Surely time for RTE to broadcast overseas?

Icehouse

What with the latest viewing figures showing clearly that the most watched programmes on RTE are produced by/for RTE and thus owned by RTE, surely there can't be much stopping them from broadcasting to the UK and/or Europe, either the RTE channels as they stand or cutdown versions with just the programming to which they are the rights owners. IMHO RTE should never have been on on the Family pack of Sky at any rate, as Irish viewers have already paid for their services through the licence fee. I would love to see the day when all the European State-funded channels pooled their licence fees and the money generated was used to fund international programme/film-making as well as truly Europe-wide broadcasting (wishful thinking maybe).

In the meantime though I would hope that RTE might consider broadcasting either FTA or starting a low-cost standalone pay package (maybe using the 2nd card slot on Sky boxes - soon to be unblocked?) for those of us with Digiboxes who are not in Ireland.

watty

Of course they should They used to (Tara TV).

They should have had a Overseas Radio service 80 years ago, the recent RTE on WRN and more recent Radio on Sky is too little to late.

Oh and you can now get RTE R1 on LW in London!

I despair of lack of vision in RTE.

They should never have signed they Sky deal they did either. Somehow in a way the Demise of Tara TV seemed coupled to start of RTE on SKY.

tipperaryboy

yeah with rte its like their in the 1st century.rte wake up!

watty

Icehouse wrote:

).

In the meantime though I would hope that RTE might consider broadcasting either FTA or starting a low-cost standalone pay package (maybe using the 2nd card slot on Sky boxes - soon to be unblocked?) for those of us with Digiboxes who are not in Ireland.

Not at all likely to be FTA.

A second card is not needed. The existing UK card would work.

The second slot is for a "chipped" cash/credit card called a Modex card to pay for interactive services, not viewing Pay TV.

Sky has monoploy on use of cards with Digibox.

BBC prime uses ViaAccess2 for Europe, which works on almost anything NOT a sky Digibox. BBC Prime is not available to UK addresses, but is to Ireland (not on a Sky box), though why anyone here would sub to it with 30 BBC channels Free To Air on Sky or any other box is a mystery.

So for Pay TV for UK and rest of europe, RTE would have to pay for Sky and some other encryption too!

DMC

There was talk recently that the 2nd slot on a Sky Digibox could be opened up for supermarket loyalty cards.

kramlq

RE: Wattys comment on BBC Prime

BBC Prime standalone subscription is for english speakers abroad (probably from the UK but not necessarily). A viaccess card can take up to 16 independant providers. Could RTE not try to negotiate a deal for space on the same transponder, and a provider slot on the card (the transponder lease and card issuing is by BBC Worldwide after all - which is business rather than a public service broadcaster). They could also do a deal for subscribers of one service to get the other at a reduced rate. Some expats desparate for english language channels may be interested in the two services rather than one - I can certainly see this being the case for Irish abroad, who probably had BBC side by side with RTE via cable/terrestrial while living here. It would also be good for people here who want RTE but cant get decent pictures via aeriel, and cant be bothered with a first (or additional) sky subscription.

RTE just dont seem to understand that:
- For some people here as well as abroad, satellite reception is the best way to receive RTE.
- Not everybody who wants RTE wants Sky Digital.
- Not everybody who wants RTE can (officially) get Sky.

I would also add that any solutions using videoguard encryption at 28e would be unsatisfactory for potential viewers. It is a proprietary system will probably never be receivable on the majority of receivers already in peoples houses across europe. This is a business oriented limitation rather than a technical one. It severly restricts a viewers options when it comes to reception choices - LIDL style FTA setups are quite cheap these days, but will never be suitable for videoguard decoding. The second CI slot in european style receivers was included for reception of multiple services without extra boxes - i.e. to improve the viewers choices and options. The DVB Simulcrypt standard was also developed to make life easier. If they already have the signal on 28e, why not (at the very least) simulcrypt it and implement a FTV scheme.

