Does my TV have Saorview?

Somewhere in your house is a TV that can almost certainly receive free Irish television. The trick is proving it without wading through a 90-page manual in six languages. Here’s the two-minute version.

The two-minute test

You need an aerial lead plugged into the socket on the back of the TV. It’s the round one, usually marked “ANT”, “RF” or “Antenna”. If there’s a wall socket in the room from an old aerial, use it. If there’s no aerial at all, skip to what to do if you have no aerial.

1. Press Menu or Settings on the remote. On newer TVs it’s the cog icon.
2. Find the channel section. It’s called Channels, Broadcasting, Tuning or Installation depending on the brand.
3. Choose Auto Tune, Auto Scan or Auto Setup.
4. Pick Antenna or Terrestrial if it asks. Not Cable, not Satellite.
5. Set the country to Ireland if it asks. This matters: some TVs only enable the right channel list when they know where they are.
6. Let it scan. It takes a few minutes and will look like nothing is happening. Make a cup of tea.
7. Check the result. If you see RTÉ One HD, RTÉ2 HD and TG4 HD in the list, your TV has Saorview and it’s working. Done. The full line-up to check against is on our Saorview channel list, and brand-by-brand menu paths are in how to retune Saorview.

If the scan finds nothing, don’t conclude the TV is at fault yet. More often than not it’s the aerial: it’s not connected, it’s pointed at nothing, or the cable has rusted through. Work through our no-signal checklist, then see Aerials.

If it finds the channels but the picture breaks up, that’s also the aerial, or the cable between the aerial and the TV.

What “Saorview Approved” means

Saorview runs a testing scheme for TVs and boxes. Saorview’s site says approved products are designed to work with the service and have undergone rigorous testing to demonstrate this. The transmitter company 2rn appointed a Finnish lab, Labwise, to run those tests against the Saorview specification, and approved receivers carry the Saorview label.

The technical minimum, from RTÉ’s own Saorview FAQ, is that the receiver must support MPEG-4 picture encoding, MHEG-5 (which drives the digital text and guide features) and high definition. A TV that only does the older MPEG-2 standard needs a box. A TV that does MPEG-4 but isn’t approved will probably work, but RTÉ’s FAQ warns it can be unstable, may miss HD channels, or may not show digital teletext.

In practice, if a TV was sold in an Irish shop as a TV rather than a monitor, it has almost certainly been through this. The words to look for on the spec sheet are “Saorview Approved”, “DVB-T MPEG-4” or “Freeview HD”.

Brand rule of thumb

Saorview publishes a list of approved products on its site. These brands had approved TVs on it when we checked in November 2026, and you can search it yourself on saorview.ie (official source, opens in a new tab):

Currys Ireland offers a broader rule: a Freeview HD TV will usually receive Saorview when connected to a suitable aerial. If your TV was made for the UK market and says Freeview HD on it, it very probably works here once you set the country to Ireland.

If you’re buying new, we keep a short list of sensible sets in TVs. Every current model from the major brands has Saorview built in, so it’s not something you need to pay extra for.

If the answer is no

An older TV without Saorview isn’t a lost cause. Two options:

A Saorview box. A small set-top box with a Saorview tuner. The aerial plugs into the box, the box plugs into the TV over HDMI (or SCART on really old sets). Satworld lists Saorview-only boxes from around €35 to €45. Power City sells the Walker WPSTBW23, a combi box with RTÉ Player and USB recording built in, as Saorview Approved for around €100. An installer we found quotes boxes at €60 to €120 depending on HD and recording. Pick one with the Saorview Approved label.

A combo box. If you’re also thinking about a dish for the free UK channels, a combo box does both aerial and satellite in one channel list and saves you buying twice. See Combo boxes.

And if the TV is a genuine antique, weigh the price of a box against the price of a new set. Irish retailers sell basic 32-inch sets with Saorview built in, so price one up before you buy a box for a telly on its last legs.

The two routes, side by side: a box for the telly you have, or a basic set with Saorview built in.

If you have no aerial

The TV can be perfect and it’ll still show a blank screen without a signal. If there’s no aerial on the roof, or the one that’s there dates from the analogue era and is pointing at a transmitter that no longer exists, you need one fitted.

You can check what you should be receiving first: Saorview’s coverage checker takes your address and tells you the transmitter to aim at. Then get a couple of quotes. Dublin installers list a new aerial from around €150, and the going rate around the country seems to be €150 to €200 for most homes, according to one national installer’s price page. Full detail in Aerials and aerial installation costs.

The order to do things in

1. Plug in an aerial and run the scan. Free, two minutes.
2. If it works, stop. You have Saorview. Go and find out what else you need, which for a lot of people is not much.
3. If the scan fails, check the aerial and cable before blaming the TV.
4. If the TV genuinely can’t do it, buy a Saorview box before you buy a new telly.

Nobody needs a subscription to watch RTÉ. They just need the right socket plugged into the right hole, and now you know which one.