Irish TV - gone?

Its website (www.irishtv.ie) seems to be down today.

Johnboy1951

Deleted User wrote: »

Its website (www.irishtv.ie) seems to be down today.

They also had registered
irishtv.tv
irishtv.com

irishtv.tv is showing a Blacknight placeholder at present.

brick man

RabbleRouser2k wrote:

Tbh, they seemed completely misguided in their thinkings. It's sad, but this is what you get when you don't do your research, and make outlandish claims. They could have just started small, and been more resource clever. But they had big ideas for a pretty small audience.

Utv Ireland seemed to have had the same problem totally misguided in their thinking and research

Elmo

brick man wrote: »

Utv Ireland seemed to have had the same problem totally misguided in their thinking and research

As did TV3. Both lost vast amounts of money it was either ITV or Virgin Media that was going to merge both services.

castle2012

There still broadcasting on sky . I wonder how long for or do they wait till the powers cut ?

Hotblack Desiato

The satellite carriage is presumably paid for in advance, and they'd have to pay someone to go in and press 'stop' on the playout machine, so on it goes...

JeffKenna

I'm disappointed this is gone, sure it's easy to complain about it but at least it was a bit of variety to the same sitcoms and reality shows that are constantly repeated on sky.

Antenna

A number of issues:

(1) Irish Newspapers/guide not printing the schedules for Irish TV even though they print schedules for low viewership UK channels. Again anyone know why?
Looking for payment?
The type of target audience mainly rely on newspaper schedules (or perhaps RTE guide) to plan their TV viewing rather than online listings or EPG.

(2) not on cable TV providers, a particular issue in Dublin, also meaning the channel not visible to perhaps possible national advertisers.
Again were UPC looking for a large payment to carry the channel?

(3) a number of occasions during its life when change of satellite transponder resulted in retuning being needed of FTA satellite boxes for this and a few other smaller satellite broadcasters. The Saorview approved/satellite Combo boxes with a mimic Freesat mode would not automatically retune either. Retuning these things is beyond the grasp of most elderly people, and would probably live without the channel if they lost it rather than pay an installer to visit (or had a family member who could retune for them). Only if BBC etc reception was lost might they get an installer out.

I'm not saying the above issues regarding distribution were the only challenges to Irish TV, but they were certainly significant contributory issues. Regarding programming it didn't make sense trying to do a County Matters show for every single county (regardless of size/population). Some of the smaller neighbouring counties could easily have been grouped together (say Kilkenny and Carlow, as is the case with local radio)

GreenFolder2

They would have probably been better off being entirely online with a very well built website. It would have been way cheaper and given people access to shows on demand.

Narrowcasting on traditional broadcast television platforms, even satellite, is rapidly becoming a very hard sell compared to going online.

It was an interesting idea but, like CityChannel/Channel South shows there isn't much advertising revenue out there for local TV in Ireland.

I think part of the issue is that other than in Cork City there has been no history of local cable type channels in Ireland like the way there was in the USA and even in the Cork example, it was basically run by the cable company directly as part of their service rather than being a purely commercial stand alone entity.

I think for IrishTV to have been a success it would have needed to be on US Cable decades ago or on European satellite certainly in the late 90s early 00s.

It's a bit like trying to launch CDs in an era of Spotify and YouTube

Johnboy1951

Antenna wrote: »

...
(3) a number of occasions during its life when change of satellite transponder resulted in retuning being needed of FTA satellite boxes for this and a few other smaller satellite broadcasters. The Saorview approved/satellite Combo boxes with a mimic Freesat mode would not automatically retune either. Retuning these things is beyond the grasp of most elderly people, and would probably live without the channel if they lost it rather than pay an installer to visit (or had a family member who could retune for them). Only if BBC etc reception was lost might they get an installer out.

What do you consider elderly?

Do you have some statistics that show 'the elderly' are less technically competent than other sections of the general population?

Ageism?

GreenFolder2

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

What do you consider elderly?

Do you have some statistics that show 'the elderly' are less technically competent than other sections of the general population?

Ageism?

I agree - it's more that the content isn't compelling enough to cause most people to go to that effort.

Also I think on the Sky EPG, it's so cluttered with channels, I doubt most people even notice when a channel comes or goes unless it's one of the very major ones.

Elmo

It was more than just platforms. Virgin should have carried for free, while it's difficult to justify printing Irish TV schedules.

