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RTÉ’s Chief Financial Officer has said that it has spent €40m putting the Digital Terrestrial Television infrastructure in place. Conor Hayes was speaking this morning at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.

Mr Hayes told the committee that RTÉ wants to make two complimentary digital systems, DTT and free-to-air, available to replace the analogue service. Mr Hayes said RTÉ is working against the clock to achieve analogue TV switch-off, which is planned for 31 September 2012.

He said that by October of this year, RTÉ would have a national TV free-to-air multiplex operational, which would be capable of being received by 90% of the population. Mr Hayes said the total spend on the project will be €70m for the two multiplex platforms. Originally, it had planned for six multiplex platforms.

Head of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland Bob Collins told the committee that unfortunately the project has not proceeded at the pace it should have. Households without satellite or cable television services will have to upgrade to DTT.

via RTÉ News

First of all, last year I think, Boxer was awarded the contract for the Irish DTT rollout. They took too long and eventually pulled out from the contract. The government then awarded the contract to the second placed consortium, who also did not take up the offer. Finally we thought it was going to land in the lap of the third, and final placed consortium from the original bidding process. But guess what, now they dont want it either.

Now we have a looming analogue switch off deadline, and no one want to run the commercial DTT!

Communications Minister Eamon Ryan is to meet the Broadcasting Authority, ComReg and RTE next week in a bid to kickstart the collapsed Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) project.

A spokeswoman for the minister said last night he was “disappointed” that the Broadcasting Authority’s process to find a commercial DTT operator had failed. She added, however, that public service television would switch over from analogue to the DTT system by the EU’s 2012 deadline “come what may”.

via The Indo

RTÉ have announced that Ryan Tubridy will be the host of the Late Late show from the autumn

RTÉ Sport have announced their live GAA coverage for the forthcoming 2009 Championship.

17 May

Fermanagh v Down, 3.30pm

24 May

Derry v Monaghan, 2pm

Kildare v Offaly, 4pm

30 May

Offaly v Wexford, 7pm (Hurling)

31 May

Tyrone v Armagh, 2pm

Tipperary v Cork, 4pm (Hurling)

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A new catch-up web TV service has been launched on RTÉ.ie.The RTÉ player gives Irish broadband users the opportunity to watch their favourite RTÉ television programmes for up to 21 days after broadcast.  See it here

It was developed with a view to delivering a new and improved service to reflect audience needs and to offer viewers more choice in how they watch programmes. More than 200 hours of programmes from all categories of the RTÉ broadcast schedule are available to view.

News and sports fans can watch all RTÉ’s news and current affairs output and get free access to RTÉ’s top sports shows including The Sunday Game, Monday Night Soccer and OB Sport.

The player is a beta release – it is the first version released outside the organisation that developed the software, for the purpose of evaluation and testing.

via RTÉ News

RTÉ’s six new digital radio services went live today. The new stations include Ireland’s first dedicated childrens’ radio service, RTÉ Junior, and the speech-based RTÉ Choice. The other stations available are RTÉ Gold, RTÉ Pulse, RTÉ 2XM and RTÉ Chill. Listeners in the greater Dublin area, Cork and Limerick cities can hear the stations on DAB digital radio sets available from retailers in those areas. The services are also available online at www.rte.ie/digitalradio