DTT Commercial Multiplexes (was OneVision, Boxer etc...)

The big hurry is that they are obviously aware I'm sure of how 2 prolonged processes make them look. Especially when even One Vision have said indirectly via the papers that it went on too long for both of them. The idea behind pay DTT and FTA DTT launching together would have been two-fold, a) Promoting a Pay DTT complaint box and avoiding a proliferation of FTA only DTT boxes that makes switching combersome. As we can determine from UK Pay DTT, launching after FTA DTT does not offer a successful strategy for gaining market share. Its cheaper from a marketing point of view, to let the pay end of it sell the saorview brand rather than 2 separate campaigns to promote everything at the same time. No doubt that was what RTÉ had in mind for waiting because a heavyweight campaign would be needed for a new platform.

People then get all the knowledge at the same time, when its fresh in their mind, rather than find out later about it. Now one can argue to the contrary that familiarity with the platform is achieved when FTA DTT launches ahead of pay DTT. I guess the market conditions play a more determining role in how a platform does, and that may be the case for Top Up TV that it is like an afterthought of Ofcom apparently given bare minimum spectrum. Whereas the BAI are providing properly for it at the start.

The problem is that they did not as regulator set the rates RTÉ NL should charge in advance of the competition in consultation with both RTÉ NL and from an outside consultant like they did on the market analysis of other country's DTT preparations, or don't seem to have.

If they had then all 3 consortia would be in no doubt what the criteria would be for RTÉ NL negotiations. Perhaps the reason was legislation giving the BAI power over RTÉ NL to do that may not have been their compared to now where it is there. In 2008, RTÉ was to an extent self regulated, albeit by external appointees to the RTÉ Authority.

With that in mind then that end of it would at least of paired down the consortia, or brought realism into the process. The only factor would have been the economic situation. So there wouldn't be this drag. Marketing and security bonds could have been got over.

I suppose the BAI wanted to give the consortia as much time as possible given the platform is new territory for the BAI.

Now the whole thing as dragged on and its giving the regulator a poor presentation of things.

I would expect that these negotiations would be much quicker to go because RTÉ NL has its the FTA launch and surely would want to assist it. It hasn't rental and security bond issues to consider really, only to negotiation with Liberty Global what they should contribute towards the project. I suspect Liberty will be the ones to contribute the bulk of advertising and promotion. So I suspect that things could move quite quickly. What you might see is RTÉNL reducing their stake in the project and Liberty Global increasing its shareholding in the project like Eircom did to maximise the benefits to Liberty Global were the platform profitable over time. I suspect that Sky may yet come in with Eircom as a competitor, Eircom doing the broadband side as a competitor in pay DTT. I don't know though if the figures would be there for that to happen.

We shall have to wait and see what happens though. 2 weeks to accept the license and its in RTÉ's interest for negotiations not to drag on. Its mainly about whether LGI have any interest and if they are prepared to come up with the goods. If they are not, then RTÉ NL have to come up with a plan B whether it restructures its shareholding to give it majority status to progress things with LGI's shareholding as nominal to avoid a re-run or whether it would let it go back to the regulator to run a new competition. I guess the 3 mux idea was really to the platform to have a reasonable offering from one operator. ASO does provide the option for competition. after 2012.

Any ideas why RTE/UPC finished third in the tender process?

Well its clear that the whole licence awarding process was flawed from the start with the lack of deadlines and plan B's. Perhaps these do nothing quangos have realised their whole raison d'etre is at stake through their inaction. Either way, at this stage you would have expected Onevision to have released some kind of statement to indicate why they are not taking up the licence. Also, reading through the EasyTV application, they suggest that the approval for the deal is subject to a European Commission approval due to their already considerable presence in the market. Such approval could take up to 3 months. They also mention a figure of 43 weeks from award to launch on a shorter 25 day approval, suggesting we are approximately a year away from commercial DTT launch if things go smoothly from here on...

I suspect that if LGI don't approve, that Sky might happily jump into the breach with RTÉ and that could be a concern for LGI. Because of RTÉ's involvement with Easy TV, if they say yes, it could move ahead quite quickly. I suspect that LGI may wish to increase their stake and RTÉ might happily agree to that.

Elmo wrote: »

Good. FTA Irish Commerical TV is now the only route for at least one of the BAI muxes, with VOD or HD TV from another BAI mux and final a premium pay TV channels on the final mux. It is now time for RTÉ NL to start the role out of the PBS mux rather than waiting for the final deadline of 31/10/10.

And a big we told you so from boards to the BAI/BCI.

