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Originally Posted by grange
I am told that it is only Telemicro that have switched off. Any other relaible info out there
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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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With the greatest of respect to Louise Clarke, I think her article has somewhat missed the point in saying that Telmicro have not paid for the 'paid for' channels.
None of these companies like Telmicro pay for these channels, because they would not be allowed to. Sky have made it perfectly plain by e-mail to me that they have no intention of licencing broadcasters to re-transmit their programs in Spain, or anywhere else. The reason for this is very simple. A lot of channels on Sky, such as UK Gold, UK Drama etc. are third party. Sky only pays for licences to transmit third party channels, (as well as third party programs on their own channels), to the UK and Eire. Therefore if they knowingly allow viewing elsewhere they are breaching the copyright. Companies like Telmicro are stealing the signals. Technically, the clients are in receipt of stolen goods and breaking the law (not that I am suggesting for one minute they are in danger of going to court).
I have been a Telmicro customer for about three years, and liked receiving Sky Sports as well as the BBC etc. I also brought my Sky card from the UK. When the Sky channels were cut off by Telmicro I decided to have a larger 1.45 metre Sky dish and subscribe to Sky Sports rather than look at local alternatives. I appreciate that I am breaching my contract with Sky, but that is only a commercial matter and I am not breaking the law of the land. I am paying for the service to the ligitimate provider and not a bunch of pirates which makes me feel better about it. I know there is a slight risk, but by their own admission, Sky have no way of knowing where a card is being used unless someone tells them, and since they are being paid I don't think they would go out of their way to catch people out. I am in Quesada and with the exception of BBC 2 get all the free to air channels with a much sharper picture than on Telmicro.
I agree with the following post I found on another thread
"Found this from Nortons
We have been installing Satellite systems along the Costa Blanca for 15 years which I believe makes us the longest serving British managed Satellite installation Company on the Costa Blanca.
In light of the recent developments we will not be installing any more re-broadcast systems, this has been a difficult decision to make but we believe the time has come to put clients interests ahead of short term commercial gain, and in our considered opinion advising clients to install Re-broadcast systems is not a viable option.
With the removal of Sky Channels the only decent content left are the BBC,ITV,C4/5 programs, these are free to air or free to view if you have a big enough dish to receive them, however rebroadcasting of these channels for gain is considered an act of piracy and copywrite theft unless you have agreements to re-broadcast, our Lawyer in the UK has contacted BBC and Channel 4,and they have stated that nobody in Spain has the rights to re-broadcast their content and they will take legal measures to prevent any unauthorized re-broadcast of their content, TV and C5 were unable to comment but promised to reply soon.
Further investigation into why Sky was pulled from re-broadcasters not just here but in the Northern Costa Blanca revealed that action was taken by Canal Digital and that all the Companies involved had known about this for some time, their main complaints were over the showing of Football and films for which they had paid the rights to show in Spain, as BBC,ITV and Channel5 show live football, I believe that Canal Digital will not be happy with just the removal of Sky Channels and there is the possibility of a second wave calling for the removal of all channels that show football or movies for which Canal Digital have paid the rights.
Another concern is that of the frequencies being used by rebroadcast companies to deliver their programs, most rebroadcasters will claim to have licenses to broadcast etc but the reality is they only have CMT registrations, there are no available licenses to rebroadcast, all broadcast licenses were sold on a national level for millions of euros. A large chunk of the 2GHz band has been sold to Telecos for mobile internet and 3G services, and we foresee problems for rebroadcasters using these frequencies without licenses. Some rebroadcasters use the 10Ghz band, the only licenses permitted in this band are for specific point to point links, with each link having its own license, therefore the only legal way for a rebroadcaster to use this frequency band would be to have a license for every client, not really viable as each license can cost several thousand euros !
In conclusion our opinion is that rebroadcast systems have an uncertain future and extra costs are likely to occur for changing reception equipment, and good program content is likely to be lost due to unauthorized distribution, our advise whether on an individual or collective basis is to get you own dish and secure future viewing.”
I think that post sums it up perfectly. Do not waste your money on changing to other companies.