John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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73. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the number of households that have yet to sign up to Saorview; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27841/13]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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RTÉ has built, owns and controls the Saorview TV network and is responsible for the roll-out, coverage and operation of that network. This is in accordance with Part 8 of the Broadcasting Act 2009, which provides that the development of the RTÉ network is an operational matter for RTÉ.In relation to the Deputy’s query, figures published by ComReg for Q4 2012 indicate that approximately 36% of TV homes had Irish Digital Terrestrial Television. As with the analogue terrestrial network it replaced, Saorview provides access to the national Irish TV channels on a non-subscription basis, i.e. free-to-air, to 98% of the population. As it is free-to-air, there is no requirement to sign up to this service and relevant households only require a compatible Saorview television or set-top box to be able to receive the service.

In addition to Saorview, RTÉ has developed SAORSAT, a free-to-air satellite service to ensure the free-to-air RTÉ television services are available to 100% of the population. This is the first time free-to-air Irish TV is available to 100% of the population.

It is also worth noting that Irish TV channels are also available on subscription TV services such as UPC (over cable or MMDS) or Sky (over satellite).