Ireland
[IE] Digital Switchover of Terrestrial Television Complete
IRIS 2013-1:1/27
Damien McCallig
School of Law, National University of Ireland, Galway
At 10:00 am on 24 October 2012 Ireland’s analogue television signal was switched off. Analogue technology had been used to transmit and receive television signals in Ireland since television broadcasting started in 1962. This completes Ireland’s digital switchover from analogue to digital television services and meets the European Union target of 2012 for analogue switch-off.
The switchover was coordinated with the digital switchover in Northern Ireland. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between the Irish Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and the United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Under the terms of the Memorandum the widespread availability of RTÉ services and TG4 in Northern Ireland will be facilitated on a free-to-air basis and BBC services will be available in Ireland on a paid-for basis.
References
- Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Digital Switchover website
- http://www.goingdigital.ie
- Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Memorandum of Understanding between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of Ireland regarding the Digital Switchover and the provision of television services in Northern Ireland and Ireland (1 February 2010)
- http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/NR/rdonlyres/7FC4288D-714E-41D8-A139-8A309C2F9A14/0/UKNIROIMOUFeb2010.pdf
This article has been published in IRIS Legal Observations of the European Audiovisual Observatory.