:mad: I'm seriously beginning to think that DTT in Ireland, including the public service mux, will not happen at all now or at least won't happen until RTE/Government are forced into it, sometime between 2012 and 2015. They know that most of the country have either Sky or UPC and gives a digital version of the terrestrial channels to their customers. So it's pay up to either of them or tough sh*t to the rest of the population and stick with crappy analogue for another four or five years. As usual with most things we do in this country, we're either light years behind everyone else or just a bloody joke at it. Rant over !

What I expect to happen now is that the BAI will confirm the fact & that they will announce a new competition in say 2 months time. In the meantime, they may bring in an outside consultant to analyse the market situation, costs etc and a revised evaluation process.

After that I expect that for instance pressure would come on ComReg to lower the DTT spectrum charges. Also I suspect that now Sky may come into the mix offering subscription channels, along with FTA channels and maybe bring in someone like Eircom as a partner. I don't know but I expect Sky to figure.

Looks like LGI seem happy enough where they are at. Perhaps revised conditions might entice.

The problem with no commercial operator is it makes the marketing more expensive and the return on investment to RTÉ more tough. But then didn't seem to bother them when they scuffed at One Vision's offering. They must have had an idea that they wouldn't go ahead if it came to that.

I think the one with most to gain is Sky and I suspect they'll bid this time. You could have a grand consortium made up of Sky, Eircom, Arquiva, Setanta. Sounds like LGI aren't interested or they would have gone for it. They probably reckon its not profitable platform to justify investment and they'll do just fine as they are for now. that's my view

scath wrote: »

What I expect to happen now is that the BAI will confirm the fact & that they will announce a new competition in say 2 months time. In the meantime, they may bring in an outside consultant to analyse the market situation, costs etc and a revised evaluation process.

After that I expect that for instance pressure would come on ComReg to lower the DTT spectrum charges. Also I suspect that now Sky may come into the mix offering subscription channels, along with FTA channels and maybe bring in someone like Eircom as a partner. I don't know but I expect Sky to figure.

Looks like LGI seem happy enough where they are at. Perhaps revised conditions might entice.

The problem with no commercial operator is it makes the marketing more expensive and the return on investment to RTÉ more tough. But then didn't seem to bother them when they scuffed at One Vision's offering. They must have had an idea that they wouldn't go ahead if it came to that.

I think the one with most to gain is Sky and I suspect they'll bid this time. You could have a grand consortium made up of Sky, Eircom, Arquiva, Setanta. Sounds like LGI aren't interested or they would have gone for it. They probably reckon its not profitable platform to justify investment and they'll do just fine as they are for now. that's my view

Please God they will launch the PSB Saorview service without all of this becoming necessary as a prerequisite

scath wrote: »

You could have a grand consortium made up of Sky, Eircom, Arquiva, Setanta.

Sky, Eircom, Arquiva and Setanta as a consortium targeting an audience of between 100,000 and 200,000 subscribers, most of whom have resisted pay tv or churned Sky or UPC at some stage. Get real.:rolleyes:
This is a tough, non profit making sell. What about the outgoings.
If I was a businessman I'd stand well clear.

Regarding the launch date, could RTÉ really change the launch date, seeing as there is not yet one official Saorview box out there? (How long does it take to validate a box?!). I know that many TVs now pick up the Irish DTT service but I suspect they'd wait until at least they have a few boxes that are 'guaranteed' to work with Saorview.

byrnefm wrote: »

Regarding the launch date, could RTÉ really change the launch date, seeing as there is not yet one official Saorview box out there? (How long does it take to validate a box?!). I know that many TVs now pick up the Irish DTT service but I suspect they'd wait until at least they have a few boxes that are 'guaranteed' to work with Saorview.

Chicken & Egg.

Manufacturers won't bother with SaorView certification unless there is a market (i.e. RTE /TV3/TG4 launches and there is massive advertising).

If RTE wait until someone certifies a box first, then it will be a long wait. That's why BBC HD DVB-T2 (Terrestrial HD) "soft launched" before a single box was available at all. Not even "probably works" boxes were available.

watty wrote: »

How does this make money Elmo?

Elmo, it's dead. All there ever was possible was the Indigenous Irish services. They need to accept that and move ahead with Public Launch.

Advertising revenue which as I have said will start to leave the country as FTA Foreign channels begin to soak up fully the full amount of advertising revenue available to them.

If we put forward the following list of channels on MUX 2 (Which we all want???)

E4 (Already providing advertising)
More 4
ITV 2
ITV 3
ITV 4
Sky News
Dave
Sky Three

These channels will start providing more advertising to Irish Customers including all of the Pay TV services (i.e. From Viacom, Virigin and Sky) that already take advertising opt outs. This advertising may be worth up to 50million euro taken away from existing Irish providers such as TV3, TG4, RTE and Setanta. RTÉ, TV3 and TG4 will need to role out further channels to allow for cross promotion in the same way that BBC, ITV and C4 all have cross promotion.