The older generation didn't view it as a worthwhile station, it only reminded my parents of City Channel.

Local TV has to be part of a national broadcaster look at how badly local TV AKA channel6 in the UK is doing, you'd wonder why ITV was given permission to buy up all the local channel 3 licence.

Irish TV was unable to criticises itself. It wouldn't see past how twee it was, even if you consider local TV in any other country they actually provide local news services... and even in big cities that's not all that good but it certainly isn't County Matters.

Thargor

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

What do you consider elderly?

Do you have some statistics that show 'the elderly' are less technically competent than other sections of the general population?

Ageism?

Are you for real? What percentage of pensioners in this country do you think can go online to find the new transponder settings and then input them into a new transponder search on the box to find the new location? Then delete all the crap that search inevitably threw up, then move Irish tv back to its old location in their channel list and delete the old dead entry? I would estimate less than 1% of the elderly viewers in the country would be capable of doing that. How is it ageism to ask that?

I know someone said earlier that they only changed frequencies once but Ive had to retune Irish TV at least 5 times for my parents including again this weekend. They did themselves no favours with that but were most likely doomed anyway.

h7nlrp2v0g5u48

I wonder with irish tv now gone will this put pressure on the government or RTE to try and come up with some sort of solution to try and provide an international service for irish people living outside this country?

donegal.

i've sold loads of set top boxes to "elderly" people and i have to agree , most of my customers couldn't retune irish tv.

they are also the only people who watched the station and 0% of them would have watched the station if it was on the internet.

GreenFolder2

Thargor wrote: »

Are you for real? What percentage of pensioners in this country do you think can go online to find the new transponder settings and then input them into a new transponder search on the box to find the new location? Then delete all the crap that search inevitably threw up, then move Irish tv back to its old location in their channel list and delete the old dead entry? I would estimate less than 1% of the elderly viewers in the country would be capable of doing that. How is it ageism to ask that?

I know someone said earlier that they only changed frequencies once but Ive had to retune Irish TV at least 5 times for my parents including again this weekend. They did themselves no favours with that but were most likely doomed anyway.

What % of *ANY* group of customers can do that?
A lot of them struggle to operate the Inputs selection menu on their TV and phone up Sky or Virgin complaining that the service is down because they're on the wrong feed

Johnboy1951

Thargor wrote: »

Are you for real? What percentage of pensioners in this country do you think can go online to find the new transponder settings and then input them into a new transponder search on the box to find the new location? Then delete all the crap that search inevitably threw up, then move Irish tv back to its old location in their channel list and delete the old dead entry? I would estimate less than 1% of the elderly viewers in the country would be capable of doing that. How is it ageism to ask that?

I know someone said earlier that they only changed frequencies once but Ive had to retune Irish TV at least 5 times for my parents including again this weekend. They did themselves no favours with that but were most likely doomed anyway.

What % of TV viewers can do that?

I would estimate less than 1%.

Elmo

I agree I worry about what channels have replace other channels on my parents EPG, I haven't re-tuned it in a while and channel 1 which I tuned to Irish TV is now probably porn! Though I think my mam would be quick enough to let me know.

Even though it was on Channel 1, I can safely say that Irish TV was watched 0% of the time by either of my parents.

My mam misses BBC3!

Thargor

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

What % of TV viewers can do that?

I would estimate less than 1%.

Well then you estimate wrong or do you think all the movie and music channels, Challenge, even Sky News recently are giving up 99% of their audiences on non-freesat boxes every time they move?

FRIENDO

Thargor wrote:

Well then you estimate wrong or do you think all the movie and music channels, Challenge, even Sky News recently are giving up 99% of their audiences on non-freesat boxes every time they move?

I think Fta box's are not user-friendly for any age.
I've been in house's and people of all ages just live with out those channels.

The only answer is Freesat or something similar, when channels are automatically tuned on transponder changes.

donegal.

Thargor wrote: »

Well then you estimate wrong or do you think all the movie and music channels, Challenge, even Sky News recently are giving up 99% of their audiences on non-freesat boxes every time they move?

i'd say all those stations have given up at least 99% of irish tv's demographic .

afatbollix

It will keep going for a few days anyway. Arqiva who do the play out for them have a view on these things that if we keep them on air they might get a backer and will pay them!

