RTÉ is to make an app version of its Player available internationally, aimed squarely at the Irish abroad, at a price point that puts it in competition with other video streaming services such as Netflix and the BBC global iPlayer.
The RTÉ Player International iOS app includes a mixture of free and paid-for content. Free-to-view programmes include the Late Late Show, Prime Time and Nationwide – essentially those programmes currently watched freely on the online Player abroad through the station's website – while the premium subscription delivers 400 hours of extra content for a monthly payment of $8.99, €8.99 or £6.99. This premium content is mostly plucked from the stations recently aired schedule – Room to Improve for example – or its extensive back catalogue, including dramas such as Love/ Hate, Raw and The Clinic as well as documentaries, comedy and children's, Irish language and lifestyle programmes.
“This is going to be a curated product,” says Múirne Laffan, managing director of RTÉ Digital. “There will be a seasonality, a sense that the content is managed.”
Ryan Tubridy has been chosen as the face of the campaign for sign-ups for the app because of the popularity and recognisability of the Late Late Show brand among what Laffan calls "the global Irish" who form the key target market.
The Late Late Show was streamed 1,636,000 times in 2014 and, while the station does not break out the numbers internationally, 21 per cent of the RTÉ Player audience is international. Programmes of particular appeal to the Irish abroad, whether first or second generation or beyond, such as ratings behemoth the Rose of Tralee, will be free to view on the app.
Last year, in collaboration with the GAA, RTÉ launched the live streaming GAAGo which allows viewers outside Ireland to watch championship and league matches and the Sunday Game.
It costs €160 outside the UK for about 100 matches while viewers in the UK pay €100 for 80 matches – the difference is accounted for by the Sky deal with the GAA which gives that broadcaster sole rights to 20 games.
That difference in content is a clear example of how rights issues come in to play when international viewing platforms are made available.
Emigrants pining to keep up to date with the carry on in Carraigstown will be able to watch Fair City for free on the new international app. But RTÉ’s success in selling dramas into other markets means some cannot go up on the app either at all or else with limited availability.
The enormously popular gang drama Love/Hate, for example, has already been sold to 30 foreign markets and so only series one and two are on the new app and even then only for viewers in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. The same applies to the missing girl drama Amber while the popular lifestyle programme At Your Service is available everywhere except the UK.
The rights to make programmes available internationally will now be part of the station’s contract negotiations with programme-makers in the independent production sector, as well as actors and presenters.
The GAAGo experience shows how far-flung the demand for Irish-generated content is – it has been accessed in 157 countries. RTÉ’s digital division already brings in a significant number of extra viewers – the International Player joins RTÉ.ie, RTÉ News Now, RTÉjr, RTÉ Archives, RTÉ Radio Player and GAAGo and collectively their reach is 2.2 million unique browsers monthly.
