Sauvez Notre Tv5

a bientot

Il est temps de montrer notre mecontement avec ntl..une societe qui depend de l'investissement de France Telecom. Je ne suis pas d'accord de payer un prix supplementaire a ntl pour une seule chaine, la meilleure chaine, la troisieme chaine du monde......... TV5.
Et oui...j'ai entendu que ntl nous donne un cadeau le 5 mai, la soiree electorale en direct de France a partir de 18h sur la chaine 'ntl noticeboard' capte par tout le monde a Dublin, Galway et Waterford meme si on a un poste tres ancien.....
Les clients de CHORUS (Swords, Malahide, Maynooth, Athlone, Cork etc.) ont toujours TV5 en analogue 24/24.

ntl a une frequence disponible en analogue...la frequence de CNN (toujours crypte pour les banquiers de AIB, IFTC etc) ..... Les banques ont les moyens d'acheter quelques decodeurs en numerique...CNN est aussi disponible en numerique

Nous allons demander cette frequence pour TV5....

Vos reponses en francais ou en anglais .....les bachos et les etudiants en facs irlandais ont besoin de nous!

Demandez a vos amis en France et partout de nous lire sur la toile

a bientot

DMC

I couldn't agree more.

France is gripped in the middle of an amazing presidential campaign, and for NTL to cut it off now, 5 days away, is a horrendous decision. Having the results show on the Link channel is a fob if there every was one.

Personally my French is rotten, and therefore E4 has more of an appeal for me, but for a lot of folk TV5 brought a piece of France to the telly, and for that to disappear, at an important time, is maddening.

My French is terrible too, and what little I have is not type-able here...
Is TV 5 coming to Sky digital? if so at least thats an option??
mm

icdg

Agree totally with Damien:

Although, purely content wise, I personally prefer E4 to TV5, TV5 as a piece of public service broadcasting should be on the system. Although it doesn't have a *right* to be there (indeed, no channel other than the four Irish terrestrials does), TV5 has been on NTL/Cablelink for many years and a place should have continued to be found for it on the analogue package. I could personally live without either Discovery or CNBC - both of which have been their less than a year, TV5 was there for eight years.

While we're talking foreign langauge channels, Ich mochte ARD, ZDF oder 3Sat fur das NTL Kabelsystem. Bitte! Let's not get into a Deutsche - Francis row though

Now to moderator mode:

I'm going to split/merge the various threads:

The existing E4 thread can be used for responses relating to E4, according the seperate E4 mono/widesceen issue thread will be merged with that.

Response complaining about the demise of TV5 should continue in this thread.

Mathieu

I wasn't able to attend the meeting on April 29th at the Dublin Alliance Française, I was wondering if anyone knew what had been said. Some funny man put a petition online @ http://www.petitiononline.com/bbtv5/ if you ever want to leave another message...
Let's hope forces are strong enough to make people realise at ntl that there are other joys than money...
Courage !
Mathieu.

Charles Slane

I surprised myself by understanding all of the first post (although, having studied French for a couple of years, I suppose it would be odder if I didn't).

I'm happy that E4 is on NTL (although they need to sort out the widescreen problems), but I'm very disappointed to see TV5 go.

They should dump the encrypted CNN feed in favour of TV5.

JTMan

I could personally live without either Discovery or CNBC - both of which have been their less than a year

Nope, CNBC Europe has been there since it started. It converted to 24-hour this year.

TV5 has been on NTL/Cablelink for many years and a place should have continued to be found for it on the analogue package

Disagree, I don't think such a minority channel has any place in the analogue package. With analogue you can do so much more with the signal (tape & record and watch on multiple TV's). E4 was on 2 TV's in our house tonight and taping in another. TV5 has barely ever seen itself on any TV. Minority channels should be shifted to the Digital package.

John R

I also fail to understad the reasoning behind dropping TV5, although like most people I am more likely to watch e4.

Personally I couldn't care less if they drop CNN, but it doesn't appear to be necessary. There seem to be plenty of unused frequencies available that TV5 could be put on.

JTMan

There seem to be plenty of unused frequencies available that TV5 could be put on.

There are no available frequencies left AFAIK.

Personally I couldn't care less if they drop CNN, but it doesn't appear to be necessary.

You mean you don't care about a channel that is scrambled and can't be descrambled!!? It is very necessary for NTL's deals with Hotels.

