History of Irish Cable

Freddie59 · 21-08-2009 7:20pm

Elmo wrote: »

Also I vaguely remember Esat bring NTL to court over the sale of Cablelink. Was it because NTL said that they would pay 10% on top of what the highest bidder was offering?

Correct. There's some kind of legal term for it. Can't remember what it is though.

Apogee · 28-08-2009 11:06am

What was the legal situation regarding the retransmission UK channels when RTE Relays and the others started up? Are the legal requirement the same today for UPC? And does anyone know when they started paying carriage fees/royalties and to whom?

Elmo · 28-08-2009 11:38am

Apogee wrote: »

What was the legal situation regarding the retransmission UK channels when RTE Relays and the others started up? Are the legal requirement the same today for UPC? And does anyone know when they started paying carriage fees/royalties and to whom?

I know in the US when they started in the 1950s it was rule that the cable companies were to be considered viewers and what they did with the signal was up to them, this has changed since. But the majority of TV channels on US cable in the 1950 were other channels from other states which had similar schedules as thier home state channels. In the US cable was used purely for good reception more channels wasn't that much of a consideration. And since cable companies could not legal set up on the west coast in the 1960 it was pretty much the same reason in Ireland where we could receive UK signals we improved them through cable.

icdg · 30-08-2009 12:22pm

Elmo wrote: »

Back to NTL Chorus sale to UPC?

NTL sell to UPC Chorus' parent company. (Not sure when UPC took Princes holdings in Chorus). Liberty Global (UPC's owners) have shares in telewest, so was an arrangement made that Virgin would takeover the newly merged NTL Telewest, with Liberty taking their shares in NTL Ireland?

No, the two deals were completly seperate.

John Malone's companies have had involvement with Princes Holdings/Chorus/UPC since the very beginning, though at that stage, the company name was TCI (Tele-communications Inc). Liberty Media was formed out of assets Malone held onto after the main US cable TV and phone business was sold to AT&T and Liberty Global was formed from a merger of Liberty Media's non-US assets with UGC, which was the American based holding company of UPC, which was formed out of the merger of assets of Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands and an American company, United International Holdings.

Malone's share in Princes Holdings was approx 50% throughout its existance until 2004, when Independent sold out to UGC. In 2005 UGC acquired NTL Ireland and began the process of merging it with Chorus (after a lenghtly competition approval process during which MorganStanley legally owned NTL Ireland...)

The manuverings in the UK between Telewest, NTL, and Virgin were completely seperate and not really to do with the Irish operations at all. As an aside, Virgin own very little of Virgin Media (their holding is 6.5% according to the share register on Virgin Media's website) and the company is very much a renamed NTL. And yes, the company is still Delaware registered, still listed on NASDAQ, and still owns the NTL name (and is still actively maintaining it by continuing to use it for the SME/corporate division in the UK).

Antenna · 31-08-2009 3:13pm

I came across a TnaG (now TG4) publicity thing which came in newspapers when it launched in 1996 (see attached picture).

On one side was a cable tuning guide - this may be of interest to the above discussion as it shows the cable companies then in existence and the towns/cities each covered.

- though as you can see the TnaG tuning info was daft - as in most cases lacking mention of the actual channel frequencies for the many TVs that could display this!!

BTW TnaG complained about an 'unfavourable' positioning on many cable services, such as being on a frequency that older TVs and VCRs could not receive, or having a high channel number on set-top boxes (for example 17 in Cork city) - this was later changed!

Elmo · 31-08-2009 3:50pm

Antenna wrote: »

BTW TnaG complained about an 'unfavourable' positioning on many cable services, such as being on a frequency that older TVs and VCRs could not receive, or having a high channel number on set-top boxes (for example 17 in Cork city) - this was later changed!

Isn't this generally the case when new channels start up in Ireland.

Antenna · 15-10-2009 3:29pm

see attached pics.
A couple of things uncovered recently - a newspaper article (Evening Echo) dated 7 February 1989 about the further roll-out of set-top boxes on the Cork Multichannel cable service, and an ad (same newspaper) for their local programmes dated 31 January 1989

zilog_jones · 15-10-2009 5:03pm

Did many people in Cork get a second decoder for video recording? Would they just give out a second standard Jerrold box or did they have something more sophisticated? IIRC they had no timer function making them pretty useless if you intended to record programs from different channels while you were away.

And 23 channels in 1989! :O

icdg · 15-10-2009 10:24pm

Antenna wrote: »

see attached pics.
A couple of things uncovered recently - a newspaper article (Evening Echo) dated 7 February 1989 about the further roll-out of set-top boxes on the Cork Multichannel cable service, and an ad (same newspaper) for their local programmes dated 31 January 1989

God help anyone in Cork who wanted to watch Inside Ulster, judging from that schedule...

Also I vaguely remember Esat bring NTL to court over the sale of Cablelink. Was it because NTL said that they would pay 10% on top of what the highest bidder was offering?

Esat (or strictly speaking, the asscoiated company Howberry Lane Ltd) took a High Court action against Telecom, RTÉ, and NTL looking for an injunction to stop the sale proceeding, NTL having made what's known as a referential offer - they bid the next highest bid + 15%. These bids are very dangerous in a sealed tendering process because you can end up paying more than you can afford for it and you are essentially taking a gamble. NTL was cash-rich at the time and could afford it, though. The defendants won the case and the rest is history.