If sky's existing agreement prevents them from doing this.... they already have uplink equipment, a transponder costs €500k so for a year - yet they recently chose to plough €1 million into 6 hours of that Ballinaksully thing. Does this really sound like a PUBLIC SERVICE broadcaster

Macy

Kramlq, I'd be happy enough with FTV on a digibox to get decent terrestrial reception. I really don't want to subscrib to sky, but it's the poor reception of the analogue terrestrial channels that is pushing me in that direction.

Obviously some other decryption system, with some box other than a digibox would be preferably, as presumably you'd have the same control over channel order etc as a FTA box?

BrianD

Icehouse wrote:

IMHO RTE should never have been on on the Family pack of Sky at any rate, as Irish viewers have already paid for their services through the licence fee.

This is not true. You are paying Sky Digital to deliver the television signal to your home. If you were to follow your logic through we should be objecting to NTL and Chorus suscriptions.

What is objectionable is the situation where RTE apparently pay Sky Digital to be on their platform. The biggest selling point that Sky Digital have is the availablility of the RTE channels and not only do they have them but they get paid to have them! Sky must be laughing all the way to the proverbial bank!

Round Cable

BrianD wrote:

This is not true. You are paying Sky Digital to deliver the television signal to your home. If you were to follow your logic through we should be objecting to NTL and Chorus suscriptions.

What about the BBC? NTL and Chorus have to pay to maintain the cable network.

Tony

BrianD wrote:

The biggest selling point that Sky Digital have is the availablility of the RTE channels

I disagree Brian, RTE coming onto Sky had very little impact on sales, sports has always been the big seller for sky. I do agree however that RTE should have negotiated a much better deal with sky

Icehouse

BrianD wrote:

This is not true. You are paying Sky Digital to deliver the television signal to your home. If you were to follow your logic through we should be objecting to NTL and Chorus suscriptions.

What is objectionable is the situation where RTE apparently pay Sky Digital to be on their platform.

AFAIK RTE DON'T pay Sky to be on their platform, they got a special deal so Sky could lay claim to having the Irish channels in their package. Correct me if I'm wrong. That said, I find you're nitpicking in your first reply! My point was that people who have paid the licence fee should not have to pay FAMILY PACK rates to see the channels for which they've effectively already paid the content rates. A reasonable rate could of course be charged for the convenience of sat availablity.

Lennoxschips

If they just broadcast the news FTA, many people would be delighted. Surely Sky wouldn't mind that?

Tony

Icehouse wrote:

My point was that people who have paid the licence fee should not have to pay FAMILY PACK rates to see the channels for which they've effectively already paid the content rates. A reasonable rate could of course be charged for the convenience of sat availablity.

Agreed

watty

BrianD wrote:

This is not true. You are paying Sky Digital to deliver the television signal to your home. If you were to follow your logic through we should be objecting to NTL and Chorus suscriptions.

What is objectionable is the situation where RTE apparently pay Sky Digital to be on their platform. The biggest selling point that Sky Digital have is the availablility of the RTE channels and not only do they have them but they get paid to have them! Sky must be laughing all the way to the proverbial bank!

Arrrrrgh So much mis-information!

I get 100s of TV and 60+ radio on a Digibox. I pay Sky nothing.

The vast bulk of money paid to Sky is NOTHING to do with program delivery. Satellite Program delivery to whole of Europe costs less than a cable network for a small town or a tiny part of the Terrestrial TV network.

Cable is a closed subscription only system. It is much more expensive to install and run than Satellite.

Satellite can have closed or open broadcasts even on the same transponder.

RTE pays nothing to Sky, and in return Sky decide which price package and use their monopolistic encryption.

Sport is indeed the main driving factor for Sky sales. But it is niave to beleive that Sky gives something for free without making more out of it.

RTE could rent an entire transponder for EIGHT TV channels and all Irish National and Dublin Radio for less than Sky would charge for EPG and Encryption for ONE channel. The EPG and Encryption costs Sky nothing.

