[grange]

Anyone know where footie is being shown this weekend

Posted in the San Miguel forum

What? No Football? By Louise Clarke

With the climax of the Premiership taking place this weekend, thousands of people in the Southern Costa Blanca will be unable to watch their favourite teams play the ultimate game of football for the 2007/2008 season live.
Instead they will have to settle with highlights on BBC1’s Match of the Day on Sunday evening. Families, looking forward to the new series of Gladiators on Sky One will be left disappointed and children who are regular viewers of Boomerang are bereft due to the loss of their favourite programmes. The reason behind this is that one of the most widely used satellite TV companies has removed Sky Sports and other popular channels from their schedules. This will also mean that the Champion’s League Final on 21st May between Chelsea and Manchester United will only be available to their customers after the event, as highlights on ITV1 later on in the evening.
Telmicro Levante S.L customers have been contacting Round Town News all week asking why their favourite channels have been removed from their TV. RTN contacted the company and was told that they are unable to show specific channels including the Sky Sports due to new legislation that has just been enforced. A company representative said; “We would be breaking the law if we showed these channels but we will be replacing all these channels at some point. This is not just a Telmicro Levante problem, all companies who provide English channels through their satellites will be affected. We are all in the same situation.”
However, RTN has discovered that this isn’t actually the case. We contacted other English TV providers all over the Costa Blanca and they are still airing Sky Sports and the other channels that have disappeared from the Telmicro Levante’s schedules. It appears that Telmicro Levante S.L. has only stopped showing subscription and other ‘paid for’ channels but is still continuing to provide free to air channels such as BBC1 and 2, ITV 1 and 2 and Sky News. One company told RTN; “We have had no notifications from the Ministry of Telecommunications (CMT) regarding new broadcast legislation and we are still airing Sky and other subscription channels.”
So, it appears that in spite of the fact that many of Telmicro Levante S.L.’s customers have just paid their yearly subscription, that money hasn’t been passed onto the ‘paid for’ channel providers. So, if you see a sad face this weekend, it will probably belong to a disappointed child or a football fan with a Telmicro Levante TV system.
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