Dear Sir,
Further to Ocean’s article in last Thursday’s edition of the Bulletin regarding the disruption to TV programmes in the Balearics, it was announced that the BBC was moving their satellite and it could cause some disruption to viewers. They assured viewers that it would all be cleared up by Christmas. It is now 18 January and the quality of viewing is still terrible.
The strange thing is that at about 3pm in the afternoon the reception begins to go and at about 10 pm, when most people are preparing to go to bed, someone flicks a switch and voila! perfect viewing. What is the BBC doing? Not only are terrestrial channels suffering but the other channels involved are losing valuable advertising revenue. In my opinion the commercial programmes should sue the BBC for loss of revenue. The other question that begs answering is why do this at Christmas which is a high-viewing period when families are all together, viewing special Christmas programmes, and not in summer when fewer people watch TV. This seems like a deliberate act on the part of the BBC. If they had to fight on an even playing field like other channels and could not rely on government funding, the BBC would not survive. What is the BBC doing with the revenue from TV licences?
Yours truly,
C.Crane
The scourge of dog mess
Dear Sir,
We have just spent a wonderful ten days in Puerto Pollensa and the weather was great: not much open but then not many tourists around.
However, once again, everywhere we walked there was dog poo on the paths. Interestingly, we had a peaceful walk around Barcares, which is on the coast just behind Alcudia old town, and we found a notice attached to a lamp post. We marvelled at the initiative but did wonder if this was official practice in Alcudia or just locals trying to protect their own paths from the dreadful Majorcan scourge of dog mess.
Please raise this problem again and draw it to the attention of Pollensa Town Hall - we would certainly prefer to see money spent on this sort of initiative rather than the millions going into the pedestrianisation system.
Regards,
John T Reeves
2 comments
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The conundrum re. ex-pats moaning about a poor BBC signal on satellite is that the majority of ex-pats living on the island do not pay the BBC licence fee - so complaining about the lack of signal has no moral fortitude. I am sure that many would pay the fee for a good service. Somehow the BBC has to securely code its satellite signals so that people who subscribe outside the UK can legally watch, but we are a long way off that sort of secure technology. What many people fail to realise is that a huge amount of money has to be paid by a broadcaster for showing, for instance, certain films or drama or comedy series, and the amount to be paid depends on the official "footprint", ie. the perceived home territory for the broadcaster. Sky is regularly pirated around the island, despite royalties on, for instance, Premier League matches, only being paid on the official UK "footprint" - however I suspect that Sky know this and are happy to benefit from pirated viewing because their advertisers know it too, and in their case it means more people viewing your advertisements, so that's good for business.
Since you have no legal right to watch the BBC or any of the UK commercial channels,C.Crane,you have no right or grounds to complain,as I have previously stated,it is a criminal offence,yes,criminal,not civil to watch or record LIVE UK t.v. without a valid t.v.licence,as all those who receive a hefty fine and criminal conviction in the UK courts on a regular basis will tell you. To be clear,the offence is watching or recording LIVE UK t.v. programmes without a valid t.v. licence,something NOBODY viewing OUTSIDE the UK has since NO UK t.v. station has a licence to broadcast OUTSIDE the UK which is why the UK t.v. stations,QUITE RIGHTLY are trying to block all signals that can be received outside the UK.