Adam Maguire

This week’s media notes:

The BCI held a public meeting on Monday (12th May) to allow the three bidders for the three commercial DTT multiplexes to state their case and explain their plans. Each bid hinges on the condition that the winner takes all, so there’s no scope for each company taking one mux each or two bidders sharing the spoils between them. The three bidders are Easy TV (owned by RTÉ and Liberty Global International, parent company of UPC Ireland), Boxer TV (owned by Swedish DTT company Boxer and Denis O’Brien’s Communicorp) and OneVision (backed by eircom, Setanta, TV3 and Arquiva). The mux licence is expected to be awarded by June 21st but DTT rollout is unlikely to begin until next year.

The Government published its Broadcasting Bill (pdf file) on Wednesday (14th May), which will pave the way for a new broadcasting authority (the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland) to replace the current Broadcasting Commission of Ireland and the Broadcasting Complaints Commission. Unlike the BCI, the proposed BAI will have authority over all broadcasters, including RTÉ, and will have a role in both licensing and compliance/enforcement. The Government’s bill also sets down the formal tracks for a national DTT system, as well as an Oireachtas TV Channel and a public service-based Irish film channel. One interesting aside is that the bill appears to enhance the proposed BAI’s scope in relation to mergers and acquisitions in broadcasting – not only will it have tighter criteria for deciding on allowing one media player to buy out another, it will also be able to consider any bid in the context of overall media ownership and not just ownership in the broadcasting sphere. Could be bad news for Denis O’Brien who already owns Ireland’s two national commercial stations (Today FM and Newstalk) and is some way to owning Ireland’s biggest newspaper.

The Irish Times today reports (subs required) that TV3 is in talks to buy fledgling Irish commercial station Channel 6 for €10m. As part of its DTT proposals TV3 already plans to create two new channels – 3Today, a news/information-based service and 3Xposé, an entertainment/fashion based service – and it is not clear if C6 would become one of these two channels or would compliment two entirely new services. Channel 6 has reportedly been talking to Liberty Global (which effectively owns City Channel and NTL/Chorus), UTV and ITV too but it seems as though the TV3 negotiation is the only one at any kind of advanced stage.

The JNLR figures have been released (subs required) and RTÉ programming continues to dominate. The only non-RTÉ programme in the top ten most listened to shows is Today FM’s The Last Word, which picked up listeners but was still bested by its timeslot rival Drivetime. Newstalk’s The Right Hook, also in the battle for the early-evening audience, picked up 3,000 new listeners but even a doubling in listenership would leave it third in the race. Other notable movers are Gerry Ryan, who picked up 14,000 new listeners to bring him to 342,000; Marian Finucane, who picked up 7,000 new listeners on her Saturday show to rise to 309,000 in total and Ryan Tubridy, who dropped listeners for the third time in a row (4,000 this time around). Some interesting figures but some notable absences too – for example no word on how Newstalk’s Breakfast show is doing; apparently that has performed quite poorly since the station went national.

I’ll be going onto The Last Word on Today FM this evening – should be at around 6:30pm or so.

The topic will be the DTT roll-out, coming on the back of the BCI’s announcement of a tender process for the three commercial multiplexes. If that means nothing to you, listen in!

I’ve been obsessively following DTT in Ireland since April 2006 (As my Portfolio can attest) so it’s good to see some real progress on it – and to get the chance to discuss it on the radio.

Tune in, text in, comment on how amazing I am (or am not). Whatever takes your fancy.

In just a few hours time Britain’s Whitehaven & Copeland TV region will become the first in the country to switch off its analogue TV signal and go digital. This event will mark the start of a five-year process that will see the UK go entirely digital just in time for the quasi-deadline of 2012, set out by the EU on the matter.

Naturally tomorrow morning’s switch and the proceeding days and weeks will be watched carefully by the British Government and TV industry and almost certainly by its Irish counterparts. Even in this region, which has been hand-picked because of its suitability for a fully digital service, there are worries about households being left with no service on some or all of their televisions and the problems and complaints that come to light in the coming days, along with the tactics used to solve them, will inform the digital roll-out for the rest of the UK and for Ireland, whenever that happens.

The British DTT service, Freeview, launched in 2002 on the back of the defunct ITV Digital service. It began modestly enough and was helped greatly by the fact that much of the digital mux infrastructure already existed, yet it has still taken 5 years for the Government to take the plunge and will take a whole decade before the UK in its entirety is 100% digital.

Ireland is a different beast, of course. It has one of the highest cable TV penetration rates in Europe and naturally has a much smaller population – on the other hand it has a far more dispersed population and in many areas a more complex terrain; as well as this the national TV infrastructure would need to be upgraded to carry digital.

