Home cinema - BBC in France

HomeCinemaBanter (http://www.homecinemabanter.com/index.php)

- UK sky (http://www.homecinemabanter.com/forumdisplay.php?f=4)

- - BBC in France (http://www.homecinemabanter.com/showthread.php?t=21962)

In article ,
Robert Carnegie wrote:

I am and always have been in favour of the BBC becoming a
pan-European broadcaster: Nation shall speak unto nation.
However it appears - from what I've seen - that amongst British
taxpayers, I may be in a minority. But at least the BBC is now
broadcasting to half the EU.

You may
have in mind television. But not /everything/ that the BBC
broadcasts should be shared with the rest of Europe

Yes it should. That's exactly what I just said.

or the world.
Good heavens, some of it's in /Welsh./ ;-)

Even the Welsh [which of course it is]. I can certainly easily get Basque
and Catalan TV etc if I want.

That domestic BBC television broadcasting includes imported
programmes for which the BBC has only limited broadcast rights
has already been asserted

Indeed. And so the BBC Governors told me on numerous occasions when I
questioned the apparent lunacy of encrypting BBC News 21 [financial lunacy
as well as cultural lunacy] - which they did until very recently.

(in uk.media.radio.bbc-r4 at least,
goodness knows why), although I was one of those unaware of
the apparent existence of BBC domestic television service as an
element in some other European countries' pay-TV packages,

Indeed. There semmed to be a surprising amount of denial of what one had
assumed was a well known fact.

It even got to the stage where one particularly otiose and ignorant
headbanger was told it by three different people and still he remained in
voluble denial. (He knows who he is.)

and under the impression that the previous situation, that the rest
of Europe could watch BBC only by putting up big domestic
aerials, but didn't otherwise have to pay for it, is still the case -
which, we've now been told, it isn't.

It certainly isn't. A small supermarket dish and the cheapest of digital
receivers will see you all right for BBC TV programmes over much of W
Europe. I won't bore you with the list again
http://users.powernet.co.uk/hack/astra/. And that's apart from Belgian,
Netherlands and Irish domestic cable networks.

A wholesale BBC invasion of Europe on television might be
undertaken under the aegis of the Foreign Office, but amidst
present events it's unclear that that audience would want to hear
much of what Britain has to say.

Nobody is forced to listen/watch. OTOH some BBC programmes pop up all over
the place on some EU countries' domestic terrestrial broadcasts - obviously
in that case, paid for. So there must be an audience of some kind?

Simon Gardner wrote:

We obviously have completely different perceptions of what amounts to
"easily abvailable". I guess the editor of Tele Satellite disagrees with
you too.

'Easy' is a relative term.

My point is, your average frog in the street is not likely to install a
satellite receiver and a 90cm dish pointing at Astra 2A, all in order to
receive TV channels in a foreign language.

How many people in the UK (other than ex-pats and satellite TV geeks) would
go to all that trouble to receive French TV? It is 'easily receivable' to
somebody who is sufficiently motivated and knowledgeable, but hardly anyone
is.

Before you say that everybody in France speaks English but nobody in the UK
speaks French The French probably do speak, on average, slightly more
English than the English do French, but the number of people who have a
sufficient level of English and are sufficiently motivated to make it worth
while going to all that trouble is minuscule. As I said, I don't know one
French person who has.

"J.Tull" wrote:
How many people in the UK (other than ex-pats and satellite TV geeks) would
go to all that trouble to receive French TV? It is 'easily receivable' to
somebody who is sufficiently motivated and knowledgeable, but hardly anyone
is.

Probably not that high. As a newbie to this, I was surprised how easy it
actually was. I made some mistakes by not believing the simplest instructions
from the outset. I probably also made some mistakes by not measuring and
choosing kit more carefully, but I'll fix them when they become problems.

Here, lots of people are sufficiently motivated to get satellite tv,
(seems to be over 80% in most streets) because terrestial reception is
quite poor and the wrong local coverage anyway, but most just sign up
to Murdoch. For a little more than the price of a year's Sky and a
few days with sore arms (thanks to the lack of an easy fixing site),
I have hundreds of channels.

--
MJR/slef setting followups

Huffin the Puffin wrote:

My mother tongue is Danish and I learned English for 7 years in school.
Until I had been married (with a brit) for several years Auf Wiedersehen Pet
was mostly incomprehensible to me.

I have been British since birth. Auf Wiedersehen Pet is totally
incomprehensible to me.

--
Digibox problem? : A reboot solves 90% of these.
The Sky Digital FAQ: http://tinyurl.com/yvnsy
How to get UK TV overseas: http://tinyurl.com/6p73
Fed up with logos / red buttons? : http://logofreetv.org/
BBC gone? : http://www.astra2d.co.uk/
----
Only the truth as I see it.
No monies return'd. ;-)