The Irish Communications Minister Eamon Ryan has announced that Diaspora TV will be on air in the UK by next St Patrick’s Day. Diaspora TV will be an RTÉ channel available on the new Freesat service in the UK. Freesat is a new free-to-air satellite service that will be available throughout the UK and across the Astra satellite footprint, covering Ireland and some other parts of Europe. It is led by the BBC and ITV. Further information is available at www.freesat.co.uk
This channel will be a hybrid of RTÉ One and RTÉ 2 with some additional programming from TG4. The One, Six-One and 9 o’clock news bulletins will be carried live. It will carry a range of home-grown Irish programming that will be of real interest to Irish communities abroad.
Minister Ryan said: “The 2001 Census in Britain records a figure of 850,000 Irish born people living in Britain. There are many more of direct Irish descent. I know that many of these people have been looking for an RTÉ channel in the UK for some time. I am pleased that foot of last year’s Broadcasting Act, this new channel will be up and running by next St. Patrick’s Day.
“I will be working closely with Minister Dermot Ahern to ensure that vulnerable groups in the UK will be supported in receiving the service. This new channel will provide the Irish abroad with a valuable link to home.”
(Source: Irish Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources)
on Mar 17th, 2008 at 18:39
So we going to have Irish TV on Freesat, but when is Freesat going
to start.
Anybody know ?
on Mar 17th, 2008 at 19:08
Late Spring/Early Summer 2008.
(Closed) engineering (Beta) tests have been underway for quite some time now …
on Mar 18th, 2008 at 16:13
If RTE hadn’t pulled the plug on TARA TV none of this would be necessary. TARA was providing exactly the same service on Sky. Unfortunately it would seem that RTE was less than comfortable with a third party doing something which, at that time, it lacked the innovation and inclination to do for itself.
on Mar 18th, 2008 at 19:24
RTE was a 20% shareholder in Tara TV. While we know how Tara wasn’t paid for, we still have not been told how Diaspora TV will be funded, neither have RTÉ been told.
on May 8th, 2009 at 22:24
May 2009.
Now is the time to get International RTE up and running. Foreign Minister Michael Martin is currently launching a ‘global Irish strategy’, and providing a television service to the Irish abroad would be a perfect complement to this initiative.
He and Eamon Ryan should get on the same track on this one - surely it would be a win-win?
on Dec 12th, 2009 at 09:26
http://www.IrishTelevision.info should be suitable, about 5 euro a month.