UTV and ITV-1 Regions BLOCKED!!!!!!

Genghis

Originally posted by bdg
This chat is proving to be a total waste of time, the mails and calls to the various bodies are both fruitless and a waste of your own time.

The issue at hand is simple, an economic issue where the network has to make a choice about entering further competition to the Irish arena which may conflict with TV3's interests.

All the harassing that has been going on is falling on deaf ears and will have no impact what-so-ever on the outcome(and harassment is the best way to describe the activity that has been encouraged on this forum in recent times).

And don't kid yourselves that the emails previously to the beeb had any impact on their appearance on the Irish platform.

Your time would be better served not obsessing about such matters that are clearly out of your hands and spending time reflecting on the fact that it is only a t.v. station that has a limited offering.
:eek: :eek: :eek:

I disagree with you completely. Your point about Tv3 for example does not even bear serious consideration. Whatever about taking positive action where one believes in it (and I respect you view that it may be futile to do so), being negative and defeatist will never achieve anything. Would you feel better if the efforts of all of us on here failed?

Tony

Originally posted by Mr Burns
Well if some poor bugger sitting in London is getting swamped by the same emails I bet he would want to do something about it.

This campagin is too public. You think sky dont read the boards?

Think again

Just a friendly warning, from someone in the know!

In all my dealings with sky I have never them once refer to these boards, what makes you think they do? If you are "in the know" then please provide some evidence to back this up, for instance perhaps you could name the newly appointed manager for Sky Ireland.

Regards Tony

Thunder

Originally posted by MrEnvy
"Cable operators are covered by European legislation in a way that satellite operators are not. It is this legislation that allows us to put our signals on overspill cable networks even though we do not have Irish rights."

Does anyone know of the legislation about which they speak?

I sent a mail to Ch4 before Xmas asking about this, here's what they told me:

There is a EU directive which states that if a country's terrestrial transmissions are fortuitously receivable in an adjacent country as a by-product of providing satisfactory coverage in that country (which will almost always be the case), then the adjacent country may utilise that terrestrial signal to source cable distribution. Thus if C4 is receivable in Eire from a transmitter in the UK (Ulster in this case), then they are entitled to distribute this signal on a cable network. By the same token the UK could distribute RTE channels on cable should we so desire.

The same situation obtains in France, Holland, Belgium where C4 (in fact all UK analogue channels) is widely available on cable.

There is no such provision for satellite signals.


So there you go. I don't know why cable is included in this EU directive while satellite isn't (perhaps the law was put together before satellite was commonly available?)

Anyway, maybe this gives another line of attack for this campaign - try petitioning some Euro MEPs to have this EU directive changed?

DMC

I never heard of that before. What EU directive they are referring to?

Thunder

Originally posted by DamoDMC
I never heard of that before. What EU directive they are referring to?

Good question, I just did some digging on Google & found this:
The "Television Without Frontiers" directive

I haven't read through the whole thing (it's not exactly light reading!), but the below paragraph jumped out at me:

Freedom of reception and retransmission
It is confirmed that, as a general rule, the Member States must ensure freedom of reception and must not restrict the retransmission on their territories of television broadcasts from other Member States for reasons falling within the fields coordinated by the directive.

(this came from http://europa.eu.int/comm/avpolicy/regul/twf/newtwf-e.htm )

Any solicitors in the audience?

Our man in Havana

Does this mean that Chorus gets the BBC etc for free?

carrolls

here is a quote from
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/lif/dat/1989/en_389L0552.html
"Council Directive 89/552/EEC of 3 October 1989 on the coordination of certain provisions laid down by Law, Regulation or Administrative Action in Member States concerning the pursuit of television broadcasting activities
"
Whereas television broadcasting constitutes, in normal circumstances, a service within the meaning of the Treaty;
Whereas the Treaty provides for free movement of all services normally provided against payment, without exclusion on grounds of their cultural or other content and without restriction of nationals of Member States established in a Community country other than that of the person for whom the services are intended;

For the purpose of this Directive:
(a) 'television broadcasting' means the initial transmission by wire or over the air, including that by satellite, in unencoded or encoded form, of television programmes intended for reception by the public. It includes the communication of programmes between undertakings with a view to their being relayed to the public. It does not include communication services providing items of information or other messages on individual demand such as telecopying, electronic data banks and other similar services;

So therefore Channel 4 (Or ITV) could put its channel on Sky Digital ROI without breaking any European laws.

