OK…here we go. After generations of people in Ireland have been reared with a fuzzy picture in a box in the front room, it’s about time we were aware of the rip-off by our National State Broadcaster who takes our licence fees. As an Irish TV licence payer, do you really want to pay a British company to watch your national TV station with a nice clear picture rather than fuzzy analogue (if you can get it at all?)
I just discovered there’s a guy out there who has got really vocal on it and started a petition.
www.petitiononline.com/rte2fta/
If you pay for a TV licence don’t you think that you have an entitlement to watch it in digital as part of that fee? Why should we pay twice for the programming? (I won’t get into here whether it’s worth the price or not. That’s another post.)
RTÉ have it all ways…licence fee, advertising and SKY…greedy. As TV licence payers we should demand that we can get digital reception of our national broadcaster without paying a monthly subscription to Rupert Murdoch’s Empire. Terrestrial reception of RTE is in some places impossible and in all places vastly inferior to Digital.
When they switch off the analogue terrestrial signal in 2012 they are going to introduce a FTA digital set-top box but there’s no way of knowing at this point whether you’ll get a signal through their expensive set-top boxes at all. If it doesn’t work then you’ll only have one option to watch RTE and TG4 etc at all…pay SKY another €20+ a month to watch all the content you have already paid for with your licence and by suffering adverts.
As licence payers we should demand that RTÉ is available free on the Astra28e satellite for all to receive with the appropriate equipment. All BBC, ITV Channel 4 channels in the UK and nearly all other EU national broadcasters are available free on satellite so why not RTÉ?
It’s about time we started a movement of civil disobedience and refuse to pay our TV licences on the basis that RTE are in contempt of Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Please pass on the petition link as a matter of national interest, information and need.
and support Brian Greene who’s doing a brilliant job of getting under their skin http://www.rte2fta.com/
and check out some of his posts such as this one:
http://www.briangreene.com/bhg/2006/rte-fta/
Here’s the wording of the Petition..
To: RTÉ & Irish Government
We call on the Irish Government, RTÉ & its Board & Audience Council to
make all RTÉ transmissions free to air.
With particular focus on digital services the licence payer is funding
the transmission of RTÉ signals that are encrypted and not equally
available to all citizens of Ireland.
Article 21 (2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states
“Everyone has the right to equal access to public service in his country”
We demand all public service broadcasts be Free To Air.
Sincerely,
August 13th, 2009 at 10:29 am
The Sky + RTE marriage stinks of brown envelopes,as many people would cancel their sky subscriptions if RTE was available free to air as it should be.
Every country in europe has at least one national broadcaster free to air via satellite.
you may also sign the petition here http://www.astraltv.ie/astraltv_2.html
stop this rip off. Steve
September 23rd, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Well said. It is a disgrace that we should have to pay twice.