BASIC CABLE SUBSCRIBERS ( in 2005) HAVE NOT GONE AWAY YOU KNOW.........

a bientot

Participants in these fora frequently forget that the vast majority (80%)* of cable subscribers pay their cable charges as they pay telephone and electricity and are NOT moved by ntl's U.S. Ph.D doctors in marketing who try all the tricks in the book to encourage them to go ntl digital including buying off - with advertising campaigns- any investigative radio programmes who dare to announce that they are planning a show to allow disgrunted customers to complain almost live on air.
So bearing in mind that people like Alun (in another thread) paid no more than 100 euros for around 35 multi-lingual channels in Holland in the very basic service why is it that this company ntl can continue to provide such a tiny basic service all in the one language (plus must carry TG4) - 15 channels including three exclusively for children - for 234 euros per year.
Contrary to some opinion Comreg is not howling at ntl's door seeking a return of the seven analogue frequencies recently vacated by sports, movies and Disney.
What we, the majority, demand for 2005 is a greater selection of channels in basic or as ntl call it 'normal cable' and these services should be multi-lingual to cater for all, typical of a normal European Union capital.
*note that many of ntl's digital customers are formerly mmds customers.

channelsurfer

I totally agree. Chorus are a disgrace too. they offer 14 basic cable channels and they dont care . they want us to go digital too even thought they have not bothered to upgrade to digital cable network. they are too busy promoting mmds digital. and are gradually putting up the price. now there is only €1 a month difference between digital mmds and analogue cable.

SteM

a bientot wrote:

What we, the majority, demand for 2005 is a greater selection of channels in basic or as ntl call it 'normal cable' and these services should be multi-lingual to cater for all, typical of a normal European Union capital.

Mmmm, I might be opening a can of worms here but how can would you suggest NTL carry enough 'multi-lingual channels to cater for all' on basic cable? Dublin alone has become home to so many nationalities that surely NTLs basic service could never cater for everyone. Indeed, I'd suggest that most parents would prefer 3 childrens channels rather that a couple stations they wouldn't even be able to watch.

I've noticed that you've posted basically the same thing here a few times before and I've not seen anything change, perhaps you'd be better off contacting NTL?

Alun

SteM wrote:

Indeed, I'd suggest that most parents would prefer 3 childrens channels rather that a couple stations they wouldn't even be able to watch.

There's a basic (and false) assumption here that the aforementioned parents are incapable of understanding any language other than English (and possibly a smattering of Irish.) And not everybody is a parent either for that matter.

SteM

You should read my post - I said MOST parents. There is no doubt that there are some parents and their children in this country that do not speak English - although I think I would find it hard to live here in their situation - however the MAJORITY both can and do speak English. Unfortunately basic cable is limited in the amount of channels it can carry, I think it is unfair to the majority to cut channels that they watch so a minority can have a channel of their own.

And remember a bientot posted - 'multi-lingual channels to cater for all', so we're not just talking about the major European languages here.

In the apartment block I live in I have spoken in the past few months to

Swedes
Italians
Dutch
Germans
French
Eastern Europens from various countries

Each has it's own language - are you really suggesting that a channel or 2 from each of these countries (and this is just a personal list) is carried to the detriment of channels that the majority of this country can understand?

Alun

I wasn't referring to people from other countries who live here who can't understand English as being necessarily the main audience for such channels.

Believe it or not but there are actually people, myself included, who are fluent in more than one language, and who would appreciate being able to see another country's take on world affairs now and then. I know that inhabitants of the British Isles have a less than enviable reputation when it comes to foreign language skills, but there are those who fall outside of this stereotype.

Until I moved here, I lived in Holland, where I could get TV channels in Dutch, English, French, German and Turkish, and I must say I miss them (except the Turkish, that is).

cdc

SteM wrote:

Dublin alone has become home to so many nationalities that surely NTLs basic service could never cater for everyone.

Indeed. So many nationalities. And as this has been happening NTL has been quietly going in the opposite direction.
Replacing Tv5 with CNBC, everyones favourite American business channel, and then dumping the half hour news bulletins from a handful of non anglo-american countries every (allegedly) evening.
Why, as this influx of non English speaking peoples enter the state, does NTL drop these services?

