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Does anyone here work for....

mjsmyth

the BBC, RTE, TV3 or ITV?

If so, well lets hear your views on FTA. Will TV as we know it end because we can't get TV shows from the US of A (majority of which are time filling crap).

Has the BBC suffered by losing american programs, did it ever show that many? Or did it just react by improving its own lot?

Will ITV suffer due to going FTA? Can it not improve the quality of its own shows to counter that.

Will TV3 or RTE suffer if they go FTA? Maybe it will mean that the endless repeats of friends, will and grace and even more judge judy will finally stop. Thank god for that! Talk about flogging a dead horse.

We all know that the BBC and ITV can make excellent shows when they want to. RTE have made some excellent shows and I have a little bit of hope there for TV3, but that depends on Hectors new show.

In my opinion, there is no reason why any of these channels should suffer in the long term by going FTA. Obviously it has to be managed well. A lot of thought has to be put in to their programming. A lot of effort has to be put in to the creative side of the business so that quality home grown shows can be produced.

American shows are not the be all and end all of TV. We need to get over the idea that just because it is american it is good.

Anyway, so come on all you BBC, RTE, TV3 and ITV staff, please post a follow up. I really want to hear what people who work for these channels think.

Surely there must be someone that works for them here, or are we all just experts?

MJ

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DMC

I seriously doubt that we'll see someone come out at say "I work for X and I think..."

I'll offer my thoughts.

mjsmyth wrote:

Will TV as we know it end because we can't get TV shows from the US of A (majority of which are time filling crap).

Balogni!

mjsmyth wrote:

Has the BBC suffered by losing american programs, did it ever show that many? Or did it just react by improving its own lot?

I dont feel the BBC has lost a lot in terms of US programming. There was a lot of talk made about "24", but most of that was PR bluster. In reality, the BBC has since bought many programmes from Fox since then. Not much of an issue now.

mjsmyth wrote:

Will TV3 or RTE suffer if they go FTA? Maybe it will mean that the endless repeats of friends, will and grace and even more judge judy will finally stop. Thank god for that! Talk about flogging a dead horse.

Short term, possibly. If TV dealers see the value of selling good FTA recivers, and install at a bundled price, I can see only an upward trend in sales. Also, when Freesat is openly marketted by BBC/ITV, we are obviously gonna see those ads.

That leaves RTÉ and TV3 left sucking on their encryption deals.

In saying that, for a small market, and the way they get 1st run US programmes shown before the UK and the rest of Europe is only done to protect advertising revenue here, there is still a strong case for the status quo of RTÉ/TV3 on DSat. I would be in favour of Irish FTA, its just, that that is market reality.

mjsmyth wrote:

We need to get over the idea that just because it is american it is good.

Correct. It's just handy we speak the same language. I'm sure if the dominant language here was French, that we'd by more French programmes in than in the English language.

BrianD

I don't work for any of the above.

Just thinking about it. Even though many of us pay subs to cable or satellite most of us watch in a multichannel environment. Most of the broadcasters - especially in Ireland - are in an intensly competitive environment and should be accustomed to it. So lets say RTE, TV3 join ITV and BBC FTA. Does the competitive market change? Yes but I wouldn't say a whole lot.

The real changes might be on a inter-platform basis. For a one of payment I can buy a dish and box and view FTA satellite but if I have cable/mmds I continue paying a sub. Will people desert catv (lets assume its a good quality service for the moment) and go to FTA d-sat? Some will ... city dwellers might have difficulties changing ... planning, access to roof, aspect etc

What happens to subscription and FTV but not FTA channels? Part of the Sky Digital offering is the availability of these channels. They largely disappear with FTA. In fact many of these niche subscription channels depend on being on board a "big" platform to be viable and it's a part of the marketing. The solution could be to go FTA but they would have to be commercially driven. Is there enough advertising to support the niche players?

Tony

Interesting points Brian, although I watch satellite I had NTL installed just so i could get decent reliable broadband with setanta sports thrown in. I dont think NTL have either invested enough in this selling point or made people aware of its benefits.

Bards

I have done the same as Tony except I have gone a step further and cancelled my Eircom phone line and gone with blueface.ie (VoIP via NTL) 5 hours worth of Local/National, UK, US, Australia & Europe for 9.99 per month and an Irish Geographical Telephone number.