Our man in Havana

This seems only to apply to terrestial reception.

carrolls

Sorry 007
If you read the last paragraph, you will see the all important line

"including that by satellite"

DMC

It's been a while since I seen it, thanks for that, Thunder

Genghis

All of this is to do with fortuitous terrestrial reception and explains why it is okay for NTL, Chorus etc to re-broadcast C4.

It is NOT an explanation as to why C4 and Sky cannot come to some commercial re-broadcast arrangement for satellite subscribers. Arrangements such as already exist with countless other UK and European broadcasters.

There might also be an argument that encrypting C4 on satellite goes against the spirit of fortuitous reception as originally oultined by the EU. Ireland are in the footprint of the UK satellite.

carrolls

The nice people in Strasbourg's Directorate General of Human Rights,Council of Europe devision issued a directive on TV in 2001.
It seems to make the Channel 4 matter very simple. They are (allegedly) breaking the law by blocking their signal on Satellite.
For that matter so are ITV1(allegedly).
BBC are (allegedly) breaking the law by placing BBC1 and BBC2 in the Family package and not FTA in the ROI.
In essence if a channel is FTA in Britain, it should be FTA in overspill countries (Including Satellite overspill)
Satellite blocking of FTA channels is an invasion of human rights.

Here it is: http://www.humanrights.coe.int/media/topics/broadcasting/transfrontier/convention_on_transfrontier_tv.htm

We have a good case. But we need a legal team behind us to fight it.

PacMan

Quote from the site:

As of 1st January 2001, 23 European States have ratified the Convention and are therefore bound by it: Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, Norway, Poland, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and the Holy See.

Has our Government not ratified the convention yet? I dont see any reference to Ireland...

carrolls

It does not matter about Ireland, Britain ratified it. And now they are breaking it.

Tony

Originally posted by Genghis
All of this is to do with fortuitous terrestrial reception and explains why it is okay for NTL, Chorus etc to re-broadcast C4.

Well not quite, NTL do not use fortuitous means now and actually pay BBC/ch4/itv for the priveledge. You may notice that NTL sometimes do not show a bbc NI programme when it is being shown on Sky.

Regards Tony

Genghis

carrolls, you are on to something here. I have read the directive you refer to and hile I am not legalistic to fully read it, it would seem to me that you are right. Not only can C4 legally broadcast to Ireland, they have no right to prevent such transmission.

I am going to seek a point of clarification on this by e-mailing the Directorate General of Human Rights. The reply might make intersting reading for ITV, C4, C5, Sky and the BBC.

Lennoxschips

It mightn't apply to the BBC, as BBC are not FTA, seeing as you have to pay a license...

But then again, BBC is on Irish, Dutch and Belgian cable already, so what's the difference with satellite?

Krusty_Clown

Hehe... Let's not get over-excited!

This is my 'take' of the two articles linked:

Firstly, the programs that these channels show are all trademarked/copyrighted (e.g. Friends).. Iwould imagine that in signing a contract with the producers of Friends, C4 must agree to some sort of stipulation, like 'We wont broadcast it on the internet and show it all over the world' type of thing.. What I'm saying is that channels will be bound by the programs' copyright laws..

Secondly, the European convention is exactly that.. A convention and not a directive... So, I'd ignore the convention (as its more of a recommendation) and concentrate on the directive.

Thirdly, I don't know if you could technically call receiving a signal by satellite dish overspill.. It's not like the signal is only reaching us because we're very close to the the neighbouring countries. I mean the channel signal is being broadcasted from a satellite in geo-stationary orbit!