Of course getting a house to pick up digital is only the first step. While two thirds of all households have either a UPC or Sky Digital services it’s likely that the majority of all households only have digital in one or two points in the house, relying on analogue terrestrial broadcasts elsewhere.

With these facts in mind it’s difficult to say how long Ireland’s digital roll-out and switchover will take but even if it were to take half as long as the UK’s the country would need a national service launch this year in order to make the EU’s 2012 deadline – this is almost certainly not going to happen.

In all likelihood the Irish DTT service will begin to take real shape in 2008 and may even launch tenuously by the end of that year, probably in Dublin first. It’s clear that the DCENR and BCI are giving it their priority, however it remains to be seen how much progress this focus will give it.

One of the last UK regions that will be switched over in 2012 will be Northern Ireland, the question now is how far behind the rest of the island will be.

My article on DAB radio in this week’s Media & Marketing section of The Sunday Business Post.

Digital audio broadcast (DAB) radio may not be a viable medium for advertisers for another three years, but it has huge potential once audiences start to tune in.

That’s the view of JP Coakley, head of operations at RTE Radio, who said the new technology would allow stations to adopt new business models and appeal to more targeted audiences.

DAB radio, which is currently being tested on the east coast of Ireland, allows for more radio stations at a higher standard than the traditional FM frequency. The trial is due to end in November, and Coakley said RTE was likely to bid for one of the two radio ‘multiplexes’ with a view to launching a permanent national service.

The trial currently features a number of local and national radio stations, as well as six DAB-only services from RTE, including a dedicated news channel and a children’s channel.

‘‘RTE Junior is completely new for us, and it’s nice to be able to offer something unique like that,” said Coakley. ‘‘As and when the audience grows, we can start to add resources to the services to make them even better.”

DJ Dusty Rhodes’s Digital Audio Productions company will be the first commercial player to offer a DAB-only service when his two niche stations launch in the coming days. ‘‘We expect to be profitable very early on,” said Rhodes, who has also launched his low-cost 1980s and R&B stations on digital cable services across the country.

At present, both stations play music without interruption from DJs or advertisements.

However, Rhodes said actual programming would be added over time and adverts were due to be introduced soon. ‘‘At the moment, they’re kind of like a jukebox, and there’s nowhere you can really go from there, so we’re planning to develop beyond that,” he said.

While DAB itself does not offer any more precise audience measurement tools than FM, Rhodes said he believed its extremely targeted content would counteract this.

‘‘Basically, if you’re under 30 or over 50, a 1980s station probably won’t be for you,” he said.

‘‘Every DAB radio out there has a screen on it where you can put up programme information or even the name of the song playing. It’s only a small feature, but it could make a big difference, just like text messaging did for mobile phones.”

Rhodes’ two stations have been granted a ten-year digital broadcast licence by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) and are not subject to the same strict regulations that FM stations have been in the past, such as a minimum requirement for news, talk and Irish content.

‘‘Ireland has a very vibrant radio sector, and I think these regulations are part of it, but I’m all about choice, and I think some stations should be able to offer something without things like news,” Rhodes said. ‘‘If you’re looking for news on DAB, you can now go to the dedicated RTE News channel that loops a three-minute bulletin, so the choice is still there for people who want to hear it.”

Coakley said the critical factor in advertisers’ support for DAB would be in the sale of devices across the country.

A number of retailers, particularly British companies operating in Ireland, have begun to stock DAB radios, although Coakley said he had been quick to remind them that the service was only on limited trial and was unlikely to attract as much attention at present.

Coakley conceded that Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) was likely to be the main focus of the likes of the BCIf or the near future and would gain plenty of publicity once launched nationally but this would not mean that DAB would suffer.

‘‘It’s a step in the right direction and, in Britain, the inclusion of the BBC’s digital-only stations on Freeview drove up interest in DAB, so it benefited from it,” he said.

In technical terms, the trial has been a success to date and the few problems that have arisen have been learned from. When asked about the possible use of DAB+, which is a more advanced version of digital audio broadcasting, Coakley said he would prefer to stick with DAB as it meant avoiding a situation where ‘‘you’re selling a radio in Dundalk that doesn’t work in Newry’’.

He also said he was not sure if DAB+ technology was necessary for the size of the Irish market at this time.

‘‘Digital radio mondiale (DRM) is an interesting proposition to me, as it is the digital equivalent of AM,” he said.

‘‘I think there’s plenty of scope for DAB and DRM to run side by side, just as FM and AM do now, and it could allow for far more diverse, international content.”