BrianD

The problem here is that NTL never invested enough to give the triple product offering on one bill - interactive digital tv, broadband and telephony. On the otherhand, both NTL and Telewest in the UK and NI have been offering and marketing this to a mixed reaction from consumers (though perhaps they were marketing BB before it became a mass market must have). In NI it wasn't BB that gave NTL the boost it was the availability of RTE on cable.

I wouldn't be surprised if over time the FTA becomes a 'lite' version of a channels offering and the premium content goes onto encrypted satelite. Sport will always be there to drag in consumers to subscription Sky or cable.

mjsmyth

I kinda agree with you Brian, I think that the RTE's, BBC's and ITV's of this world should be FTA for their viewers, regardless of the platform. If you want extra, then pay the extra.

Lets make up a tv channel as an example, RTE Plus. On RTE Plus you get the latest series, 24, Lost, Dallas the reunion, as soon as they are available for viewing. But to get this, you have to subscribe, pay a premium.

Meanwhile, over on RTE1 and RTE2, the same shows are still on air, but dealyed for a couple of months. so you have the option, do you want the latest and greatest straight away? if so, then pay the premium. If not, you can wait that few months and get them FTA at no extra cost.

What if the BBC, ITV and RTE all launched a channel like that. anyway, I am just probably dreaming

DMC

I would be against a national PSB having a premium subscription channel.

The one huge complaint that people will have with an RTÉ Plus as you described, would be that, if it was a stand-alone premium channel, why pay for RTÉ twice or even 3 times?

If it were part of the basic bundle on satellite and cable, then they would not make as much of a draw if they started offering an "Irish Freesat" or "Irish Freeview DTT".

JohnDigital

I don’t work for either of those companies either, but I do work in advertising and deal with all of them all the time.

Firstly I don’t ever see RTE or TV3 going FTA. They just don’t have the ability to compete if programme rights cost them any more if they are reaching outside the Island of Ireland, the most we can reasonably expect when it comes time for negotiations with Sky carriage again will be for the stations to go FTV. With FTV at least the stations can demonstrate that their transmissions can reasonably be confined for the most part to the 32 counties, grey market excepted. But even at that the wheels turn so slowly in Montrose I don’t envisage that happening as it will inevitably mean that they have to pay more than the current set up they have with Sky and they wont be able to see beyond the short term. It’s all about the here and now with them. The more interesting developments will happen when the analogue system is switched off and we eventually get a Digital Terrestrial system in this country, but that is a fair way off at the moment.

ITV going FTA is of little threat to any of the Irish Stations currently, impact will be seen in years to come when Irish TV homes became more aware of the ability to pick up the ITV & BBC stations for “free” on FTA satellite systems. This should be more of a worry for NTL/Corus and Sky Digital as paying for TV reception when the Irish stations can be received terrestrially and the UK one by FTA Sat are a serious threat to their subscription services. They will need to ensure that they have more to offer in terms of sports & movies and specialist stations to keep a demand for subscription services.

I believe that ITV probably took the decision to go FTA without even a consideration of the impact that it may have in Southern Ireland. It probably didn’t even figure on their radar. However without UTV appearing on the Sky EPG TV3 have little to worry about for now, the number of people who will actively set up the station in ‘other channels’, and then watch it is going to be rather small compared to viewership if it were on the EPG.

I believe the noise TV3 have been making recently is purely an attempt to extract compensation from ITV for compromising the contract that they have for Granada programming rights in ROI, and future threats to their viewership that may come from a move to FTA TV by Irish homes. Whether they are successful depends on the exact content of that contract which is not something we can comment on, as we don’t have all the facts so will have to await the ruling on that.

I do however believe that TV3 will probably be successful in preventing UTV from appearing on the Irish Sky EPG, They have done it before, and I am sure they will again. The TV3 Granada programming contract that came as part of the Original 45% stake that Granada took in TV3 gives TV3 first option on Granada programming. Since the Granada Carlton Merger the stake now belongs to ITV. So TV3 are right to protect their considerable investment in that programming which has been the main driving force in TV3 becoming the second largest watched TV station in the country. Their part ownership by ITV and their investment in ITV/Granada programming is enough clout to ensure that UTV don’t get to go on Sky Digital Ireland.

