Television in Ireland

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Ireland's television channels are a subset of the Media in Ireland.

Contents

[edit] Republic of Ireland Terrestrial Channels

These channels are available as free-to-air analogue broadcasts, as well as on satellite and cable systems. Approximately 21.5% of homes receive only these channels. 78% of homes receive additional channels.

Radio Telefís Éireann - the independent state broadcasting company

  • RTÉ One - main RTÉ national station (broadcast from both Cork and Dublin).
  • RTÉ Two - secondary RTÉ national station (known for a long period as "Network 2")
  • TG4 - National Irish Language station

Independent terrestrial station

In some areas (particularly in the west and south west) a number of "deflector systems" re-broadcast UK terrestrial channels (often illegally) on low power UHF transmitters.

[edit] Reception of Republic of Ireland Terrestrial Channels in Northern Ireland

Many, but by no means all, areas of Northern Ireland can receive the four analogue channels listed above using a high gain UHF aerial. Under the Belfast Agreement (Good Friday Agreement) RTE were to boost signal strength at their Clermont Carn UHF transmitter in Co. Louth to allow better reception of their channels in Northern Ireland. In addition, RTÉ built a low power UHF transmitter on Holywell Hill in Co. Donegal to serve North Donegal, but as the transmitter site overlooks the City of Derry, the city gets the Irish terrestrial channels also. All the channels (except TV3 Ireland) are now available on Sky Digital (UK & Ireland) to Northern Ireland subscribers (but not Great Britain subscribers) without additional charge but with certain programmes (such as live English football) blocked with the message: This programme is not available.

[edit] Channels available from the United Kingdom

[edit] Northern Irish Terrestrial Channels

The main UK terrestrial channels are also available in most parts of the Republic via various means with the Northern Irish variants the most widely available. The UK Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) system, Freeview, can be received in border areas of the Republic. The main analogue channels are:

In addition, a number of local television stations operate in Northern Ireland

[edit] Welsh Terrestrial Channels

In some areas of the Republic of Ireland (mainly the South East), Welsh channels are available off-air, via both analogue and digital terrestrial.

Some cable, MMDS and deflector systems towards this part of the country carry these channels as opposed to the Northern Irish variants, although this is generally changing with the consolidation of cable networks.

[edit] Cable/Satellite Channels

A number of Irish channels operate solely on cable (or MMDS systems operated by cable firms), or on cable and Sky Digital

  • Province5 broadcast only to the town of Navan on Chorus Cable, but is the oldest cable-only broadcaster in Ireland.
  • Setanta Sports is an Irish broadcaster that has expanded its North American and Australian pay-per-view private satellite feeds into a series of channels for the Ireland, UK and European regions. Setanta Ireland is on the former NTL cable systems as well as being on Sky Digital. Subscription channels Setanta Sports 1 & 2 and NASN ( North American Sports Network ) are also carried on the Sky & NTL platforms.
  • Chorus Sports is on Chorus Cable, which shows local sports, greyhound racing, and national motor racing events. The channel has been re-licenced as Chorus TV and will be moving to a general audience.
  • Sky News Ireland is a 1 hour daily Irish opt-out on Sky News, carried to Ireland on Sky Digital, and by most cable companies. Also available in the UK on Sky News Active
  • City Channel commenced in October 2005 providing local television output for Dublin. It currently only available on NTL digital in Dublin, Galway and Waterford.
  • TWC, ACTIONMAX and Movies4Men, whilst UK owned, are edited and produced from Howth in County Dublin.
  • Channel 6, a cable-only general entertainment channel. Due to the fact that Channel 6 have applied to manage the entire DTT network, it is thought that whether or not it is successful, Channel 6 will at least attempt to obtain a DTT channel slot.
  • Cabletext Waterford, a cable-only local channel. [1]
  • Bubble Hits, a music television station based in Ashbourne and broadcast by satellite to the UK and Ireland.

[edit] Future Channels

  • Dublin Community Television, a BCI licensed digital cable channel to serve Dublin city and county.
  • Chorus TV (see above)

[edit] Defunct Channels

  • Channel 3 (Later known as Channel D) was a short-lived television station broadcasting from July 1981 to October 1981. It was a pirate TV channel.
  • Capital Television was another short-lived channel which only broadcast a caption for a week, along with a testcard at night another week. It, too, was a pirate TV channel.
  • Nova TV was another pirate TV channel that was broadcast for a short time in the 1980s.
  • Telefis na Gaeltachta, unconnected to the later TnaG, was a pirate Irish language service in the west of Ireland.
  • Tara TV was an Irish channel that was broadcast in the UK on Sky Digital from 1997 until RTÉ forced its closure in 2002. It was also broadcast in the Republic of Ireland for much of this time.
  • A large amount of cable systems prior to the mergers of the 1990's broadcast "local information" channels which rarely consisted of more than local advertisements, text news, bus timetables and similar, although local-level sport, particularly gaelic games, were also common.
  • Some deflector systems run or have run their own services (illegally), generally similar to those run (legally) by the cable operators. Also, some 'relay' services for which terrestrial overspill reception is physically impossible, such as EWTN.

[edit] Other Channels

In September 2006, it was estimated[1] that 70% of Irish homes have cable, satellite or MMDS TV, with 70% of these using digital systems. As a result the majority of Irish homes have a large number of tv channels available - a full list is available at the page List of television channels available in Ireland.

Many of these channels acknowledge their Irish audience, ranging from providing Irish telephone or SMS numbers (e.g TMF, QVC), to providing a specific Irish advertising stream (Sky One, E4, Paramount Comedy Channel).

TV stations from other countries available in Ireland include those from Poland, China, France, Germany, Spain, India, Pakistan and the U.S.A.. These are mainly viewed by immigrants from those countries and are not available on the packages offered by the main cable, satellite or MMDS operators.

[edit] Technical Information

Analogue television in both parts of Ireland uses System I with 625 lines and the PAL colour standard, with NICAM digital stereo sound where applicable. In the Republic both VHF and UHF are used but in Northern Ireland, in common with the rest of the UK, VHF is no longer used for analogue TV. VHF for TV transmission is slowly being phased out in Ireland - only RTÉ One and RTÉ Two are on VHF band III in some areas, and the more recently established stations (TV3 and TG4) have been only broadcast on UHF.

[edit] Digital terrestrial television (DTT)

There is no public digital terrestrial television in the Republic of Ireland as yet, although RTÉ and the Department of Communications, Marine & Natural Resources are trialling a DVB-T based system at the moment. Digital terrestrial television in Ireland is currently limited to retransmitting the nationally available TV and radio services via a single multiplex.

UK DTT aka Freeview can be received in parts of Wicklow, Wexford, Westmeath, Roscommon, Sligo as well as those counties bordering Northern Ireland.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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