I fail to understand the reasoning

1. Increased popularity of the basic package
2. Increased revenue from selling space to E4
3. Encouraging more people to go: Digital

Stop bitching people. E4's move was a damn good move.

icdg

Originally posted by Fungus


Nope, CNBC Europe has been there since it started. It converted to 24-hour this year.

It has not! It was a morning service on the National Geographic Channel after NBC Super Channel closed in 1998 (to be fair, that channel in its final months spent quite a bit of time relaying CNBC). It has only been a 24 hour since this year. Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't CNBC Europe always been 24 hours on Astra?

Mathieu

Fungus's analysis seems unfortunately very close to what I fear really happened. Ntl surely wanted to kick out TV5 off the basic package a long time ago, I just lack information why they did not do so earlier. I am however convinced that TV should not entirely rely on money matters. Being French, and not so proud to be so at the moment, I was sure born with this idea that there has to be a cultural exception. Actually, I believe many other European countries have also led policies concerning cultural affairs in favour of diversity rather than profit. Nowadays, TV is part and parcel of local, national and international culture. If we are to build something different from a purely economic European Union, we have to think seriously about that. I read somebody wondered also about ZDF and other German speaking channels: that is exactly the point. Each household in Europe should be able to have undiscriminated access to any European channel ie, not having to pay more. I understand it might not be possible at the time, but withdrawing TV5 from the basic package is certainly not a step towards this. Maybe some will miss the European issue, but surely ntl shouldn't, for it is strictly speaking a European company.

Mathieu.

John R

Originally posted by Fungus


There are no available frequencies left AFAIK.

What about 288Mhz where TV5 used to be (I think someone else said it was used for ppv, but that still leaves it free most of the time)
Or 344, 352, 360, 368, 376, 384 and 400Mhz none of which appear to be used.

You mean you don't care about a channel that is scrambled and can't be descrambled!!? It is very necessary for NTL's deals with Hotels.



1. Increased popularity of the basic package
2. Increased revenue from selling space to E4
3. Encouraging more people to go: Digital

Stop bitching people. E4's move was a damn good move.

1. Possibly although there can't be that many people in cabled areas that don't currently have analogue that will be swayed by e4

2. I would be very surprised if e4 are paying NTL for carriage, most channels charge cable companies a fee for carriage.

3. e4 would have been a bigger selling point for digital than TV5.

I was NOT bitching, just stating my opinion, that is kind of the point of discussion groups.

icdg

On the point of CNN, since the hotels subscribing to it have to have decoders anyway, perhaps NTL should swap these for Go Digital STBs? Perhaps with cards limiting access to the service to CNN, in order to protect their pricing structure. There are not that many hotels in Dublin, certainly enough to allow NTL to do the job cheaply enough. Then TV5 could replace CNN on the analogue service.

(I also personally think its time to start phasing premium customers onto Go Digital, perhaps giving them cheaper subscriptions to entice them to change. That would eventually free up channels on analogue to allow more channels on the basic service).

TV5 was on the service for eight years (from 1994, the same day that Sky One and Sky News were restored after their year or so dispute with NTL). After that amount of time, its viewers surely expected it to stay. French speakers would like to be able to see the presidential election coverage, and French students could do with it for their Leaving Cert.

In school I studied German instead of French (although I did a little of that too). That's why I'd be more interested in seeing 3Sat (the German equivilant to TV5 - an ARD/ZDF/ORF/TSR joint venture). I'm sure Spanish students would like TVE-I too. Italian speakers might like RAI Uno...

The languages of the state are Irish and English. They get first priority. But we all live in Europe and being able to see public service broadcasting from the other major European langauges would be nice.

Perhaps NTL might like to include these channels on Go Digital, as the service capacity improves?

icdg

Originally posted by Mathieu
, but surely ntl shouldn't, for it is strictly speaking a European company.

One unfortunately, with their headquaters in Delaware...

Perhaps the new sucessor companies to NTL (UK & Ireland and Euroco) might see to rectify that.

JTMan

1. Possibly although there can't be that many people in cabled areas that don't currently have analogue that will be swayed by e4

Maybe not but it might sway less people to switch to Sky Digital.

2. I would be very surprised if e4 are paying NTL for carriage, most channels charge cable companies a fee for carriage.

TV Companies pay huge fees to have placement on Sky Digital. I bet

Possible Payment for placement by E4 and/or
possible share of advert revenue and/or
possible cost for E4
equals more revenue that gained through TV5 been on the system.

3. e4 would have been a bigger selling point for digital than TV5.