RTE are under increasing threat for advertising revenues, as too now increasingly are TV3. The new entrants to the Irish advertising markets such as Sky One, Sky News, Sports 1 & 2, MTV, Nickelodeon, Setanta, Paramount and soon to be launched Channel 6 are all fragmenting the Irish TV advertising market spend. Advertising money will follow the viewers, the more stations that are available for advertising on the less money there will be for the larger players like RTE and TV3.

With falling advertising revenue RTE will find it harder and harder to produce quality programming and we are going to see a gradual reduction in quality and increase of imported programming. If the current situation with regard to union pressure and overall cost of operations at RTE don’t improve dramatically I cant see how in years to come RTE will be able to air programming any better than what is currently on offer by TV3.

Tony

Nice to see you again John. May I ask in your view ,will any pressure be brought to bear by advertisers on RTe/TV3 to go FTA given that there may well be households with FTA satellite only, now and in the future?

DMC

Sound post John, I agree with a lot there, but I will go along in saying that costs in RTÉ can go a long way further down if there is an increase in independently produced programming, in turn with a reduction of in-house production.

The last thing RTÉ needs is a CBC (Canada) style strike. They could get away with it in the early 90's, not now.

JohnDigital

Hi Tony. I don’t think there will for a couple of reasons.

TV is the most accountable advertising medium in Ireland. We have Nielsen Ratings the following day and can see how many people have been watching a station/programme on a rolling basis. The way advertising is sold is on those viewers; the advertisers only pay for the amount of people within their target audience that viewed their ads. So in the broadest terms if RTE or TV3 viewership falls we will spend less with the stations. Advertisers don’t mind where their ads are seen, just who saw them, and will move money around to the most appropriate stations and programming. There has been so much change in the last 10 years in TV advertising we are well used to the landscape shifting dramatically from year to year.

One other thing that could be an issue is the way that some talent and music rights are contracted for commercials. Often those rights are based upon the potential viewership of the commercial. If Irish advertisers need to negotiate those rates for the whole of the UK and Ireland if RTE for example were FTV across both islands, this is going to cost the advertiser far more – so they wont bother. They may opt instead for using other stations confined to Ireland. There are other ways to contract rights so there is ways around that problem though.

watty

I used to work in BBC many years ago. There where only four UK channels and 2 Irish channels. No Satelliite TV apart from a Russian one for Education to India.

Perhaps 65 to 70% in ROI had BBC/ITV. The demand fuelled the original cable TV, MMDS and so called Deflectors.

In reality at this stage anyone in Ireland that really wants BBC/ITV already has it. In fact people had BBC before RTE existed. RTE didn't need to take notice when BBC went FTA on DSAT, they needed to take notice from the day they started and mostly never had. They need to waste less money on expensive TV imports duplicating ITV /BBC SINCE 1962, and waste less money on shoddy US Junk. More local interest programming. This is true since 1962, not since BBC went FTA, since most folks that wanted BBC already had it!

Same now applies to TV3. They needed to compete with reality of UK Television from the day they started, not from when ITV1 / ITV2 went FTA on DSAT. Same arguement as BBC/RTE.

The Cable company needs to offer high quality Multichannel competeing with Sky on Quality of Delievry and Customer service. Their analog services have been abysmal in deleivery quality and customer service and original reason for them is gone (ITV/BBC). They need to fully roll out Digital with phone and Braodband and then they are competion for Eircom/Sky. Chorus really lost the ball in losing their Wireless phone licence (due to lack of roll out) and non-deleivery of Power Net Wireless Broad band nearly 4 year before anyone else.

Both Chorus & NTL have consistantly been rapped by OTDR and then Comreg for failure to roll out Digital Cable.

Sky will compete. German & Turkish have Pay TV and much more FTA than UK/Ireland.

RTE/TV3/TG4 should have been FTV from day on Satellite, it is a scandal and Gov. failure that they arn't. FTA on Sat is impossible, though a specialist News & documentry (A kind of Tara/BBC World mix) Irish FTA is possible and could TX on Sky, Hotbird, and Direc TV etc with more Global and tourist adverts and possibly even make money. But Actual RTE1/2, TV3 and TG4 can only be and should only be FTV. Money is better spent on that than Digital Terrestrial.