Well it looks as if Santa has come early for the ex-pats of
Southern Spain with news that the proposed transition of the BBC and Freeview
channels onto the new UK spot beam has hit problem. This is not to say that it
won´t happen in the future, dates in March are now being bandied about, but for
now Eastenders is safe.
The reason for this has been given as a faulty transponder,
but this will not be the end of the matter and the satellite signal will
eventually find its new home. There has been a kind of official word on the BBCblog, they even acknowledge the non UK views, but I am afraid not with good
news.
So what are we to do? Future Lifestyle will continue to test
various systems to find the best way to continue to get UK programming. We believe
that this is a good thing the delay will enable people within the industry to
find a good, reliable solution. We have been approached by several suppliers of
IP solutions in the past couple of weeks. Some are viable solutions, some were
chancers hoping to cash in on the hysteria of the people (how very Costa del
Sol). This rest bite will hopefully make
the opportunists get bored and move on allowing us to do our jobs.
Another upside to the delay is that members of the team had
notice an increase in Christmas party invitations in the last week or so,
something we believe was linked directly to the impending changes. What better
way to try and get the best deal than ply us with drink and mince pies!
So for now panic over, but rest assured that we will be
working behind the scenes to make sure that when the transition happens (and it
will happen) it is smooth and as painless as possible.
