Republic of Ireland

Can you elaborate on that at all Telefis? I presume RTÉ will have a news channel and one extra channel like RTÉ TWO which would presumably be called RTÉ THREE. And whats this about TG4 having an extra channel??? Is there a market for more TG4 stuff???

Good question, or perhaps more pointedly is there the funding for such extra channels? - especially TG4.
When the multiplexes were launched (the platforms on which the channels operate), RTÉ was given a whole multiplex to itself enabling it to have up to about six channels in total (incl RTÉ 1&2), while TV3 and TG4 were given half a mulitplex each meaning in theory they could probably have two extra channels each, but one is more likely. In any event, it's best to keep the number of channels per multiplex to four or five to reduce the amount of compression required. This is a problem in the UK I believe.

RTÉ's original proposals way back in 1997 were for a news channel, an educational channel, RTÉ Plus showing RTÉ repeats, an Oireachtas channel, and a channel possibly dedicated to local and regional access television.

By 2000 or so this had morphed into a 24 hour 'information channel' - presumably with news at its core - called 'Ireland Today', a young people's channel called 'Zap TV' (I know, it gets worse ), and a learning and education channel called 'Eolas'.

Whatever about the names, I can still see this package being rolled out today, presumably with 'Eolas' also encompassing repeats - RTÉ does have a vast archive that needs to be put to good use.
RTÉ Three and RTÉ Four should definitely be used as branding - remembering the RTÉ Branding Blitz that we so know and love today hadn't been invented yet way back in 2000
I think RTÉ News is enough as a branding for a news channel - what do you think? If it included other material though, it may need a broader name.

The thing about parliamentary coverage is that it is incredibly cheap and fills up vast quantities of time, so much so that it's really unsuitable for use on a news/information channel such is its sporadic nature and its eratic durations. A channel all to itself is really required, remembering that everything from Dáil sessions, to Seanad sittings, to Committee meetings can and ought to be covered.
At present there is continuous live feed from Leinster House to RTÉ in Montrose, and is probably even partly paid for by the Oireachtas, not sure, so either way it costs pretty much nothing to run an Oireachtas channel - just the start-up expenses.

A problem with a news channel would be that It wouldn't be a rolling news channel per se because it woud have to be in Gaelic, or else people ike me would complain, but I personally don't care if it is in English.

Those channel names are dreadful - Zap TV - . Thankfully the 'branding blitz' is in full swing today although I'd like the radio stations to be renamed RTÉ Radio 1, RTÉ Radio 2, RTÉ Raidió 3 and RTÉ Radio 4. I presume they'll launch a few more radio stations - possibly regional ones?

Its hypothetical speculation time again! Yes the names RTÉ Three and RTÉ Four do sound nice, don't they! The young people's and repeat channel should be called RTÉ Three and RTÉ Four should be the educational channel. I'd leave all the sport on RTÉ Two. I don't think an RTÉ Sport channel would be feasable - it'd be almost all repeats of GAA matches! I was thinking about the news channel aspect myself. I think a full-blown rolling news channel (along with the usual cock-ups - it would be great craic!) would be feasable - just shove the 'informational' programming onto RTÉ Four! I would keep the 3 main bulletins on RTÉ One like they are still running on BBC One. However there would be no simulcasting; while the main bulletin is on RTÉ One, the bulletin on RTÉ News would be in Irish. So it wouldn't be exactly the same thing on each channel like BBC One and News 24 at present - whats the point in that??? There are plenty of newsreaders who could do four hour shifts for example and still do one of the bulletins in Irish - Sharon Ni Bheoláin or Gráinne Seoige for example. Surely Gráinne would be pulled onto a news channel when they set it up! Then there would be 3 international news bulletins during the day on RTÉ News which would be simulcast on RTÉ International - at 12:00, 17:00 and 20:00 GMT which would be 13:00, 18:00 and 21:00 CET thus having the equivalent time slot as on RTÉ One. RTÉ International would be basically a variation of RTÉ One but with more repeats of home-made shows. They could show the Late Late and big shows like that live. Then I suppose you could have RTÉ Oireachtas doing all the Parliamentary coverage and, as someone said, have coverage of European Parliament sessions - coverage of which is very sparse across Ireland and the UK, if not all of Europe.

