BT Ireland consortium outlines bid for DTT licence


12 May 2008

A consortium involving BT Ireland, media holding company Communicorp and Swedish digital terrestrial television (DTT) operator, the Boxer Group, outlined its case for a DTT license to the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) today.

The consortium, Boxer DTT, is vying for one of the three DTT licenses that will be awarded by the BCI in July. It is competing against Onevision, a consortium involving Eircom, TV3 and Setanta, and a consortium comprising RTÉ and cable company UPC.

“It’s just not appropriate for any broadcaster to be directly involved in platform management, including RTÉ,” Lucy Gaffney, chairperson of Boxer DTT, commented at the presentation today.

She also noted that Boxer DTT was the only consortium established specifically and solely to provide DTT services in Ireland

Gaffney outlined plans for the consortium to invest €115m in a broadcast network and multiplexing services, €30m in customer support services and €20m in sales and marketing in its first four years if successful in its bid to secure a licence.

She envisaged the consortium offering over 30 channels from January 2009 through existing roof top aerials, with the service debuting in major cities and being rolled out to the whole country by 2012, when analogue TV signals will be turned off.

By Niall Byrne