One paragraph review:

UPC‘s answer to Sky Digital‘s Sky+ service has finally been launched and it’s a considerable step forward for the company, even if it isn’t perfect. The box itself is considerable in size, owing largely to the built-in HDD and cable modem. The EPG is overhauled from the old NTL days and is vastly improved (for a start it goes 8 days into the future rather than one or two as before). The recording process is simple to manage, as are the live TV pause and rewind features. The downsides include a somewhat sluggish menu, a rather awkward process to find your recorded TV and an inability to record two progammes at once (which Sky+ can do). That said, all of these negatives are off-set by a well-needed new service delivered in a far more impressive way than old NTL might have managed. The promise that the new box will be Video On Demand and Interactive-capable over time is just the icing on the cake.

For an indepth review, click below to continue the article.
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I’ll be on Newstalk’s Culture Shock again tonight at around 8:45PM to preview the Sunday newspapers.

Be sure to tune in if you get the chance; It’s available on FM across most of Ireland (106-108FM), DAB on the East Coast of the country, online at newstalk.ie, on channel 210 on Sky Digital in Ireland or the UK or 932 on NTL/Chorus Digital in Ireland. (It’s also available under the radio section of the very limited DTT trial.)

My article on HDTV in Ireland, from today’s Sunday Business Post:

Ireland’s terrestrial television broadcasters are expected to start a high definition (HD) trial in July as part of the government’s digital terrestrial television pilot.

It is hoped that the trial, details of which have yet to be formalised, will feature content from RTE, TG4 and TV3 and will continue to run until late 2008, when the DTT trial ends.

HDTV offers far greater detail than the traditional broadcasts currently on offer. The majority of new televisions being sold in Ireland are now ‘HD Ready’, however, people hoping to view better quality pictures through them are still limited in their choice.

Currently, only Sky Digital offers a HD package to Irish viewers, while UPC, formerly NTL/Chorus, has merely pledged to launch a similar service at some point in the future.

Besides broadcasting, games consoles such as the Xbox 360 and PS3 use HD as standard, while next-generation DVDs are also HD. However, players for the competing HD formats, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, can cost anywhere between €700 and €1,400, depending on the make and format.

‘‘RTE is committed to high definition and as time goes by more of our people are preparing to move in that direction,” said John Hunt, director of operations, RTE Television.

‘‘But it takes a huge investment and is not something we want to rush into doing until everything is ready.”

Hunt said that a switch to HD involved an upgrade on every level of production, from the types of cameras used to the way sets are designed.

‘‘There’s also the point of making the move at the right time, when enough people can take advantage of it,” said Hunt. ‘‘There’s no point in us doing this as an elite thing.”

The potential application of HD content is another challenge facing broadcasters. One natural use for the higher standard is in movies and sports programming, something that Sky has already taken advantage of. However, other programming such as news and current affairs would not benefit as much.

Setanta Sports, which recently acquired the rights to nearly half of all English Premiership matches from next season, has said that it will not be moving to HD just yet, but it hopes to be closer to doing so in a year’s time.

‘‘At present we’re focusing most on launching Setanta Sports 1 in Ireland and organising ourselves for the new season and FA Cup,” said the company’s chief executive, Niall Cogley. ‘‘There are also issues of format and ensuring that we don’t invest in something that becomes obsolete.”

Cogley suggested that Setanta could be nearer to broadcasting in HD by the beginning of the 2008/9 season, something that was echoed by Hunt.

‘‘I think the last few months of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 will be the point to look out for,” said Hunt. ‘‘It’s hard to put a definite time frame on things, but with a full DTT service hopefully up and running by then there’ll be more room for HD.”

As of Thursday Ireland’s biggest commercial broadcaster has come under new ownership as both Canadian media group CanWest and struggling UK company ITV plc make their exit from the Irish market. The bid by Doughty Hanson valued the station at €265m with the private equity firm rumoured to be working on behalf of another company. However while TV3 itself is now profitable and its recent movement into the advertising sector certain to compliment that any new owner will face some tough decisions on the stations direction in the coming months and years; ones that could be the difference between boom and bust at TV3 HQ.

2006 is an interesting time for Irish TV; digital TV, home of multi-channel programming is now more popular than ever and the national Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) trial, which will eventually replace the existing four-channel analogue broadcast is also underway; as well as this new media such as the internet is beginning to take viewers eyes away from their TV in favour of their PC. Besides increased levels of competition the station must also contend with the licence renewal process in 2008, at which point their current broadcast remit ends. Potentially more damaging however is that the content provision agreement with ITV, which gives TV3 it’s most popular programming, will run out in the same year.

In this changing media landscape in which tried and tested tactics are beginning to suffer TV3 would do well to learn for the mistakes of its past masters at ITV plc. For decades the ITV network was the most powerful voice in the commercial TV sector in Britain; offering viewers a wealth of compelling and entertaining programming and advertisers an endless supply of potential customers. The explosion of multi-channel TV in the 1990’s as well as the growth in other media in recent years has changed that however with the company now struggling to maintain its position as a major player in the UK TV market.

