[Rdd]

It's a situation replicated towards all of Europe among smaller nations, there's nothing surprising.

German operations cater Austria and German speaking Switzerland etc. but often ÖRF and SRF among the many don't.

Actually German, French broadcasters are very often broadcast with local ad windows into Belgium , CH, Austria and so on

I remember in the 1990s ORF was available in Bavaria, at least, on cable. It may not have been more widely in Germany mind you. I don’t recall Swiss TV being available.

Yes, it’s more cost effective for UK broadcasters to add Ireland on for rights than it is for Irish broadcasters to add the UK on! Premier Sports and Setanta before them were probably the only examples of Ireland & UK broadcasters, but even then they were really primarily targeting the UK with Ireland included too (and even then there was some variations in both cases). Tara TV in the 1990s, but that was a UK channel that happened to show Irish content and wasn’t (at the end anyway) available in Ireland itself.

In NI, availability of ROI broadcasters, other than via overspill, is a much more recent thing. NTL, as was, carried them first in the late 1990s, albeit with a blackout for Home and Away thanks to a dispute with C5. Sky carriage came later and the NI minimux on Freeview later still, around the time of DSO. And VMTV has never been part of those arrangements, though it is closely associated with ITV in any case.