Ireland’s pay-DTT plans close to collapse

Negotiations between One Vision, the consortium tasked with operating a pay-DTT service in Ireland, and broadcaster RTE have broken down, according to reports.

The consortium, led by telco Eircom, was offered the commercial contract for DTT last May after Boxer withdrew plans to invest €165m in the project. Negotiations between One Vision and broadcaster RTE, which will run the public service side of DTT, began to stall and Eircom brought in an independent arbitrator, which said the parties were so far from reaching an agreement that further consultation was pointless, according to the Irish Independent. The newspaper said One Vision and RTE disagreed on many things, including the price of network carriage, marketing support and the type of security One Vision would need to offer RTE.