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It'sTV Ltd is only bidder to publically declare interest

Friday at 12 noon saw the closing of bids to operate the national Digital Terrestrial Television multiplex service. With the Government warning that there may be very little interest in the licence, sure enough only one company has publically declared that it has submitted a bid. Its'TV Limited (they prefer to be called its'TV, with a lower case i just like ntl) is chaired by Peter Branagan, and backed by Dublin venture capital company Delta Partners. Mr. Branagan possibly knows more than most people about the Irish DTT system in that he helped develop it. He was head of the "Digico Project" within RTE, the original team who worked on digital terrestrial television, and which was intended to develop into a fully fledged DTT operating company 40% owned by RTE. When it was decided to franchise out the multiplex operation and seperate it from the transmission operation (the sale process for which is continuing seperatly), Mr Branagan and three other RTE executives quit the state authority and set up it'sTV to bid for this licence. It'sTV is at present unwilling to state publically any of its programming proposals, possible charges, ways of subsidising STBs, or any other details of its bid. No other bidders have publically declared, and it may be that there are none.

The Government, and its advisors Allied Irish Banks, are now assessing the rival bids (if any). Each bidder was required to submit a detailed business plan and a cash bid for the franchise. The cash bid will only form 20% of the assessment, 80% of the marks being awarded for the soundness of the business plan and the ability of the proposed licencee to promote the DTT platform. The winner of the contest will recieve the right to operate six multiplexes of five channels each. Mux 1 will be reserved for RTE services, including RTE ONE, N2, and the proposed Ireland Today, Eolais, and Zap@TV channels. Mux 2 is reserved for TV3, and another TV3 service, TG4 and the proposed Oireachtas channel. Mux 3 can be reserved at the discretion of the Government for the Northern Ireland terrestrial channels. The successful company will have control over the content of the remaining three multiplexes. The winner of the contest will be announced by October, with the system going on air by Autumn 2002.

Web Links

• Government of Ireland

• It'sTV (well, there's nothing there, but their rather-cheesy logo...)