more than carriage on other satellites.

If you are installing a sat system for every viewer of your Community channel there are satellites MUCH cheaper, even 1/10th. Then you install a slightly larger dish, dual LNBFs, Disqec switch etc. Then you don't need to pay any EPG cost as it's not needed.
see ISAA for likely install cost.

afatbollix

Its expensive.

Information TV ( Which what Irish TV use) Reported a hour of your program on there channels for £10,000.

Carriage on a satellite would be $50k a month.

To actually set up a transmission suite would start at at least €100k.

Start with at least a million and then ask for a million more and then you might be able to get a channel up and running.

Sam Russell

You could ask RTE/2RN what they would charge for you to be on Saorsat, possibly on a trial basis.

They reported it cost €1m for Saorsat, so for 1/10th of it should be about €100k. Part time might be much less.

L1011

Sam Russell wrote: »

You could ask RTE/2RN what they would charge for you to be on Saorsat, possibly on a trial basis.

They reported it cost €1m for Saorsat, so for 1/10th of it should be about €100k. Part time might be much less.

I suspect that individually posting DVDs to the ten people who use Saorsat would be cheaper...

afatbollix

You can now stream live broadcasts on you tube.


Why not start on that and see if you could get the viewers, or see if you can actually run a channel. 24 hours a day it alot of time to fill!

omega42

afatbollix wrote: »

You can now stream live broadcasts on you tube.


Why not start on that and see if you could get the viewers, or see if you can actually run a channel. 24 hours a day it alot of time to fill!

Yea that's the plan, I'm just in the phase of doing up a business plan for it so I'm researching the options.

should saorview not have a provision for community (non-profit) tv. maybe time to partition the minster I think.

Thanks to all who have commented, keep them coming

More Music

I would love to see somebody partition the minister😄

The costs for a non-commercial/community station to broadcast on satellite or Saorview are prohibitive. You will need to have a standard of audio and video that's not possible without spending hundreds of thousands on capital items.

These costs would be for IT, studio, control room of some description, editing suite, encoding, distribution and transmission.

You really need somebody in the group who knows his/her way around broadcasting, or pay somebody to consult.

You could produce a lower quality programme and send in to one of those channels mentioned. You are basically buying time on their channel.

Viewing figures for these channels are pretty low.

Nobody will watch this stuff on the web when the novelty dies off after a few weeks.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, I'm usually pretty positive about things. Community radio stations find it impossible to fund themselves, and radio is a fraction of the cost to produce.

omega42

More Music wrote: »

I would love to see somebody partition the minister😄

The costs for a non-commercial/community station to broadcast on satellite or Saorview are prohibitive. You will need to have a standard of audio and video that's not possible without spending hundreds of thousands on capital items.

These costs would be for IT, studio, control room of some description, editing suite, encoding, distribution and transmission.

You really need somebody in the group who knows his/her way around broadcasting, or pay somebody to consult.

You could produce a lower quality programme and send in to one of those channels mentioned. You are basically buying time on their channel.

Viewing figures for these channels are pretty low.

Nobody will watch this stuff on the web when the novelty dies off after a few weeks.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, I'm usually pretty positive about things. Community radio stations find it impossible to fund themselves, and radio is a fraction of the cost to produce.

Thanks for the pep talk More music lol.

We have the equipment and studio already secured. as for the content, by its very nature of community TV it wont come close to the polished content on say UTV Ireland lol.

Our vision is to train members of the community to record their own content in the studio so the content will be of an amateur nature.

Were not planning on been a production house as such so our overheads will be small. We will be getting free access to a community channel on our local Cable network (about 2k households) and to start with youtube streaming / VOD.

Funding will be through Community groups covering overheads when in the Studio, Local sponsorship and the possibility of sound and vision or other grants.

afatbollix

It could work very well.

Channel 4 did an experiment in the 80s. They put a town channel on a transmitter in a town and filled the channel with local programming. They had the local Parish meetings, They had the local football team matches live. They had good local programming on for 6 hours a day I think. It got something ridiculous high ratings of 98% as people wanted to know what was going on around them.

The only thing was that channel 4 covered the costs of the expensive OBs that were needed and was it just a novelty?

L1011

afatbollix wrote: »

It could work very well.

