Online broadcast network Aertv has signed a landmark contract with RTE that will see the companies co-operate on a range of initiatives including the sharing of broadcast data.
Under the agreement the national broadcaster will have access to information on the consumer behaviour of viewers watching its programmes on Aertv – similar to the kind of information captured by Google and Facebook on its users.
Aertv – which is owned by Magnet Broadband – markets itself as an alternative to Saorview and carries a mix of free-to-air Irish channels, original content online and subscription packages with overseas channels. The network estimates some 50 million minutes have been consumed on its service since January 2013 with over 500,000 streams and 225,000 unique visits per month across 159 countries.
Broadcasters and retransmission websites have had an adversarial relationship. Earlier this year UK broadcasters including UTV secured a ruling at EU level in a case against TVCatchup, a website that retransmits free-to-air TV broadcasts as webstreams with adverts sold on pages delivering those streams.
The European Court of Justice ruled that broadcasters could be considered "authors" with exclusive rights to authorise or prohibit any manner of communication of their work to the public.
A subsequent UK High Court ruling, however, classified TVCatchup as a cable TV service that can legally rebroadcast programmes based on the terms of the UK’s public service broadcasting licence obligations. It currently retransmits 50 channels.
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