Today I went down to the westbury to see the 3 public presentations for the 3 commercial DTT mux that will join the states public service (not commercial entity) mux. What follows is all about style not substance – the fact that there was no questions allowed to be asked today must mean that substance is in the main documents submitted to the BCI beyond the exec summaries we could read in the press or the BCI website. Here follows my review of the styles of those glass slipper holders as they seek to find their Prince.
BOXER
Ending as they started with the very able Lucy Gaffney boxer put some meat on the bones of what they have to offer. Lucy then closed with a video which starred the DTT ‘champion’ character of Swedish DTT “Robbie” doing a rocky style run & shadow box to the tune ‘Gonna Fly Now’ (theme from rocky). I’m not so keen on robbie and I would drop him for the irish game. the big play here is, we have done it (Sweden / Denmark), can do it in Ireland, we are DTT champions. bhg scores 70%
EASY
Roaring out a distorted audio the Easy TV presentation began and went down hill from there. If the prizes were given based on quality of presentation today then Easy TV would be any easy 3rd place. To a format of, I stepped out and he stepped in again, the projected presentation slide cueing seemed difficult for the Easy TV pair of presenters to manage, on this basis I wouldn’t give them a DTT playground to play in. Easy TV should have been presented differently/better (like get the very talented Kate O’Sullivan from UPC to do it, too late now). Big play here was we are the big boys in this space we will be well integrated with the public mux, well integrated with RTE NL bhg scores 45%
ONEVISION
Opening with a video (no audio distortion here) the video looked like it was made by TV people which is more than can be said about the other two camps videos (which looked made by flash designers). To the sound of Queen – One Vision this slick video started off the best presentation of the afternoon. On cue out of the video no pause no fade Fintan Drury launched a Barack Obama sytle (ok I exaggerate for effect) “We have one vision” speech, introduced his team, explaining the investors etc. All speakers were very well coached and not over coached but delivered like people who wanted to a run TV platform. Big play here, we are Irish we are not big players in the media space so we wont own too much media. bhg scores 90%
All platforms proposed have a pay element. Based on my reading of this market (and I don’t want to make any money out of it) I would tend to think the player with the most FTA and least PPV or pay as you go will succeed. That player is OneVision. As RTE NL is involved with all 3 above the difference is the flavour of DTT not the ability to provide it. A Boxer slide said that they would provide a free box while later sides talked about the networks & chains that would be partners to sell boxes, i’m confused, but with Aldi UK selling MPEG2 freeview for £18 boxer might get a SD/HD MPEG4 box out for free but at some cost, if they are more about top up than subscription TV then the free kit for contract ain’t on offer, I would have liked them to have been asked about this.
I have presented before the IRTC in the past and it is nerve wreaking. The best pitches do not always win but this is a BEAUTY contest. And I know who the ugly sisters are, and who Cinderella is. Remember Cinderella didn’t always get to go to the ball but after a while she met her Prince. I would still bet on an ondigital meets freeview future for Irish DTT, why? its MPEG4 (that’s good, that’s also problematic) & there is plenty of PPV euros wanted by all the entrants in a saturated carrier market, and today was about the last and smallest entrant. RTE on Freesat would kill DTT dead and that’s not going to happen either. Roll on July 31st when the BCI decide.