Digital Switchover in Ireland
The terrestrial analogue television service providing free to air access to RTÉ, TV3 and TG4 television channels is being upgraded to a digital terrestrial televison (DTT) service. The DTT service will be operated by RTÉ and will have space for the existing channels as well as other TV and radio channels.
The RTÉ DTT service is expected to replace the terrestrial analogue television service in ireland in the next few years. During a transition phase the terrestrial analogue TV service will continue to be broadcast along with the DTT services. the transition period will allow time for RTÉ to build and develop the DTT network completely and will also allow time for TV viewers to update their receiving equipment before the analogue network is switched off.
Part 8 of the Broadcasting Act, 2009 deals with analogue switch off and provides for an analogue switch off date or dates to be announced by the Minister in due course.
In order to progress the change from analogue to digital TV, the European Commission has designated 2012 as the year by which analogue terrestrial TV transmissions will cease in Europe. Ireland has indicated its intention to meet this 2012 deadline.
Digital Switchover in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has planned a regional approach to analogue switch-off which started in October 2007 and ends in 2012. The closure of the analogue broadcasts in the UK will impact on viewers in Ireland who currently receive their UK TV channels through overspill of the UK analogue services.
In particular, a number of households in the southeast of the country and a number of households located in proximity to the border with Northern Ireland receive BBC1, BBC2, UTV and Channel 4 as a result of overspill from the UK based analogue terrestrial TV networks. Once the UK switch off their analogue networks (Wales – 2009/2010, Northern Ireland - 2012) this analogue overspill will cease.
Analogue switch off in Wales started in August 2009 and the Department released a press statement warning of this. Please follow this link to see the relevant page on this webiste.
Further details of the UK switchover dates can be found here. More detailed information on the UK schedule for digital switchover is available here.
On Feb 1st 2010 The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Eamon Ryan TD signed a Memorandum of Understanding with and Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Ben Bradshaw M.P. This MOU provides for North-South co-operation on the transition to Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and analogue switch off. It also provides for the carriage of TG4 on NI’s DTT platform and provides an opportunity for RTÉ to be transmitted over DTT in the North (and for BBC to be carried south of the border). The MOU is available by following this link.
Digital Switchover in Europe
In a communication published in May 2005, the EC strongly advocated that by 2012 all analogue terrestrial TV transmitters in Europe should be switched off in order to free up radio frequencies for other uses and Ireland expects to meet this deadline.
Switch off of analogue terrestrial TV has already taken place in Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden and in several areas in Germany. Of the 27 European countries 25 have indicated analogue switch off by 2012. Further information is available in the following document:
Information from Member States regarding switch off of analogue terrestrial TV
This information is summarised in the following working document:
Information from Member States regarding roll out of digital terrestrial TV and switch off of analogue terrestrial TV
The European Commission has made available information on the switchover plans of the EU member states on it's website. Please click here for link
Further information on policy relating to digital switchover within Europe may be found at the following link
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/audiovisual_and_media/l24223a_en.htm
In addition, information regarding digital terrestrial television services throughout Europe and beyond can be found at the following link http://www.digitag.org/
More widely, at the Regional Radiocommunication Conference (RRC-06) held in Geneva in 2006, participating countries across Europe (including Ireland), Africa and the Middle East agreed that after 2015 analogue terrestrial TV frequencies would no longer be protected from interference from other services. In effect this means that in many countries throughout the world, analogue TV will no longer be available after 2015.