Drove past the office in Westport last week and not a car in sight all the lights off and joked to the wife about getting a job there to go home and see the news reports.

mackersdublin

Irish TV no longer BARB reporting

http://www.overnights.tv/public/content/news.aspx

Kristopherus

mackersdublin wrote: »

Irish TV no longer BARB reporting

http://www.overnights.tv/public/content/news.aspx

Excuse my ignorance, but what is BARB?

Down County Matters has just started on it. How old that episode is, I do not know.

Elmo

mackersdublin wrote: »

Irish TV no longer BARB reporting

http://www.overnights.tv/public/content/news.aspx

last report was in nov

1 IRELAND'S COUNTRY (2) (MON 2202) 3 3
2 THE FOSTER & ALLEN SHOW (2) (MON 1959) * -1
3 THE COUNTRY HOUR (1) (MON 2102) * -1
4 DUBLIN COUNTY MATTERS (11) (MON 1759) * -1
5 PLAY IT BY EAR (1) (MON 2302) * -1
6 BALLYBRADDAN (1) (MON 1218) * -1
7 ROSCOMMON COUNTY MATTERS (11) (MON 1829) * -1
8 CLARE COUNTY MATTERS (11) (MON 1502) * -1
9 KILKENNY COUNTY MATTERS (11) (MON 1532) * -1
10 CAVAN COUNTY MATTERS (11) (MON 2403) * -1

-1,000!

The Parish priest

So how long more will it be playing ?

Elmo

Kristopherus wrote: »

Excuse my ignorance, but what is BARB?

Down County Matters has just started on it. How old that episode is, I do not know.

Broadcasters Audience Research Board (UK's TV Audience Measurement Ireland(TAMI)) tv audience Research

RabbleRouser2k

Saw one episode-Kerry county matters- that was over a year old. So they're running repeats over and over now.

feez

Antenna wrote: »

A number of issues:

(1) Irish Newspapers/guide not printing the schedules for Irish TV even though they print schedules for low viewership UK channels. Again anyone know why?
Looking for payment?
The type of target audience mainly rely on newspaper schedules (or perhaps RTE guide) to plan their TV viewing rather than online listings or EPG.

(2) not on cable TV providers, a particular issue in Dublin, also meaning the channel not visible to perhaps possible national advertisers.
Again were UPC looking for a large payment to carry the channel?

(3) a number of occasions during its life when change of satellite transponder resulted in retuning being needed of FTA satellite boxes for this and a few other smaller satellite broadcasters. The Saorview approved/satellite Combo boxes with a mimic Freesat mode would not automatically retune either. Retuning these things is beyond the grasp of most elderly people, and would probably live without the channel if they lost it rather than pay an installer to visit (or had a family member who could retune for them). Only if BBC etc reception was lost might they get an installer out.

I'm not saying the above issues regarding distribution were the only challenges to Irish TV, but they were certainly significant contributory issues. Regarding programming it didn't make sense trying to do a County Matters show for every single county (regardless of size/population). Some of the smaller neighbouring counties could easily have been grouped together (say Kilkenny and Carlow, as is the case with local radio)

They didn't even update the schedule on their own website, therefore no newspaper/guide could publish them.
At one point (well before they went downhill) I checked their schedule on the website and it was 2 weeks out of date...

The retuning issue happens often with FTA services because the service/transponder allocations are determined by Sky and Arqiva etc.
All they really care about are the Sky boxes and service changes are updated automatically on those. I've seen it happen many times with music channels disappearing, once an adult channel popped up where another channel used to be.

feez

afatbollix wrote: »

It will keep going for a few days anyway. Arqiva who do the play out for them have a view on these things that if we keep them on air they might get a backer and will pay them!

Drove past the office in Westport last week and not a car in sight all the lights off and joked to the wife about getting a job there to go home and see the news reports.

Irish TV is done, and they are past the point of getting new investors. Arqiva will pull the plug when the contract expires. Nothing in this industry gets done for free.
A TV channel like this needs expensive resources; a dedicated playout server, broadcast MPEG 2 encoder, management and scheduling system plus a technician to monitor it 24x7. And multiply that by 2 because there are backups of everything. All of which they could use for something else.

Whether Arqiva is providing the web stream for them, I don't know. They could be receiving if off air and streaming it that way, same for Eir TV.

It could keep going for days, weeks, months. Whatever they have paid up until.

