Get we get rid of BBC NI from cable?

mike65

Please?

I was planing on watching Mock the Week on BBC 2 at 10 but lo and fupping behold its not on due to Hearts and Minds (a 30 min prattle about Norn Iron 'politics') at 7.30 causing the schedule to back up and the 10 pm slot to disappear. I dont give a flying-fig what machinations are afoot in the Six Counties but I do get laugh out of Dara and Co.

Plenty of other shows go missing or get bumped to an ungodly hour with little signposting on the NI channels, so is it possible (technically) for NTL/UPC to drop it and carry Proper BBC from London?

Mike.

Mister Gooey

Get yourself a cheap satellite dish to supplement your current service. You will have every BBC channel available - BBC Scotland, Wales, Parliament etc. Should help avoid watching Gerry and Ian fighting it out up North!!!!!

gerryo

Yeah..it is annoying & has caused much swearing in many a household.

Don't know why NTL do this, maybe they think we really want it in preference to any other region. Maybe in the old days of analog they had no choice, it was the best signal. That's invalid in these digital days.

Then again, they may have just swapped a digital receiver for the old analog one & carried on, cheapest option, kept someone in a job, etc.

Hey..it's NTL, live with it..or get your own satellite setup.
Chances of NTL changing it are same as chances of NTL price reductions.

watty

They use an off air feed. (traditionally). So NI is the easiest.

Ulsterman 1690

I suppose they consider NI to be culturally the closest region to the Republic

And while NI news might be of limited interest to Southern viewers local programming from say the home counties is likely to be of even less interest ?

DMC

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

I suppose they consider NI to be culturally the closest region to the Republic

And while NI news might be of limited interest to Southern viewers local programming from say the home counties is likely to be of even less interest ?

NI news is of value to a lot of people in the south, there's no getting away from the politics. There would be huge uproar if it disappeared.

Traditionally that minute taken up bong-fest lets use sneaky-peek at the headlines on UTV

mike65

Okay keep NI and offer an alternative feed for us "Free-Staters"!

Mike.

watty

Like Welsh or Scottish rather than Imperialist English Content ?

Ulsterman 1690

Keep NI and offer an alternative feed for us "Free-Staters"!

I dont think the Beeb are going to provide a "Southern Ireland" region unless you all start paying the UK licence fee or else return to the fold and become part of the UK again

(Not very likely but then again even the French were thinking about it at one point)

Mossy Monk

don't see why they couldnt give say the English version with the Northern Ireland one. BBC 1 Northern Ireland used to be an absolute bastard on Friday nights. network programming pushed back towards midnight for that awful local programming

SPDUB

Mossy Monk wrote:

don't see why they couldnt give say the English version with the Northern Ireland one. BBC 1 Northern Ireland used to be an absolute bastard on Friday nights. network programming pushed back towards midnight for that awful local programming

I remember back before Ch 4 started Cablelink or whatever it was called in those days used to supply HTV as well .I wonder why they never supplied a different BBC region since if they were picking up HTV they must have been picking up BBC wales

fta keith

I used to have NTL and the annoying BBCNI, with digital satellite I watch mostly bbc england, bbc wales and bbc scotland, I totally ignore BBCni, Mock of the week was great last week at 10pm etc

zilog_jones

Mossy Monk wrote:

BBC 1 Northern Ireland used to be an absolute bastard on Friday nights

It still is! I always used to wonder why Jonathan Ross was on so late, then I noticed the BBC1 Wales listings in the guide and it was on there at least half an hour earlier!

The problem with using a different BBC1 variant is that the other ones are just going to have even less relevant local news, however the chances of there being other differing content isn't as likely - NI and Scotland are probably the most varied BBCs from the norm.

But as watty said, a lot of what we get is off-air from the North. Chorus in Limerick definately is, as the Teletext is still there for the 4 UK channels (it's not on satellite), and they occasionally switch to Sky Digital (noticable as the "red button" yoke pops up on the channels and the teletext disappears).

mike65

That used to happen quite a bit on NTL Waterford.

Mike.

Mossy Monk

luckily i get both the Northern Ireland and London versions on cable. when the BBC channels were encrypted all we got on satellite was BBC Northern Ireland :mad:

fta keith

teletext is available on satellite, just press text on the sky digital remote for teletext

Antenna

Mossy Monk wrote:

luckily i get both the Northern Ireland and London versions on cable. when the BBC channels were encrypted all we got on satellite was BBC Northern Ireland :mad:

Do ye (Dungarvan) also have more than one ITV region (I assume ITV1 Wales and UTV), what about S4C, is that still there as well along with C4!?
Do you have normal teletext with any of your UK terrestrial channels on cable?

Mossy Monk

only 1 ITV region (London, thankfully not UTV)
no S4C :mad: Channel 4 is there though
throught the digital box there is no teletext on the UK terrestrials, none on analogue either as the UK channels are fed via digiboxes but on digital all UK terrestrials are available in widescreen and stereo sound, unlike another cable provider