ALMOST one in four people will not be able to tune in to Teilifis na Gaeilge unless they buy new aerials, according to RTE's head of reception investigation, Mr Tom McCarthy. He said the aerials cost about £20 each, rising to an average £40 when installed.
About 10,000 people in west Dublin are affected, along with viewers in the midlands and the west, part of Cork city and county, Wicklow, Cork and Kerry. He estimated that "under 25 per cent" of the population would need the new aerials, with the most likely figure between 15 and 20 per cent.
This falls well short of the estimated availability for TnaG which was put at between 93 and 95 per cent by the Minister for, Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Mr Higgins, in a reply to a Dail question in October. A spokesman for the Department said the Minister's stance had not changed.
Meanwhile, confusion over the availability of TnaG on cable networks in Dublin, Cork and other cities and towns has led to written protests from both RTE and TnaG to a number of cable companies. In Cork, TnaG shares a channel with a German television station which broadcasts late-night adult programming.
The revelations follow reports of poor viewing figures for TnaG which went on air on October 31st at a capital cost of £17 million. A survey carried out by Nielsen estimates that the average daily viewing for the station during its first month was less than half of 1 per cent of viewers, or 13,000 people.
The figures are disputed by TnaG, which points out that an unknown percentage of the 600 people on whom the survey was based have yet to tune to the station.
Mr McCarthy said viewers in Leinster who currently receive RTE 1 and Network 2 from Three Rock Mountain would be unable to tune to the new station without a new "wide-band" UHF aerial. This was because their existing UHF aerials could not receive the channel allocated to TnaG for the region.
He said viewers in other regions would also need new aerials for, similar reasons. The aerials would be needed in the future to receive TV3 and to keep up with technical changes in RTE broadcasts, regardless of TnaG. Viewers who switched over now would be "ahead of the posse".
The arrangements for the transmission of TnaG by cable in Dublin have been criticised as unsatisfactory by the station's, head, Mr Cathal Goan.
In Dublin, Cablelink transmits TnaG on the same channel it uses to transmit a mosaic of available channels. The mosaic carries no indication, outside of TnaG's limited broadcast hours, that the channel is also infuse for the Irish- language station. Many subscribers are, therefore, unaware they can receive TnaG by switching to the mosaic at the appropriate time.
A spokeswoman for Cablelink said 19 of its cable channels were already in use for existing stations when TnaG came on air. The decision to use the mosaic channel was the "best option" to avoid unnecessary disruption.
Asked how and when subscribers were informed about the availability of TnaG, she said they would receive customer information in the normal manner. This could take up to a year in some cases, although information was also available as part of Cablelink's on screen information service. "If people can't find it they can phone up and we'll tell them where it is."
She described as incorrect a claim by TnaG that many subscribers with older television sets were unable to receive the mosaic channel because of the frequency used.
There has been further confusion over cable arrangements for TnaG in Cork, where Irish Multi channel has opted to transmit TnaG on the same channel it uses for a German television station, Sat One.
The late-night adult programming available on the German station has led to accusations that parents may unwittingly expose their children to pornography by tuning to TnaG outside its broadcast hours.
The managing director of Irish Multi-Channel, Mr Pat Cronin, said his company had put in place a device which allowed viewers to block the German channel but still watch TnaG. The adult programming was not broadcast before midnight and such material was freely available on other channels.
"We get more complaints about other channels showing soft porn than we do about Sat One."
Spokesmen from the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht and the Department of Communications said broadcasting and transmission arrangements for TnaG were RTE's responsibility.
However, the spokesman for the Department of Communications said the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht "has a role" in the matter as it was public policy that the station be available to the widest possible audience.