The Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Síle de Valera T.D., has announced that the deadline for the receipt of responses to the invitation to apply from parties wishing to be awarded the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) multiplex licence passed on 3 August 2001. The evaluation process has now begun and it is expected that this process, which will be conducted by a team of Consultants headed by AIB Corporate Finance, will be concluded by mid-October.
The DTT multiplex licencee will be responsible for putting together packages of services to viewers and will therefore have a crucially central role in rolling out digital television and other information society services to the country.
Referring to the process that RTE has begun that will lead to it selling the majority stake in its transmission network Minister deValera said that that she understands that RTE plans to issue their Information Memorandum towards the end of this month. The new transmission entity that will result from the sale will be responsible for the transmission of existing national analogue television and radio services and some local radio services, and for the transmission of digital services provided by the multiplex licencee.
The Minister hopes that both processes will be concluded by November of this year and that digital terrestrial television will become a reality in Ireland in 2002.
