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Minister of Communications Pat Rabbitte with Gay Byrne at the announcement of the Digital TV switch-over. Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland

RTÉ handled 2,600 Saorview calls on Wednesday

Many viewers in Northern Ireland cut off, although the Irish government is expected to release details of a new transmitter that will allow northern viewers to tune into RTÉ.

RTÉ HANDLED OVER 2600 calls yesterday from people concerning the switch-over to digital TV.

Many of the calls concerned the difficulty of tuning in the new set tops, with a large number of those calls concerning products that had not been endorsed by the national broadcaster.

“A large proportion were tuning in on non-Saorview approved products” an RTÉ spokesperson told TheJournal.ie. “Saorview approved products are the only ones compatible with all parts of the service.” Set top boxes approved by the service include those from Alba, Finlux and Laurus.

The RTÉ Saorview website also received 19,000 views yesterday.

According to the broadcaster, many of the other calls came from viewers in Northern Ireland, who received RTÉ for many years because of the signal spillover from the Republic.

Many were using freeview products which are not compatible with the switch-over to digital TV in the Republic and can no longer receive it.

The Department of Communications is expected to release details later today or tomorrow on how viewers in Northern Ireland may continue to receive RTÉ. Under the Good Friday agreement, the British government constructed an aerial in Northern Ireland t0 broadcast TG4.

Explainer: What is Saorview, and what do you need to do about it?>

Read: VIDEO: The moment Ireland switched off its analogue signal>

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