26th May 2008
RTE needs to remember the North
Seamus McKinney had a good piece in the Irish News last week which is worth noting below about the potential impact on Northern viewers of RTE’s digital switch over.
Mr McKinney explains that RTE viewers in the north fear being cut off when TV transmission goes digital on both sides of the border.
More than 70 per cent of the north’s population can get RTE, with the numbers even higher in border areas.
In those areas as many as half say it would be a major concern if they could not receive RTE, according to a report by the UK communications regulator Ofcom.
The RTE issue figures highly in Ofcom’s latest ‘Nations and Regions’ report, released yesterday.
A survey carried out for the report shows that RTE is now a major broadcaster in the north, available to more than 70 per cent of viewers. More than one in three watch RTE 1 and 2 on a daily basis.
Ofcom carried out the research because changes in the way television will be broadcast on both sides of the border means the continued availability of those channels in the north is far from certain.
Authorities in the north are planning to upgrade all TV transmission to digital technology in 2012.
When that happens the existing analogue signal will be switched off.
In the Republic, plans are less well advanced but just as important for viewers in the north who watch RTE and TV3 through their ordinary TV aerials. Cable and satellite viewers will be unaffected.
The Republic has not yet decided on which technology it will use.
If it opts for a different and more advanced digital system than Britain and Ireland, then viewers in the north would not be able to get these channels any more.
The British and Irish governments are working behind the scenes to try and resolve issues over different digital technologies and the timing of the switchover from analogue to digital.
Viewers would benefit from both countries adopting the same technology and both making the switch-over at the same time. However, no agreement has been reached.
Ofcom reckons that whichever technology the Republic chooses, the number of people who can get RTE through their aerial will fall by around 10 per cent anyway.
It says RTE especially has become an important element of public service broadcasting in the north and wants access to these channels protected.
An area that is being discussed is whether RTE could be broadcast on northern transmitters. That would give viewers in the north 100 per cent access to RTE. There would be complex rights and licensing issues to overcome but these would not be insurmountable.
Truth is that RTE viewing figures never break 4% in NI - compared to the British channels breaking 20% in the South. Inn addition the most popular progs on telly down South are the UK ones
So best way to surmount the complex rights and licensing issues see to have an All Islands solution. This would include RTE throughout these islands - but with the main programmes being on BBC, ITV and TV3
(Incidentally a combined TG4 and BBC Irish language budget would also make sense)
Bob seems to talk some sense to me: though there would be issues about rights (eg sport) and I’d also suggest that a lot of the most popular programmes are produced from a land beyond the wave. The problem in both jurisdictions is that nobody is paying for the other’s output. It would make sense to me as (to use your phrase) “a modern republican” to seek a solution that locked in the BBC to Ireland regardless of the constitutional position and also ensured that everyone in Ireland could view the “national” TV service - there would have to be some degree of revenue sharing I’d guess.