Channel 4 did an experiment in the 80s. They put a town channel on a transmitter in a town and filled the channel with local programming. They had the local Parish meetings, They had the local football team matches live. They had good local programming on for 6 hours a day I think. It got something ridiculous high ratings of 98% as people wanted to know what was going on around them.

The only thing was that channel 4 covered the costs of the expensive OBs that were needed and was it just a novelty?

Novelty. When this has been done in Ireland (Navan had the best known one but many towns tried to have *something*) it fell apart viewer-wise after a few weeks. Was nearly always cable but there was an attempt on terrestrial in Cork (unlicenced) too.

watty

It's only the cost of a few RTE "so called Celeb Presenters" who are in reality no better than some folk in Student stations or Community Radio.

If you are not doing HD, then the gear is cheap enough. Funding transmission costs is the issue. TV3 can't seem to manage it.

The transmission costs are reasonable and a fraction of Analogue only days. There is no reason at all that the Taxpayer should fund Community TV, though the Sound & Vision fund is available to fund program making and abused HUGELY by Setanta (as a Pay TV channel, they should get NOTHING, a sport channel should get nothing anyway) and abused a bit by TV3. One of the Cable channels got funding too which made no sense at all (City TV?).

It's never been as cheap to do Terrestrial and a fraction of that on Satellite, especially if not on 28.2E. Streaming is really only accessible to better off and less than half of households and only cost effective if a hardly any simultaneous viewers (avoid live). Satellite without EPG and not on 28.2E is really very cheap and covers the whole country. But a local community is unlikely to fund it ever. A community Radio channel on FM is cheaper than Satellite and Radio on Satellite about 1/10th or less of TV for really good quality and affordable if not on 28.2E

Harry Palmr

afatbollix wrote: »

Its expensive.

Information TV ( Which what Irish TV use) Reported a hour of your program on there channels for £10,000.

Carriage on a satellite would be $50k a month.

To actually set up a transmission suite would start at at least €100k.

Start with at least a million and then ask for a million more and then you might be able to get a channel up and running.

I'd wonder about that! In the States 10k a month is the top end of carriage fees for "public service" which operates at the low budget niche end of the market.

L1011

Harry Palmr wrote: »

I'd wonder about that! In the States 10k a month is the top end of carriage fees for "public service" which operates at the low budget niche end of the market.

There's no requirements for reduced rates for public/community channels on private satellite operators here.

afatbollix

Harry Palmr wrote: »

I'd wonder about that! In the States 10k a month is the top end of carriage fees for "public service" which operates at the low budget niche end of the market.

I just put in the invoice for a new religion channel for the UK before Christmas and that is the going reduced rate at the moment.

Harry Palmr

Does SES charge a flat fee per transponder regardless of the wealth of the user?

L1011

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Does SES charge a flat fee per transponder regardless of the wealth of the user?

Yes. But virtually no channels take an entire transponder for their services. The sub lease providers also charge on a commercial basis. Its an unregulated market

TAFKAlawhec

omega42 wrote: »

Thanks guys,

Yea We are going to stream online and we have access to a community channel on our local cable company but just wanted to get a rough cost for the future.

The broadcasting act also mentions that saorview can broadcast the following "and that such other television services, having the character of a public service, as may be designated by the Minister by order may be broadcast on saorview"130 (1)a(iv)

Is there any provision for community TV on the saorview multiplex?

Your biggest problem with Saorview would be that it is a national network only with no regionalised multiplexes. While satellite & live streaming by internet would by their natures be available well beyond the local area of service to be covered (as it's impossible to restrict to such a small area), to have the programming broadcast nationwide would be a waste of money.

As I understand it, the 2RN UHF DVB-T network (commonly referred to Saorview) is the only body licenced to make such broadcasts other than those conducted for temporary tests. On a technical basis there would be nothing to prevent a local station set up a relevant transmitter on a spare frequency at low power alongside current transmissions were it to be licenced and properly co-ordinated, similar to what is done in Northern Ireland with the NIMM multiplex to carry RTÉ1, RTÉ2 & TG4, as well as NVTV in Belfast (though the transmitters aren't installed by the broadcasters themselves). But it would likely need to be legislated for and unless there is a groundswell of support in various different parts of the country, or a minister gets a bit of an ego themselves for such an idea, then I don't see it happening.