The public presentations by candidates for Ireland’s DTT Multiplex Licence’s were held today at the Westbury Hotel, Dublin. The ladies above were not present, I just loved this picture from Flickr!

On with the synopsis starting with what all have in common;

All will use the RTÉ NL transmission system so coverage predictions were all similar 60%+ in 2009 to 90%+ in 2012 as were investment figures of approx €120m.
All made play on how “Irish” they were!
All will have small free offering but mainly subscriber based.
All have large marketing budgets for launch.
All have various customer support call-centres lined up.
All predict 200,000+ subscribers by 2012.
All expect to break even by Year 5.

And then the differences;

Boxer (Boxer DTT Sweeden, Communicorp, BT)
USP: They are the only candidate who has done DTT already. Boxer in Sweeden, BT on the Irish trial. (However OneVision involves Arqiva who have done DTT in the UK). They are also the only company who are not a content provider and said it would be inappropriate for broadcasters to run muxes.

Package: Free Set Top Box with six FTA and seven additional channels for €10 a month. An extra €23 gives you another eighteen channels with additional premium movies/sports available. They also offer a pre-pay facility.

For marketing they shall use the computer generated “Robert” character from the Sweedish campaign. Their closing Rocky movie themed commercial was very slick.

EasyTV (RTE, LibertyGlobal aka UPC)
USP: Most broadcast experience in Ireland and relationships with installers nationwide. Offering the lowest price and highest quality picture.

Package: Set Top Box from €99 including one with HD recording. Basic package offers eight FTA and nine additional channels for €8 per month. An extra €8 gets you another thirteen channels with additional premium movies/sports available. They also offer a pre-pay facility.

Of all the candidates they are spending the least on marketing (€16m) and their video presentation was the weakest.

OneVision (Eircom, TV3, Setanta, Arqiva)
USP: Arqiva have been doing TV networks for 50 years and have 10 years DTT experience in the UK. OneVision will also introduce two new indigenous Irish channels, TV3 Today (Rolling News) and TV3 Expose (Rolling Entertainment News).

Package: Buy a Set Top Box (price not mentioned) and get ten FTA channels. Subscribe for €10 a month and get twent-three channels. Again brief mention was made of premium movies/sports.

Their opening video presentation was very slick set to the song “One Vision” by Queen.

Conclusion
From experience I know better than to pick a winner, however obvious they might be from the public presentations. What you don’t see publicly is the level of detail in the submissions nor do we know how the BCI board are thinking or what they would place as priority.

The BCI will decide the winner at their board meeting on July 21st.