Lastly, looking at the convention, all that C4 would have to do to comply with the convention, and restrict reception of their Channel, is to broadcast the occasional advert for alcohol..
See: Furthermore, the Convention offers Parties the possibility of restricting the retransmission on their territory of programmes which contain advertising for alcohol, provided they have made use of the reservations clause in Article 32 (which represents an exception to the principle of freedom of reception and retransmission enshrined in the Convention). Advertising for medicines and medical treatment that are only available on prescription is also prohibited.

icdg

Originally posted by Tony


Well not quite, NTL do not use fortuitous means now and actually pay BBC/ch4/itv for the priveledge. You may notice that NTL sometimes do not show a bbc NI programme when it is being shown on Sky.

Regards Tony

Off topic: In fairness Tony, that's because NTL show BBC TWO Northern Ireland, the analogue channel, wheras Sky carry BBC 2NI, the digital channel. See www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/bbc2ni/ for details on what the difference between them is...

What NTL do, and have done for some years (since the beginnings of MMDS), is pick up the NI channels off air at the border and relay them throughout the country via microwave links. This network is provided by Chorus, but NTL have a deal wherby they are allowed to use it. How do you think Chorus are now able to screen UTV in Cork instead of HTV? No amount of fortuitous reception will get NI signals to Cork! (Of course there is now another means, and that is DSat, but that means relying on Sky). (For anyone interested in this topic, I wholeheartly recommend the NERA/Smith 1998 report, "The Future of Television Transmission in Ireland". Somewhat out of date, but explains the issues in quite some detail. It's on www.odtr.ie )

On topic, rights issues do intrude here. When a channel pays for the rights to a programme, they pay a fee based on the size of the market, amount of competitors etc. To take an inverse example, RTE pay for their Irish rights based on the fact that there are only 3m people and one competitor. If they were available in the UK, now they have to pay a price based on the fact they are bidding against 5 competitors and for 60m people. (This incidently explains why RTE can never be available in the UK, but the BBC can be in Ireland - its cheaper to extend rights you have already paid for 60m to another 3m, but out of RTE's reach to do the opposite).

icdg

Just had a look at the Directive on copyright mentioned (which is an addemendum to the 1989 Television without Frontiers directive, which I really should dig out and look at), and thought I should draw your attention to the following:

"8.1 Member States shall ensure that when programmes from other Member States are retransmitted by cable in their territory the applicable copyright and related rights are observed and that such retransmission takes place on the basis of
individual or collective contractual agreements between copyright owners, holders of related rights and cable operators. "

"Protection of copyright-related rights under this Directive shall leave intact and shall in no way affect the protection of copyright. "

So this does in no way absolve cable companies of the necessity to negotiate the rights issues with regard to programmes. Oh, and it doesn't seem to cover satellite, C4 are right in that one.

Funky Phantom

I thought I'd asked the Human Rights Directorate their opinion on this matter, I outlined the problem as we see it and asked it if other directives/ legislation may exist , heres the reply....



Please be informed that the case mentioned in your mail can not be examined under the light of the European Convention on Transfontier Television because Ireland is not a Party to this Council of Europe convention.

This being said, even if Ireland had been a Party to the Convention, the problem is not directly related to the obligations which the Convention imposes on broadcasters, and appears to be a copyright question.

One of the basic principles of the European Convention on Transfrontier Television, relevant to the case, is that freedom of reception and retransmission must be guaranteed by Parties, when programmes coming from another Party comply with the content and advertising standards in the Convention. That is, the receiving State can not block or restrict the retransmission of programmes which are in conformity with the Convention. However, in the described scenario, the fact that these channels are not viewed in Ireland is purely based on a commercial decision of BSkyB,which does not retransmit them seemingly because it does not have the broadcasting rights for this territory.

Had the retransmission of the channels in question been blocked by the Irish authorities, this would have represented a violation of the Convention. However, the fact that they are encrypted by the broadcaster and therefore not receivable in Ireland would not seem to be a contravention of the Convention.