In reality the only thing costing Sky money is the Transponder. I'm sure Sky gets a good discount from Astra-SES

watty

One Euro on an Irish TV licnece would fund a 24hr FTA news channel and all existing Irish channels with a FTV card scheme.

They'd probabily make more than one Euro per licence fee in increased Ad revenue, especially if there was a Best of Irsih TV channel FTV here and Pay TV in UK/Europe.

When there is no vision the people perish

byte

Watty, you should be the General Director of RTÉ! RTÉ as it stands doesnt' seem to know or care what goes on. Even when you consider the sale of DVD's of programming. BBC release a lot of their programmes on DVD's (and indeed CDs or books on occasion) and generate revenue from that. RTE don't seem interested on making money from programming this way.

Danno

I thought that RTE payed SKY a handsome €5m to encrypt the three stations for 4 years in order to get RTEs digital platform a foothold in the market.

i.e. you take out the viewing card and you can see BBC1. :cool:

rlogue

The plain fact is that RTÉ will not do anything about an overseas RTÉ TV channel without a "partner" to help out financially.

Given that the last "Partner" of RTÉ, UPC, got completely stabbed in the back by RTÉ over the demise of Tara TV, it's hardly surprising that nothing has happened in the last couple of years to get a Tara replacement on the air.

The only other partner that RTÉ could use are Setanta - I wonder if they would think it's worth their while backing a Pay RTÉ channel for outside Ireland?

Mike 1972

Tara werent the first satellite channel to carry RTE programing

Anyone remember Europa TV back in the 1980's ?

It was based in the Netherlands but had several European National broadcasters as shareholders including RTE

Macy

The way forward for RTE would be a FTA news and current affairs channel. No reason why Prime Time, Leargas, Nationwide, Questions and Answers, McWilliams new programme, even the Late Late and Would You Believe etc couldn't bulk out the actual news content. Even if it was just repeats during the day with regular news bulletins (i.e. no different to RTE1 really).

watty

rlogue wrote:

<snip>
Given that the last "Partner" of RTÉ, UPC, got completely stabbed in the back by RTÉ over the demise of Tara TV, it's hardly surprising that nothing has happened in the last couple of years to get a Tara replacement on the air.

<snip>

There are questions to be answered:
Why did RTE Kill Tara?
Why did RTE charge "over the odds" to Tara for "rights"?
Why did they pull plug just when Tara was signing up cable networks?
What are the details of the "secret" deal expiring in 2008 with Sky?
Is it co-incidence that Tara was closed the same time a deal to carry RTE on Sky was signed?

If this was the UK and it had BBC, C4 or ITV acting the way RTE has, then there would have been "Questions in the house" and possibly an investigation.

There is not enough transparancy and accountability of how RTE works and decisions made.

Look at the waste of money rebranding Network 2 as RTE2.

The reason BBC is successful is that they make and commisson some good programs, not that they are called BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4 etc. In fact many people think non-numeric names are better.

Mike 1972

Some of the Channels on Hotbird (Croatian TV if I remember rightly) encrypt their imported programming and switch to FTA for "home produced" stuff

No real reason why RTE couldnt do the same

eirman

Within the last week, RTEs Primetime revisited the issue of elderly emmigrants living in poverty in the UK. One of the stated governments targets was to make Irish Television available to these unfortunates.

seano

Maybe they could give a few programmes to this channel starting in January

Tv europe

telecinesk

:

Tara werent the first satellite channel to carry RTE programing

Anyone remember Europa TV back in the 1980's ?
:
Yeah, I saw it. Those were the days of a grand or more for a 1.8m dish satellite system. Was a good idea but way before its time... pity.I know someone with a copy of the launch on video.#

Back on topic, RTE Europe, that will be nice. Just how much?

BBC Prime is 80GBP a year and for that its a load of repeats from last years tv and so on. No I wouldnt pay for RTE, the radio on Sat is enough over here and the wrn feed on worldspace for the car....