So thats 7 TV channels - RTÉ One through Four, RTÉ News, RTÉ Oireachtas and RTÉ International. You could call it RTÉ World but I don't think they'd be interested in broadcasting it outside of Europe. Then why not call it RTÉ Europe? Well if they did decide to broadcast it in the USA for example in the future, they'd have to go changing the name so a safer bet is RTÉ International. Anyway, they already have a radio station called RTÉ Europe so it would get a bit confusing. RTÉ International wouldn't be broadcast on DTT but would be freely available on FTA satellite, like RTÉ News and RTÉ Oireachtas (presuming there's no rights issues with the EUp parliament and all of that). RTÉ's MUX would have therefore 6 channels so you may have compression problems as you say Telefis. I don't think RTÉ's other four channels would ever go FTA on satellite - a FTV card system is the best we can hope for.

Thats the way I'd like to see RTÉ Television in the future. Anybody else with some suggestions ?

Ah yes - the aul Gaeilgoirí coming in for their bite of the cherry
Nuacht on the channel would actually be a very good way of increasing Irish output on RTÉ - regular full bulletins could remain on RTÉ One, and perhaps 5 minute segments every hour on RTÉ News? Or maybe longer bursts every few hours. The difficulty with regular segments is that it impedes the flow of regular news - especially breaking news.

Lots of good ideas there Phen – it would indeed be good to transmit live programming as such on RTÉ International where possible. I can see it being a difficult balance however in trying to separate repeated content on RTÉ Three from informational programming on RTÉ Four, as essentially this is what much of Three’s content would be outside of ‘youth’ hours, whatever they may be. Perhaps better to aim Three solely at the youth market and move repeats and informational over to Four, giving it a broader, more popular remit than BBC Four.

An RTÉ News certainly throws up a lot of challenges for the broadcaster – not least its repertoire of newsreaders which needs to be substantially beefed up in numbers and boosted in terms of quality and competency. It would appear however that there is excess baggage already which may help matters – there’s a lot of ancillary newsreaders from Ken Hammond to Anne Cassin to Niall Carroll etc that rarely get an outing.

But on simulcasting, it would make sense for RTÉ as such a small broadcaster to avail of this opportunity to save on costs and broadcast principal bulletins on both channels. Indeed given their limited resources, it’s very possible that we’ll only have one news set anyway! It’s not so much the studio and set costs etc that are in question, but as always: crewing. To constantly operate (and fit out, and maintain) two major news galleries is a big strain on resources for such a tiny broadcaster. RTÉ are renowned across Europe for their cost-effective operations in producing high-quality content – this may well turn out to be an example of this. Rehearsing for bulletins on set may be the only problem, but they may just have to live without it – all rolling news channels do for most of their operations.

Also, maybe it would be better to transmit the major One, Six One and Nine bulletins on International rather than RTÉ News channel editions, considering their format is already geared towards ‘roundup news’ positioned in a varied station schedule, as are their durations, ad break positionings, and production design. If the news channel ones turned out to be similar, then fair enough – in all probability they would be anyway!

Dail Tv is being launched bring propaganda straight to your Living room 24/7 from the Oireachtas, Dail and Seanad

The original plan for Irish DTT, under the Broadcasting Act 2001, was for six multiplexes. A very similar plan to the original ONdigital set up:

Mux 1: To be given to services operated by RTÉ ("The Authority")
Mux 2: To be given 1/2 to services operated by the Television Programme Contractor (ie, TV3) and 1/2 to Telefis na Gaelige or Serbhisi Telefis na Gaelige Teoranta as might be applicable at the time (ie, TG4).
Mux 3-6 To be given to the multiplex company to do as it wished, with the proviso that a condition be attahced to the licence that "to use a multiplex or part of a multiplex solely for the purposes of programme material supplied to it under and in accordance with this Act by a person who provides a broadcasting service in Northern Ireland, being a broadcasting service that is receivable throughout the whole of Northern Ireland and which is provided by terrestrial means." - ie to put the UK terrestrial channels on one mux.

All this is gone up in smoke now. Its' still law, but the relevant sections of the Broadcasting Act 2001 were never commenced.

The current trial plan is for three muxes. The Irish terrestrial channels will be on one mux. Mux 2 & 3 are up for contest, and the BCI and DCMNR are looking for content for the trial. I would imagine we will end up with the likes of the free Sky channels (News, Travel, and Three), Euronews, and City Channel. There would probably be rights issues with providing Channel 6 FTA and I'm not sure Setanta would want to be.

As for an Oireachtas channel, its rather easy to provide, there are internal feeds of the Dail and Seanad already available, all that would be needed would for them to be packaged and distributed.

One things for sure - any solution which does not provide the NI terrestrials (except Five, which we're not too bothered about) will end up being a solution for second TVs and the like, people will not use it as their primary TV system without them.