TV3 is now in a similar situation to the one ITV found itself in during the 1990’s. In the same way that ITV lost its lions-share of the UK commercial market due to the rise of new British channels, TV3 can now no longer claim to be Ireland’s only commercial TV station. While cable take-up in Ireland is far higher than it has ever been across the water the only additional channels previously available were imported broadcasters like the BBC and Channel 4.  Since 2004 however three new Irish-based commercial players have come onto the scene, each one targeting a different niche in the market. Once DTT is fully functional TV3 is unlikely to be the only commercial broadcaster on the Irish terrestrial platform too.

In reaction to its competition problem, ITV, which earned a strong reputation from modern classics such as Spitting Image, The Prisoner and Cracker, moved into new programming like reality TV where production costs were low and revenue streams from phone-voting and competitions were high. More recently ITV launched ‘Play’, a digital-only channel that broadcasts interactive quiz shows featuring premium phone numbers and easy questions. As a result of its content shift ITV lost its name as a home of quality production and in the process lost its bankable identity. In more recent times it has seen its profit margin shrink and its market share drop to 16.3%, the lowest in the company’s history. Only now, with boss Charles Allen on his way out is drama becoming the stations focus again.

New Irish broadcasters like Channel 6, alongside the increased popularity of UTV in the Republic of Ireland are likely to be the greatest threat to TV3’s revenues in the near future and it would be foolish to assume other Irish commercial channels will not appear on the market in the next year or two also. Imported programming, regardless of its origin is becoming easier to see before the ‘official’ Irish broadcast on channels like RTÉ and TV3. It may be from foreign channels available on Sky and NTL/Chorus and it could even be online; iTunes in the USA currently offers legal downloads of hit shows from NBC, Disney, Fox and MTV and a similar service being made available in Ireland is only a matter of time.

The only way TV3 can secure its viewer-ship is if it takes its weight of the crutch of imported television and makes a serious move towards real home-grown drama, documentaries and comedy; something that it shows no sign of doing judging by its Autumn schedule. Phone-in competitions, imports and reality TV may seem like the most lucrative option for a quick buck but they only offer short-term viability and more importantly they are easily replicated by rival broadcasters. Unique and original programming is the only way for TV3 to ensure it has an upper hand on its rivals and while it has next to no long-term track record with home-produced content outside of sports and news it still has the advantage of a strong profit margin and decent facilities; something the likes of Channel 6 cannot yet boast and both of which may come under threat if the lazy option is taken as multi-channel Ireland becomes the norm.

Today’s YourTech section in the Sunday Business Post features my ‘how-to’ guide to DTT; it gives a simple explanation to DTT, tells you where you can get it and how as well as what’s on offer. Hopefully it will act as a good starting point for people interested in DTT but who aren’t sure where to start.

Ireland’s long-awaited Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) trial has been launched by the government. It is the first major step towards creating a digital alternative to traditional analogue broadcasts (or ATT).

You may have heard it being referred to as ‘Digital Video Broadcast – Terrestrial’ (DVBT) or even Freeview, which is the name of the British DTT service. DTT is just another form of digital television like Sky, NTL or Chorus.

However, it does not operate via satellite or cable, instead being received with a normal TV aerial just like analogue broadcasts are now (assuming you have the correct additional equipment).

There is an expectation that further services will be trialled such as interactive TV, video on demand and high definition broadcasts. It is hoped that when the trial ends in 2008 that a national DTT service based on this initial test will be rolled out.

Unfortunately my recommendation to visit the ICDG forums was sacrificed in the editing process; but I’m sure you already knew that that was the place to go if you want to make sure you’re in the right area!

The Irish Times today reports on Liberty Global, owner of NTL and Chorus and their impressive rise in Irish subscribers since March of this year.

Their Irish customer base has now reached 600,200 and is an important landmark for the group.

Liberty Global have been slowly merging NTL and Chorus into one service since they acquired the former earlier this year; it is expected that they will eventually create a unified structure under the ‘UPC’ brand name.

The group has recently announced a move into the triple-play market, where it will offer digital TV, high speed broadband and VoIP phone as part of a single package. It has also make its intentions clear to move towards PVR, HD and interactive.

Despite being the biggest player in the Irish market it still falls short on many of the services offered by its biggest rival, Sky. At present Sky Digital offers interactive as standard and allows viewers to upgrade to HD and PVR capabilities if they wish. Sky is also moving into the broadband market in the UK and has suggested it may do the same in Ireland next year.

UPC faces some potentially rough waters in the coming year as it tries to bring its technology up to pace and re-brand itself at the same time. The past few years have seen TV technology move at lightening pace and the catastrophic demise of NTL Ireland meant its customers got left behind in many ways.

UPC, Sky and other players like Magnet will want to position themselves very carefully over the next two years in preperation for DTT; once subscription-free multi-channel TV comes onto the market things are going to get even harder for them all.