Here's a report from the time...

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/pound525m-sale-set-to-go-ahead-in-days-407186.html

Nazard · 10-10-2013 11:37pm

Antenna wrote: »

I reliably know it was 1982 that Cork Multichannel began cabling Cork city.

The technical details would be interesting if someone can tell us more than I know-

They (with Canadian technical consultants) originally built a receiving point for what was hoped reliable good reception of the UK channels in the Knockmealdown Mountains, and laid a trunk cable back to Cork city going along the roadside through nearby Lismore, Tallow, (those two small towns were also to be cabled) to the outskirts of Midleton from where the remainder of the journey to Cork city the cable was laid alongside the railway line.
However it transpired that reception on the Knockmealdown mountains was unsatisfactory! They then did a deal (and swallowed their pride?) to use the receiving point at Seefin Mountain in mid Co. Waterford of the Dungarvan cable service, so this involved laying cable from their existing cable at Lismore through Cappoquin (which was also to be cabled) to link up with the Dungarvan 'trunk' cable.

Note if they had decided to use the Dungarvan cable from Day 1, a shorter cable route to Cork city would have been via Youghal.

After about a decade of use the long cable run to Cork city was decommissioned in the early 1990s when microwave links were allowed, with Northern Irish reception provided instead. Cork Multichannel's mini-cable networks in the three small towns of Tallow, Lismore, Cappoquin in west Waterford on the 'super-trunk' route were changed over to being fed from MMDS.

The light-green amplifier boxes at intervals alongside the roadside route have since then mostly disappeared, but attached is a picture of one remaining one spotted just outside Tallow on the road to Lismore a few months ago!

Hi Antenna,

Thanks for this info. I drive those roads all the time - any more details at all of the exact route of that vast super trunk cable? Were you involved in it at the time?

Best, Nazard.

Mike 1972 · 15-10-2013 9:14pm

icdg wrote: »

God help anyone in Cork who wanted to watch Inside Ulster, judging from that schedule...

Thought Cork multichannel carried the Welsh versions of the UK terrestrials

Elmo wrote: »

Just reading something here it states that 6 channels were only technically possible on VHF cable signals and that the other 3 would cause derteriation and that UHF was difficult and should only be allowed in Apartment blocks. .

Primitive cable systems cant cope with signals on adjacent (8 MHz) frequency channels and need to use 16 MHz channel spacing

Older cable systems tended to avoid UHF as losses are high on cheap cable (and older amplifiers dont have the bandwidth)

Elmo wrote: »

No not until the mid-1990s, I even think in 1996 the RTÉ guide only gave the listings for RTE ONE, Network 2 and TnaG. But I do remember letters into their Mailbag show asking for the UK channels to be put in, it wasn't called mailbag then!

It was around 1990/1 (IIRC) that the EU stepped in to stop the restrictive practices around TV listings (prior to that anyone wanting this info needed to buy three weekly magazines or four if they wanted satellite :eek: )

Onthe3rdDay · 25-10-2013 1:29am

Mike 1972 wrote: »

It was around 1990/1 (IIRC) that the EU stepped in to stop the restrictive practices around TV listings (prior to that anyone wanting this info needed to buy three weekly magazines or four if they wanted satellite :eek: )

I remember buying a copy of the short lived Magill TV guide around that time when RTE wouldn't sell them the listings. It was pocket size and listed the six main stations. After each programme the guide placed the words own research. E.G.

6:00 The Angleus
(Own Research)

6:01 The News
(Own Research)

It didn't last long as you'd imagine. There was some sort of court action that never went anywhere.

icdg · 26-10-2013 11:29am

Mike 1972 wrote: »

It was around 1990/1 (IIRC) that the EU stepped in to stop the restrictive practices around TV listings (prior to that anyone wanting this info needed to buy three weekly magazines or four if they wanted satellite :eek: )

March 1991 I believe, and as a result of s176 Broadcasting Act 1990 (UK). Prior to that the BBC would not provide advanced listings to anyone except BBC Enterprises (for the Radio Times) and ITV and Channel 4 would not provide listings to anyone except Independent Television Publications (for the TV Times). Im not sure the EU had any actual involvement - it was part of the general deregulation of the UK broadcasting market which the 1990 Act brought about.

Incidentally, both BBC Enterprises (renamed BBC Worldwide in 1996) and ITP (sold to IPC at some stage in the early 1990s) are long gone, but the RTÉ Guide continued to credit them until fairly recently, they may still do so but I only buy the thing at Christmas.

EDIT: To correct myself after a bit more research, the EU was indeed involved - the Commission had given a decision ordering the three broadcastings to supply listings as a result of a complaint taken by Magill TV Guide. The above legislation was already in place however, by the time the resulting litigation (Magill TV Guide v Independent Television Publications and RTE v European Commission) finally ended with a judgement of the ECJ upholding the Commission's decision.

The ECJ judgement is very interesting in setting out the situation:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:61991J0241:EN:HTML

History of Irish Cable

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