Access to Republic of Ireland Digital TV channels confirmed for Northern Ireland

Published on 31/05/2012 10:26

TV viewers in Northern Ireland will be able to watch TG4 and RTÉ One and Two on Freeview following digital TV switchover, the UK Government confirmed on Tuesday.

RTÉ, the Republic of Ireland’s national broadcaster, and Irish language broadcaster TG4 have joined forces to form a not-for-profit venture which will be responsible for the installation of the new infrastructure. Freeview delivery of these channels will be supplemented by overspill coverage from Saorview, the equivalent of Freeview in the Republic of Ireland.

Communications Minister Ed Vaizey said:

“I’m delighted that the digital future for TG4, RTÉ One and RTÉ Two in Northern Ireland is now strengthened and secure. Today’s announcement is good news for viewers and continues our delivery on commitments set out in the Good Friday agreement.”

Speaking in Dublin, Minister for Communications, Energy & Natural Resources, Pat Rabbitte, said:

“This announcement means that from Analogue Switch-off on 24 October, over 90% of viewers in Northern Ireland will be able to receive TG4 and the two primary RTÉ channels in digital on the Freeview service or by way of the overspill from the Saorview service. It is a hugely positive result in terms of practical cooperation resulting from the Good Friday Agreement.”

To ensure the new Freeview service covers as much of the population as possible, the new service will use the modern MPEG4 and DVB-T2 standards which can be received on Freeview HD equipment. Many of the TV sets, set top boxes and digital recorders currently on sale in the UK already meet these requirements, and more information will be made available to the public by Digital UK and broadcasters well in advance of the launch of the service.

Digital switchover completes in Northern Ireland on 24th October 2012. It is intended that the new multiplex will be launched at the same time. Switchover co-ordination body Digital UK and the Digital Switchover Help Scheme will lead on public communications on the availability of these new services.

Both the UK and Irish Governments are committed to providing all possible support to meet the challenging timetable.

News

Looking for...

Featured advertisers

Jobs

Search for a job

Motors

Search for a car

Make Model Price from Price to

Property

Search for a house

Buy Rent

Bedrooms Price from Price from Price to Price to

What is a Cookie?
What is a Flash Cookie?
Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?
About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.
This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.
Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.
The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:
- Revenue Science ►
  
  A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.
- Google Ads ►
  
  Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.
- Webtrends / Google Analytics ►
  
  This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.
- Dart for Publishers ►
  
  This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.
- ComScore ►
  
  ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.
- Local Targeting ►
  
  Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.
- Grapeshot ►
  
  We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.
- Subscriptions Online ►
  
  Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.
- Add This ►
  
  Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.
- 3rd Party Cookies ►
  
  We use Advertising agencies to provide us with some of the advertising on our websites. These include (but are not limited to) Specific Media, The Rubicon Project, AdJug, AdConion, Context Web. Please click on the provider name to visit their opt-out page.

Access to Republic of Ireland Digital TV channels confirmed for Northern Ireland

Top stories

News