JDxtra

They must have paid some money owed to Blacknight for their website hosting as it's back online in recent days.

jrmb

JDxtra wrote: »

They must have paid some money owed to Blacknight for their website hosting as it's back online in recent days.

And it's interesting to see that the broadcast stream is running again

Johnboy1951

jrmb wrote: »

And it's interesting to see that the broadcast stream is running again

Did it stop broadcasting?

jrmb

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Did it stop broadcasting?

As far as I know it was playing out on Sky, but not being updated.

mackersdublin

Kristopherus wrote: »

Excuse my ignorance, but what is BARB?

http://www.barb.co.uk/about-us/how-we-do-what-we-do/

Johnboy1951

jrmb wrote: »

As far as I know it was playing out on Sky, but not being updated.

It has been broadcasting continuously as far as I am aware, which is why I asked if there was a break in the broadcasting.

I dunno about Sky, but it is FTA, and I have not noticed a break. (not that I watch it very often)

JDxtra

There was no web site (and hence no live stream) for a number of weeks. Playout on satellite continued.

h7nlrp2v0g5u48

Still broadcasting on Sky channel 191.

Clonsk

There must be hopes that a 'wind-up' of Irishtv may attract new investors to a new aligned TV company? Plenty of repeats of programming already recorded still showing on Sky platform! Silence from remaining directors! Will be more surprised if no attempt is made to launch in some format or guise!

Hotblack Desiato

Why? Who is watching?

Clonsk

Irishtv had a very 'niche' market. It's aims were to associate with a diaspora market. Needed more work and marketing to be a finished product. Yes, including more viewers. Cannot knock the idea though!

donegal.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Why? Who is watching?

I'd say a lot of over 60s in ireland were regular viewers.

in fact irish tv was probably more popular , in ireland than boards.

Elmo

donegal. wrote: »

I'd say a lot of over 60s in ireland were regular viewers.

in fact irish tv was probably more popular , in ireland than boards.

Aunt: At least they are trying something but perhaps they should think of something else

Mam: reminds me of City channel particularly the ads

Both over 60.

The Parish priest

donegal. wrote: »

I'd say a lot of over 60s in ireland were regular viewers.

in fact irish tv was probably more popular , in ireland than boards.

Let's not get carried away

Hotblack Desiato

donegal. wrote: »

I'd say a lot of over 60s in ireland were regular viewers.

I would wager the vast majority of over 60s in Ireland were entirely unaware of the existence of this channel.

RabbleRouser2k

I'm not even near 60, but I always got confused as to which channel it was-I used to skip past it because of some country channel, and that was only because of one show my mum likes.

The rest of the time-God, I avoided it like the plague. Probably watched two programs in the entirety of the channels life, and one was just badly shot, with a camera where the white balance wasn't set properly.

It all had this 'late 80s, early 90s vibe about it'-like the old kids shows where they went out and met the public, but viewed through a 2000's lense.

godfrey

Cara Embarrassed Pumpernickel wrote: »

I wonder with irish tv now gone will this put pressure on the government or RTE to try and come up with some sort of solution to try and provide an international service for irish people living outside this country?

RTE is not there to satisfy the needs of those living outside Ireland, and in fact has come under criticism for spending ANY money on it's online presence for years now from certain quarters. Sounds crazy, but it's a fact, and reasons given for this criticism were that the internet is only for people abroad. Just shows the lack of understanding some people and their departments have of how more and more people get their 'TV', right?

g

Clonsk

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

I would wager the vast majority of over 60s in Ireland were entirely unaware of the existence of this channel.

The biggest problem the IRISHTV channel seemed to have is simply the lack of ability to market the channel to any audience category. Most interest was generated by 'word of mouth' and local knowledge that their area would be featured. The saorview scenario did not help. Programmes were improving. However when looking for finance and dependant on one investor, you can understand the grief of Mr Griffin, when an event such as the Ploughing championship is a significant cost rather than bolstered by exhibitors advertisements. Would have wiser to advertise TV schdules on national newspapers or even local newspapers on a regular basis than visit Ploughing championship. Would have interested advertisers if channel was at least looking for market share.

Stasi 2.0

Bizzarely even though the channel is no longer broadcasting it still has an LCN on the Freesat EPG

liam7831

Foster and Allens Christmas show was on a few days ago ...