Guy:Incognito

Alun wrote:

Until I moved here, I lived in Holland, where I could get TV channels in Dutch, English, French, German and Turkish, and I must say I miss them (except the Turkish, that is).

I'd say that has a lot to do with the fact that they are bordered by these countries ( obviously not turkey tho) and that dutch is very similar to german, english is fairly universal as most europeans do it in school at this stage, and theres probably a fair amount of french people/speakers in the dutch/french border regions. We on the other hand are surrounded by exclusively english speaking countries.

Marcopolo85

Stekelly wrote:

I'd say that has a lot to do with the fact that they are bordered by these countries ( obviously not turkey tho) and that dutch is very similar to german, english is fairly universal as most europeans do it in school at this stage, and theres probably a fair amount of french people/speakers in the dutch/french border regions. We on the other hand are surrounded by exclusively english speaking countries.

I couldn't agree more! If all this analogue capacity is so scarce, the last thing I want to see is a foreign language channel!!! BTW, what is the deal with the French language anyway. We have the Olympics - what's the first language out......French.........we have the Eurovision.....what's the primary language......French!

Now, I could understand it if it were, say, Chinese (weight of numbers).....but French? Why not German, or even Italian? Why this favouritism and bias towards the French language?

My view would be not to let it on under any circumstances, unless the favour is reciprocated in Paris with the braodacasting of, say TG4, on that City's cable network - although I don't see that happening soon. It's a pity we're not as passionate about our own language as we are about foreign languages.

Yes - enjoy your gift of being able to converse and enjoy such languages......but please stop trying to force them down everyone else's throat. :mad:

Alun

Stekelly wrote:

I'd say that has a lot to do with the fact that they are bordered by these countries ( obviously not turkey tho) and that dutch is very similar to german, english is fairly universal as most europeans do it in school at this stage, and theres probably a fair amount of french people/speakers in the dutch/french border regions. We on the other hand are surrounded by exclusively english speaking countries.

Well, of course it has to do with that, but also the fact that most Dutch people will speak German, English and French too, and will therefore be able to understand them. There wouldn't be much point putting them on the cable if they didn't.

Sometimes I wish I didn't live on an island ...

Alun

Marcopolo85 wrote:

Yes - enjoy your gift of being able to converse and enjoy such languages......but please stop trying to force them down everyone else's throat. :mad:

I'm not trying to force anything down anyone's throat. There are a measly, what is it, 16 (?) channels on the NTL analogue service here. On the cable where I was in Holland we had something like 35, so there was plenty of room for these channels. Anyway, nobody's forcing you to watch them.

Even if they didn't want to put such channels on the analogue service, they could kick some of the cr@p that nobody watches off the digital service, and make room for 10 channels easily. Heck they could even charge for it as an add-on, and I'd pay for it rather than the endless supply of sports, god, shopping, music and cartoon channels currently on offer.

a bientot

Those who want choice have this on digital.....the 25,000 homes who really enjoy television are well catered for in that they can have this via cable -go digital- or Sky digital but what about those of us who feel strongly European. We don't even watch all the channels presently available in the basic service so why would we go for more of the same and with the exception of CNN all very minority channels......including the Sky News viewed by a maximum of 10 million and that only at times of crisis.
There are problems of copyright in carrying some European mainland channels on cable involving extra costs for the cable carrier. Belgian, Canadian, French and Swiss broadcasters supply the programmes to provide TV5, the world's second most available channel in the French language free to cable operators and widely available on very basic cable services throughout Greater Europe and to a potential world audience of 700 millions. There is no reason why a Spanish channel such as TVE and a German channel such as Deutsche Welle should not be on all our cable services. TV5 has been in the basic for sixteen years in a number of towns such as Swords-Malahide, Maynooth, Newbridge, Athlone etc. Some of these towns also have a German channel.
If a major company such as ntl does not recognise that Dublin is part of Europe then the only alternative is to force them and all cable providers in the Union to provide at least four separate frequencies in the very basic in four major Union languages....this may mean going for legislation/directives through the E.C. and the E.P.

