THE BROADCASTING Commission of Ireland (BCI) yesterday awarded the contract to operate the three commercial digital terrestrial television (DTT) multiplexes “in principle” to the OneVision consortium, which comprises Eircom, TV3, Setanta Sports and Arqiva.

OneVision was second in the original tender for the DTT contract, losing out to the Denis O’Brien-led Boxer consortium.

In April, Boxer handed back the licence, citing “prevailing and anticipated economic circumstances” as its reason for pulling the plug on the project.

The BCI then offered the licence to OneVision, which indicated that it was interested in taking up the contract.

OneVision had proposed a “basic” offering of 23 channels, costing householders €9.99 a month. It also wanted to offer premium sports and movie content and indicated that it would invest €40 million in the project.

The commercial multiplexes will be able to carry up to a dozen stations each, via a set-top box. OneVision would compete with satellite provider Sky and cable group UPC Ireland to provide pay digital TV services to the country’s 1.5 million households.

DTT will replace the current analogue television signal, which is due to be switched off by the end of 2015. RTÉ has already been awarded the licence to operate a free-to-air DTT multiplex that will carry Irish terrestrial TV stations that are currently available to households at no charge via a rooftop aerial.

The BCI said it would be “actively engaging” with OneVision over the coming weeks and the contract award was “subject to the successful outcome of contract negotiations”.

Separately, the BCI yesterday agreed to provide €4.4 million in funding for 27 television programmes under the Sound and Vision scheme.