True in the long-term but in the short-term it will encourage uptake of digital by Tv5 lovers.

colinsky

Originally posted by Mathieu
I read somebody wondered also about ZDF and other German speaking channels: that is exactly the point. Each household in Europe should be able to have undiscriminated access to any European channel ie, not having to pay more.

One could argue that they are already providing such a service by relaying Deutsche Welle radio over their signal. Would you be amenable to a French radio station as an alternative solution/compremise to restoring TV5? (I would assume that there might be room left for more audio-only channels?) If we make a more reasonable request that asking them to reverse their recent decision, they might be more willing to oblige.

Mathieu

Well, first of all, no matter where ntl has its headquarters, the fact is that ntl Inc., is "established in the UK, in Ireland, in Switzerland, in Sweden, in Germany and in France, which makes ntl the first European multiservices operator." (I lost the source but if you are curious about it I might find it back).
Then, talking about radio, French radio is already available, though homoeopathically, through the good old radio set. It is also easily available over Internet, so trying to make it available on yet another media seems unnecessary.
No really, I think ntl should consider some European plan to help create a supernational TV service. It has the foundations to launch such an ambitious project and would certainly gain even more money, if that is all they want, as we all have to assume.
Cheers.
Mathieu.

icdg

A supranational TV service was tried in the 1980s - Europa, a general entertainment channel. RTE bought into it at the time, but it never really took off and closed.

The only two supranational services that have really worked are Eurosport (French-owned now - TF1 ) and Euronews (UK majority owned - ITN). Even then, people tend to recieve them in their own langauge and ignore the fact that other language versions are actually available. And even Eurosport seems to see its future in completely seperate versions for each language groups - Eurosport France, British Eurosport etc.

NTL is a company which will be legally bankrupt come Monday morning, so I doubt now is the time to try this.

bubbleowner

ntl bankrupt? Is this good news? Maybe we could have a more efficient service from another company and get TV5 back?

I saw an NTL add on Sky one last night stating that TV5 would still be available on it's Go digital service.
mm

icdg

Originally posted by bubbleowner
ntl bankrupt? Is this good news? Maybe we could have a more efficient service from another company and get TV5 back?

Not really. NTL's holding company and certain of its US and UK subsidaries (but not NTL Communications (Ireland) Limited) are filing in the US for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection, it was supposed to happen on Monday, latest reports suggest it could be today. See the links on www.ntl.com for the gorey (and in parts horribly boring) details.

NTL will then be placed under protection from its creditors for 60 days. Afterwards, the theory is that it will re-emerge as two seperate companies, NTL UK and Ireland and Euroco. They will be owned by the current creditors of NTL. The informed speculation is that UK and Ireland will merge with Telewest. Telewest is 25% owned by Liberty Media, which in turn owns 50% of Chorus, the other 50% of which is up for sale...

You get my drift...the upshot is that there will be one massive cable company covering the UK and Ireland.

I'd say the likelyhood of getting TV5 back is slim...anyone know what the foul up on Sunday night was, incidently? Link didn't seem to join TV5 until well after the election results were over.

a bientot

As we all know ntl dumped TV5 the third most available satelllite to cable tv station in the world out of Dublin, Galway and Waterford directly to promote its own campaign of improving the English language capabilities of its 'Oirish' customers.....after all if one watches an American sitcom often enough one will finally understand the plot.......

But tell me why are there still three news bullletins in German, Spanish and Italian.......'foreign' languages as the Irish Times strangely called them today...........but no FRENCH?

DMC

Apparently, NTL did approach TV5 to provide news in this fashion, like ZDF, TVE and RAI, and, quite understandably, were quite miffed by this...

a bientot

No need to get a satellite dish just for TV5....

ntl are now informing customers opting to pay extra just to get their favourite, TV5, that the channel's continuing availability within the digital package is not certain...

Just a note to remind ntl that the battle is not over............
TV5 will regain its rightful place among the other public service broadcasters in the basic analogue cable service on ntl and will be available on more Chorus systems around the country by the end of the year....it is already in eight cities and towns (including the real capital, CORK) for over ten years.

but
YOU, THE INTERESTED CABLE SUBSCRIBER MUST DEMAND TV5 if you require it..........
ntl have no idea of what customers actually want and TV5 was the ONLY channel ever requested via petition in the eighties by cable customers to the surprise of Cablelink, Cork Communications and TV5 itself.

If it's good enough for BskyB it has to be good enough for ntl and Chorus.....


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