Good news for some satellite TV viewers
From 10 July, the BBC will broadcast all eight of its digital television channels in the clear on the Astra satellite. By Autumn 2003, all 22 national and regional variations of BBC ONE and BBC TWO will be available. As part of a new agreement with BSkyB, there willl no longer be any need for digital satellite viewers to have a viewing card in order to watch BBC services. That means satellite viewers within the Astra 2D footprint (which includes the Benelux countries) will for the first time be able to view all the BBC channels unencrypted without the need for a Sky digibox.
But it's bad news for British expats living further away in Europe. Because the footprint of the BBC transmissions is much tighter than that used for the Sky package, they'll need a much larger dish to receive a decent signal.
This arrangement was originally meant to start on 31 May, but was delayed by an argument over the positions of BBC1 and BBC2 on the Electronic Programme Guide. Sky had threatened to move them off their 101 and 102 positions. That is now guaranteed, and it seems everybody's happy - especially those people who make money selling satellite dishes in places like the Costa Brava :-)
9:27:36 PM 
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