Ramon Prieto Suarez
Media Division
Directorate of Human Rights
Council of Europe
ramon.prietosuarez@coe.int


I think for "BSkyB" we should also read ITV, C4, C5 etc etc

Just a point this reply was cc to a fairly large list with @iol.ie, @eircom.net @indigo.ie addresses, seems they've been "swamped" with equiries on this topic recently

Dead end I think.....:(

carrolls

Good try Phantom- worth having a go.

I suppose we are going to have to keep telling ourselves
that TV3 is ITV (Well it's not that far off actually),
E4 is the bubblegum version of Channel 4.
Those channels are not as good as they used to be anyway.

PacMan

Just like the "Funky Phantom" I too received the e-mail, which was identical.
What next???

digital

Folks
I am not a techie but I am hoping some of you are. I spoke to Sky to enquire about why the UTV and ITV channels are blocked. They said it was at the instruction of ITV BUT that it was possible for us poor Paddies to still see it. He was going to tell me how to get around it when he checked with his supervisor who came on the phone to me and told me it definitely can be done but he can't tell me as he had no idea if I was a mystery caller from ITV etc...
So lets forget about the legal end of it and find out how its done !!
Here's hoping that some genius is reading this !:D

carrolls

He is talking about the 'Other channels' option.
This avenue was closed off in ROI two weeks ago also.
(to the ignorance of the two guys you were talking to in Sky)

And owned by Sir Anto!
As follows:
"ITV'S shock black-out of UTV digital offerings
The rapidly-growing number of satelite television viewers in the south east and the rest of Ireland are being barred from receivingUTV,following a surprise decision by the ITV Network to black out the digital channel here."

The article continues"Local suppliers of Sky digital service who have been hard pressed to cope with demand in the last six months said they had received dozens of complaints from viewers since the barring of the ITV channels,which many were flagging in theiradvertising literature."

"queries to Sky digital were reffered to a clearly embarrased UTV which said that it was inundated with calls from the Republic"
The article then quotes the UTV press release on the subject.
"Itv said it had to block out UTV because it didn't have the programme rights in this country for all the programmes it carried and cited Corronation street as an example"

More nonsense as Granada as we all know is TV3 in Ireland.
But it's interesting that , that example is quoted!!
It's a further hint at how petty this blockage is, in that it hints that Granada being one of the two biggest players in the ITV network centre is looking after their interes in TV3 here.
All very petty indeed imho.

Incidently speaking of installers being very busy lately(in part due to ITV being there no doubt) There is an area on the edge of Arklow with close to 300 new houses built in the last number of months-roughly 80% of them have minidishes and boy when they're alltogether like that Boy do they look Ugly
mm

Rafter

HI Guys
Just found this on digitalspy.co.uk

Sky Digital customers are being advised to retune to Analogue in order to watch ITV1's coverage of Formula One.

In a move that it likely to enrage Sky Digital viewers, who have waiting for several years to receive a digital feed of ITV1, ITV1 is now to withhold it's coverage of Formula One from it's Satellite feed for reasons unknown.

ITV has so far not been seen to be 'promote' this in any of it's advertising, or onscreen promotions for the forthcoming new season.


Perhaps worst, and more confusing for viewers, is that the Sky EPG listings for ITV1 still contain the Formula One programming.

It's not until the viewer asks for more information on the program that they are informed that that its not available.

carrolls

Obviousy it has something to do with the fact that it is PPV on Sky

The Cigarette Smoking Man

Originally posted by Rafter
HI Guys
Just found this on digitalspy.co.uk

Sky Digital customers are being advised to retune to Analogue in order to watch ITV1's coverage of Formula One.

In a move that it likely to enrage Sky Digital viewers, who have waiting for several years to receive a digital feed of ITV1, ITV1 is now to withhold it's coverage of Formula One from it's Satellite feed for reasons unknown.

ITV has so far not been seen to be 'promote' this in any of it's advertising, or onscreen promotions for the forthcoming new season.


Perhaps worst, and more confusing for viewers, is that the Sky EPG listings for ITV1 still contain the Formula One programming.

It's not until the viewer asks for more information on the program that they are informed that that its not available.

You should have also seen this so:

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/displayarticle.php?id=6473