I think it is hardly realistic for the RTÉ to run its own dedicated news channel, with the limited budget available. The four major Nordic countires all have a population number that can be compared to Ireland. Sweden and Finland have started up DTT years ago, with Denmark having launched it recently and Norway in its planning. All public broadcasters have or are planning new channels, but none of them are having more than three new channels.

Both SVT (Sweden) and YLE (Finland) have dedicated news channels that have failed. SVT24 started out as a 24-hour rolling news channel, but it was very repetitive due to lack of funds. A re-launch in 2003 didn't help and today, the channel mostly broadcasts news updates on the hour with a few programmes in the evening and a C-SPAN-style service during the day (due to even more budget cuts next year). YLE24 is mostly simulcasting with Euronews with a few programmes in the evening. Both NRK (Norway) and DR (Denmark) have stated that they do not intend to launch dedicated news channels, although NRK are thinking of a broader "news and information channel", but its going to be done by repositioning the existing NRK2 rather than launching NRK24..

In addition to SVT24, SVT do also have a children's channel and an education channel, both being run on a shoestring. YLE has a BBC Four-like channel called YLE Teema and YLE FST for the Swedish-speaking minority.

NRK and DR are intending to launch one digital channel each, with NRK having a children's channel (NRK3) and DR having an unnamed combined childrens' and history channel.

Common for all these channels is that they have troubles finding their viewers. The existing children's channel has relatively high ratings, the educational channels doesn't have high ratings but are popular among a few, while the news channels doesn't attract any viewers at all apart from when SVT24 is used for extra sports coverage.

My two cents would be that RTÉ can only afford two extra channels. As they already have a childrens channel (The Den on RTÉ Two) they don't have to launch a dedicated one.

I would suggest that one channel (RTÉ Three?) becomes a broader channel. Archive programming, news updates and more cultural programming could be suggested as content. The other would be an educational channel (RTÉ Knowledge). One action that could be discussed is to move The Den from RTÉTwo and let The Den become a channel on its own, time-sharing with RTÉ Knowledge.

Can we get back to the topic please everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the topic.......We are not off it. It would be cool to get the UK Terrestrials, but My summer home in mullaghmore in north Sligo can get every UK channel except five.

lol - indeed.

Very true about Scandinavia Thinker - and they also have a simimilar situation to Irelnd regarding population size, market share, and public service funding (if Sweden more subsidised than here).

A broader news and information channel on the lines of NRK I agree is on the cards for RTÉ. I don't think anybody is expecting or suggesting a service on the scale of News 24 or Sky - but regular bulletins on the hour, even comprising the first half hour of every hour, is not beyond reach. At the end of the day RTÉ have the most comprehensive and advanced broadcast newsroom in Ireland, running at near full capacity for 12 hours a day. It doesn't take much to translate this to screen - if anything it is a resource wasted at present rather than a resource that needs massive boosting for a dedicated channel as is often perceived.

It's mainly technical manpower, i.e. crewing that is the big cost for an expanded news service, rather than a huge boost in news staff - more a case of rotation and reorganising existing staff one would imagine in realtion to them, though more would inevitably be required too.

To operate on a 20 minute or half hour basis would free up decent 26-30 minute slots for full-scale programming, certainly at off-peak anyway. One would also not expect a broadcaster the size of RTÉ to transmit news beyond 2am or before 6am, indeed even after 1am.

The main aim for RTÉ News on digital is to provide a platform for regular access to Irish news - not constant, but regular, essentially boosting the service that currently can not be provided on the existing principal networks. It shouldn't be a cse of doing rolling news because it is fashionable, but rather to enhance RTÉ's public service remit in the most practical and cost-effective way possible, and in a way that the public accepts.

I would have to agree about a dedicated youth channel - there isn't a need for it, not least an Irish one considering 'youth programming' is mostly acquired anyway. It's not something RTÉ should be dabbling in - rather part of it can be provided via the repeats element of a new digital service. Children's and Young People's ought to be boosted and consolidated on RTÉ Two.

Perhaps a BBC World-style news and information channel would be the best way forward in that case with bulletins on the hour and features on the half-hour such as Nationwide, Prime Time (albeit a shortened version), The Week in Politics etc. Euronews could be broadcast from 1am until, say, 9am. You could always combine the news channel with the Dáil channel so economise on things. Then of course when a major news story occurs, they can run the bulletin continuously for a hour or two. If we were to be very realistic then I agree with Thinker that we'll only see one extra general channel which could handle repeats and the educational-style programming ie: RTÉ Three. To be honest, I can't really see RTÉ launching a special Dáil channel but I could be wrong.