No Living TV and no Comedy Channel: That ain't funny
Mona Farrugia has just found out that the Comedy Channel and Living TV will no longer be transmitted in Malta. She asks what the point of Cable TV will be. Actually.
So the Times reported something yesterday. I don't really read timesofmalta (except, I admit, sometimes the comments), so the article completely passed me by.
Then today I saw a post on Il-Pjazza where planetmona has its own Child Board (don't ask) called INCREDIBLY UPSETTING NEWS!!!
Frankly, planetmona cannot see the point of having Cable Television if the only two channels worth watching, when they are not spewing repeats after repeats after repeats (like Scrubs or Two and a Half Men). Moreover, our connection is with Melita, not Go but apparently, according to the Pjazza gossip, Melita are going in the same direction, the only difference being that they cannot be bothered announcing it. I will just go home one day, switch on the television and the only thing I can watch is Lou Bondi', all of Xarabank or that godawful screecher on Sunday mornings. I may then have to kill myself. And no, there is no mistake in any of the words previously written: I did mean 'thing'.
Cable TV providers have a stranglehold on the local legislation. It is all one-way with them: they will come down on you like a ton of bricks if you download tv programmes from the net but they feel absolutely no responsiblity in providing a decent set of channels to those who have been paying them subscriptions for years.
Moreover, whether it's Go or Melita, you will find that neither have too many fans.
Go are superbly 'happy' about the fact that they are going to be providing the Food Network Channel. For all those who do not have Melita, I can tell you that the Food Network carries so many repeats of the same programmes that you will end up eating your own television the moment you see Giada de Laurentiis licking her spoon again or Iron Chef America reproducing the same impossible-to-cook-in-an-hour-this-was-obviously-planned programmes.
Whoever is in charge of 'choosing' stuff for Go's channels really needs to watch some tv as they are obviously spending too much time with the paperwork in the office: 'During December GO stars will not only premiere top comedy series such as The Big Bang Theory and The Middle however also showcase a number of first run movies including The Hangover, Sherlock Holmes, The Informant, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in addition to other premiering titles such as Zodiac, The Brave One, The Prestige, Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai, The Invasion, A Serious Man, and Lucky You.'. Obviously, they haven't been to a DVD shop in yonks.
They also decline to tell us that just in case we do not get it the first time round, we can watch Lucky You (what?!) 800 times a day as that is how many times they will be showing it. Yey!
Anyway, here is the full article. Meanwhile, since I am sure nobody except a few mad 70 year olds on tom can bother taking this up with Go and Melita, can somebody please tell me what I can do in order to watch some decent TV?
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Monday, 6th December 2010 - 17:01CET
GO forced to drop Living TV and Comedy Channel from TV line-up
GO television said today that as a result of international broadcasting developments, it will have to stop the retransmission of two tv channels – Living TV and Comedy Channel as from Thursday as the territorial rights for these channels cannot be cleared for Malta and are therefore not available for redistribution by any tv operator.
However, it said it had made improvements to its Silver and Gold packages.
GO’s Silver package will now include Zone Reality, Fine Living Network (FLN) and Animal Planet, the latter being a new channel to GO’s tv line-up.
The Gold package will be further enhanced with the Food Network and Animal Planet. In addition, GO’s movies and series channel – GO stars – will be offered free of charge to all Gold tv customers until June 2011.
Food Network is a unique lifestyle channel that strives to be way more than cooking. The network is committed to exploring new and different ways to approach food - through pop culture, competition, adventure, and travel - while also expanding its repertoire of technique-based information.
GO said the popular Animal Planet channel is the world’s only entertainment brand that immerses viewers in the full range of life in the animal kingdom with rich, deep content on multiple platforms. Programming highlights on Animal Planet include Whale Wars, River Monsters, I'm Alive, Monsters Inside Me, Pit Bulls, Parolees and Dogs 101.
During December GO stars will not only premiere top comedy series such as The Big Bang Theory and The Middle however also showcase a number of first run movies including The Hangover, Sherlock Holmes, The Informant, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in addition to other premiering titles such as Zodiac, The Brave One, The Prestige, Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai, The Invasion, A Serious Man, and Lucky You.
The changes in the tv line-up will be implemented on Thursday. Furthermore GO will be shortly announcing further channels in its tv line-up.
GO apologised for any inconvenience caused.
Comments
Also, now it seems it was illegal all along:
http://markbiwwa.com/2010/12/10/living-tv-is-a-pirate-station/
quite apart from the fact that i really was sick and tired of living tv's constant adverts for ambulance chasers, aka lawyers, and other sundry xmas shite, this really does make me wonder ...
have we been paying go/melita for a service that they were receiving as a freebie? do we have the right to know why they've either stopped paying, or they got caught with their pants down and now have to remove both living and comedy? damn i'm going to miss lee evans, but then again, even his jokes i can reel off by rote :/
"we apologise for the inconvenience" doesn't quite cut it. a ticker tape apology on the screen isn't enough for me. i want an explanation and i'm going to write to Go, my cable providers, asking for a reason.
those with melita (crazies if you ask me but anyhow) are worse off imo because at least us Go people have fox life and FX which show more or less same movies as living without the adverts. so again, thanks go and balls to melita. soggy mushy ones too.
@Drugo
Yes. And after a while Melita and Go start pressurising the government to clamp down on that too. Haven't we seen this one before too?
Gbajt nghidlek.....gib DreamBox :-)
Yeah, I vote for the latter.
http://yfrog.com/eqxgq01j
Screw the Melita/Go duopoly. If you don't feel like splashing out on satellite, but did splash out on a HDTV set, here's a decent solution:
1)download Hotspot shield http://hotspotshield.com/ This little free program disguises your ip, so that your computer appears to be in the USA or UK (or any country you need).
2)This way you'll be able to connect to either Hulu.com or BBC's iplayer. If you have a US creditcard you'll probably even access Netflix (but don't take my word for that). Hulu'll be a mite laggy, but it's worthed.
3)Connect your PC/laptop to your HD set. This depends on your TV and your machine. Most modern laptops have HDMI outputs. Use those. There's also wireless options out there if you feel like exploration.
4)There's also a number of wireless keyboard/mouse options out there to control your computer from the sofa with.
5)Of course you can also download stuff through torrents and set everything in a media server, but that's slightly shady.
@Marco
Oops: Malware. Check this http://download.cnet.com/Hotspot-Shield/3000-2092_4-10638005.html