SteM

Alun wrote:

I'm not trying to force anything down anyone's throat. There are a measly, what is it, 16 (?) channels on the NTL analogue service here. On the cable where I was in Holland we had something like 35, so there was plenty of room for these channels. Anyway, nobody's forcing you to watch them.

Even if they didn't want to put such channels on the analogue service, they could kick some of the cr@p that nobody watches off the digital service, and make room for 10 channels easily. Heck they could even charge for it as an add-on, and I'd pay for it rather than the endless supply of sports, god, shopping, music and cartoon channels currently on offer.

I'm all for the idea of putting these sorts of channels on digital TV, because if you want them that much then pay extra for them. If I want to watch a live premiership or la liga match then that's what I have to do. I know that I can either do that or buy a digital satellite setup and hunt for channels I want, perhaps this is something you should consider?

Well done for speaking other languages fluently by the way, however most of the people in this country were brought up speaking English and forced into learning Irish. A lot did French or German up to inter/junior or leaving cert but most don't know enough to want to watch a channel based in these languages. Perhaps in time this country will embrace EU culture and languages more but who knows. Most people just aren't interested enough to be bothered getting a point of view from a news channel in a different language and it doesn't make you a better person just because you are - I might be out of line but that's the way your postings come across.


@ a bientot
It's funny but in your first post you mention...

What we, the majority, demand for 2005 is a greater selection of channels in basic or as ntl call it 'normal cable' and these services should be multi-lingual to cater for all, typical of a normal European Union capital.

but now you say...

and all cable providers in the Union to provide at least four separate frequencies in the very basic in four major Union languages..

I'll ignore the 'What we, the majority...' line because that's just BS. However, I'll ask you which should it be? Should it be the 4 major union languages like *you* want or should legislation be brought in so cable operators provide channels 'to cater for all' - there are more that 4 languages in the EU after all. I've noticed you post this same message a few times now in the past, I'd suggest you contact people who can actually do something about it instead of posting the same tired (and quite selfish argument) here.

Capt'n Midnight

How long would NTL last if BBC and UTV could be picked up on an aerial without contact ?
I can't tell the difference between NTL and SKY when it comes to digital channel choice - it's a case of who you want to give your money to. At least by offering foreign channels they could differentiate themselves from SKY, there are enough FTA , state subsiside channels out there.

NTL Basic has one thing that SKY doesn't have - multichannels in multirooms without extra cost if you put in your own splitter and cable.

Hey it would be nice if they offered naked broadband - no analog or digital TV, just data - or if they offered digital without analog ! people could then decide what they really wanted rather than taking a bundle of stuff they don't want.

RicardoSmith

Anyone I know who wants more than NTL or want other languages simply use satellite. I wonder what the most popular languages (other than Irish and English) would be? Probably a few of the asian languages rather than european ones.

We used to have TV5 didn't we and that was dropped. I know they have the German news on NTL Digital. What other language channels I don't know.

Alun

RicardoSmith wrote:

We used to have TV5 didn't we and that was dropped. I know they have the German news on NTL Digital. What other language channels I don't know.

They have TV5 on NTL digital, but no German anything as far as I can see. There's a channel called ZeeTV, or something like that, which you have to pay for which is Chinese I think, but that's it. They used to have a period in the early evening on one of the less used analogue frequencies where they used to switch over to a German news broadcast, WDR I think, for an hour and also a Spanish one (?), but that was scrapped a while ago.

DMC

NTL used to have 8:30pm German News (ZDF's "Heute"), 9:00pm Italian News (RAI UNO's "TG1") and 9:45pm Spanish News (TVE's Telediario)

Mossy Monk

DMC wrote:

NTL used to have 8:30pm German News (ZDF's "Huete"), 9:00pm Italian News (RAI UNO's "TG1") and 9:45pm Spanish News (TVE's Telediario)

there is still that European language which switches between the 3 channels

DMC

'fraid not anymore on NTL analogue in Dublin.