Thousands lose free Beeb in big switch-off
Tuesday August 11 2009
THEY were once the first people in Ireland to be able to watch television -- but now they're about to lose their signal.
The residents of the south east were once the envy of the country because they were able to pick up the BBC and ITV television signals in the 1950s before RTE came into existence.
But now the British government is switching off its analogue television signal to Wales in the coming months. This means that people in counties such as Dublin, Wicklow, Wexford and Waterford will have to either pay for cable or satellite television to get British TV channels.
A private RTE document estimated that there were still 197,000 people in the country who were dependent on the British television "spillover" for their free multi-channel viewing.
However, some of these are located in the border counties and are receiving their signal from the North, which is not due to be switched off until 2012.
Concerned
Labour communications spokesperson Liz McManus said she was concerned at the effect the Welsh switch-off would have on viewers.
"RTE has promised us that people would not lose out but they clearly are going to lose out with the disaster in relation to Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) project," she said.
The DTT project was meant to provide a free-to-air digital television service but the private Boxer consortium in charge of rolling it out pulled out of the project last April. RTE has now admitted that it will no longer meet its target of having the service in place by next month.
Ms McManus, who has raised the issue in the Dail, said nobody had been able to give her assurances as to what would happen to those losing the British TV signal.
"A lot of them are elderly people who don't know this is going to hit them. This is really quite outrageous," she said.
Communications Minister Eamon Ryan admitted that the switch-off of the analogue television signal in Wales in the autumn would affect people in the south east of the country.
But he said this was a development that he had no control over and promised that viewers would be able to get British television channels again once the DTT service was made available.
RTE has already upgraded 85pc of its transmission network to provide for digital television, but it needs to carry out work on its minor transmitters to ensure the remaining population -- in parts of the west, north, north west and south -- is also capable of receiving it.
- Michael Brennan Political Correspondent
