[article] RTE poised to charge Sky to carry channels

The Parish Priest.

uk channels having carriage on saorview is Never going to happen

_Kaiser_

The Parish Priest. wrote: »

uk channels having carriage on saorview is Never going to happen

I know, and given that the majority of people are served by cable or Sky anyway, I don't see the point in spending much more than the essentials on maintaining it.

Even if it was UHD on all channels, it's still not going to make the actual content (most of which is available elsewhere if it's any good) any better

Sam Russell

Well, if the carriage was paid for, the France 24, Al Jazeera, and a few others could go on air as there would be no IP rights. Maybe even BBC News. Also, Oireachtas TV might make a full time addition, even including Dail committees and County Council proceedings.

The important thing is Saorview is free, and Sky is not. At the present time, Freesat is also free - but only because of over spill. Who knows what might follow Brexit.

jelutong

You may be confusing Freesat with Freeview.

icdg

I wouldn't think there would be Brexit implications for Freesat. The reasons why the BBC went free to air on satellite are not affected by the UK's status as a member of the EU - they don't want to pay Sky for the use of their CAS, which is their call to make.

Delacent

If RTE went free to air on satellite sky would see a huge drop in subscribers especially those on the basic package.

If rte use this as a bargaining tool, they'll get their fee.

Capt'n Midnight

Delacent wrote: »

If RTE went free to air on satellite sky would see a huge drop in subscribers especially those on the basic package.

If rte use this as a bargaining tool, they'll get their fee.

RTE are already FTA on satellite.

It's just a different satellite. So there are setup and hardware costs and the little niggle of needing to switch between two receivers.



The ideal receiver would be a FreeSat box with a Saorview tuner and all on one EPG. That would allow most SKY customers to switch over tomorrow if they didn't need the Pay Channels. Ain't going to happen no such box exists, unless you roll your own.

A simple firmware upgrade would allow Freesat receivers to integrate SaorSat , no hardware changes needed to the receiver. Again won't happen because freesat won't allow.


A simple firmware upgrade would allow Freesat receivers use RTE player etc. Again won't happen because Freesat won't allow. A pity as that's pretty much what Saorview Connect is.




The Killer App of SKY and Virgin is that you can swap between Irish and UK channels without faffing about. I've hooked up Saorsat to a Freesat receiver but it's still knudgy as there is no EPG.

political analyst

jelutong wrote: »

You may be confusing Freesat with Freeview.

Availability of BBC, ITV and Channels 4 and 5 in the Republic via Freesat is the satellite equivalent of terrestrial overspill.

RabbleRouser2k

This has airs of 'Bupa should pay VHI money'...from all those years ago.

And considering Sky have a billionaire owner-I cannot see this being anything other than a 'I'm gonna get my name in the papers' statement by a guy who hasn't been heard from in a while.

Sam Russell

Sam Russell wrote: »

Well, if the carriage was paid for, the France 24, Al Jazeera, and a few others could go on air as there would be no IP rights. Maybe even BBC News. Also, Oireachtas TV might make a full time addition, even including Dail committees and County Council proceedings.

The important thing is Saorview is free, and Sky is not. At the present time, Freesat is also free - but only because of over spill. Who knows what might follow Brexit.

jelutong wrote: »

You may be confusing Freesat with Freeview.

No confusion.

I used to be able to access BBC.co.uk - now I get redirected to BBC.com. Freesat could follow the same restriction by requiring an internet connection.

Delacent wrote: »

If RTE went free to air on satellite sky would see a huge drop in subscribers especially those on the basic package.

If rte use this as a bargaining tool, they'll get their fee.

RTE cannot go FTA on satellite (28.2E), but they can disappear from it. That is how they get their fee.

They are on Freesat.

icdg

Even if they were to require an internet connection to use a Freesat box - even now that would be a very controversial move, even the U.K. doesn't have 100% fixed line Broadband connectivity - that is something that could be easily circumvented by just using a generic (non Freesat branded) FTA receiver.

A free to air satellite signal cannot be geoblocked. Once it can, it would no longer be FTA but FTV. And that requires some sort of CAS, and the BBC have said they won't pay Sky for VideoGuard.

Sam Russell

Whereas that is true, the BBC could require a fixed BB connection to access their signals FTA. I doubt if any other FTA signal provider would bother, the BBC might.

Not sure how they would do it technically, but it is possible.

Stasi 2.0

the BBC could require a fixed BB connection to access their signals FTA

Not all households in the UK have (or can get) such a thing.

RTE cannot go FTA on satellite (28.2E)

They could

But they wont

The Cush

Stasi 2.0 wrote: »

They could

But they wont

They couldn't afford the associated cost of programme rights for that footprint.

Stasi 2.0

The Cush wrote: »

They couldn't afford the associated cost of programme rights for that footprint.

Some people buy into the nonsense accepted wisdom.

Some don't

The Cush

Stasi 2.0 wrote: »

Some people buy into the nonsense accepted wisdom.

Some don't

Some choose to ignore the facts

The BBC, ITV and a number of other companies have put their services on one of the wideband Astra satellites. The services are broadcast unencrypted, or “in the clear” as we call it. The trouble with those wideband satellites is that they have a very big footprint. If RTE were to be put up on a wideband satellite, its services would be in the clear to the UK, France, Holland and many other countries. One might ask why that should not be done, to which I would respond that we do not have the resources to purchase the rights to enable us to broadcast into those countries. We buy programming that allows us to broadcast to 4.5 million people. We do not have the money to broadcast to 100 million people. Therefore, the option taken by the BBC when Freesat was launched is not available to us.

Source: Conor Hayes, RTÉ CFO, 2010

In the UK, the public service channels for example BBC and Channel 4, are obliged to provide their channels throughout the UK freely over a digital platform. They have chosen to do this in two ways – using both a digital terrestrial network and also using satellite. Their satellite service, Freesat, is intended to provide for reception to the UK only but also covers Ireland through overspill.

In order to overcome copyright issues which are associated with broadcasting, the UK channels must purchase the rights to show their acquired content in Ireland as well as the UK. The copyright costs are proportional to TV viewer numbers so the additional cost for acquiring the rights to broadcast in Ireland is small. As an alternative approach, the UK could choose to encrypt the satellite service so that it could not be received in Ireland or elsewhere.

For the Irish channels to be freely available on the same satellite as the UK channels, the issue of copyright also arises. Irish stations would need to acquire copyright throughout the footprint area of the satellite, in the UK as well as Ireland, or to provide an encrypted service. RTÉ has informed us that both options are prohibitively expensive and that they have no plans to seek to place Saorview channels on Freesat.

Source: Pat Rabbitte, Minister for Communications, 2012

Stasi 2.0

The Cush wrote: »

Source: Conor Hayes Source: Pat Rabbitte

Well if they say it.........

icdg

Okay, that's enough. Stasi2.0 your next post on this topic must contain a link to hard verifiable evidence. If you cannot provide that you are requested not to post in this thread.