Repeat snippets

At last I have solved the mystery of the short film repeats on the Discovery Channel on Melita Cable. Many readers may have watched countless times those irritating repeats of short films featuring either those dustmen, or the man who creates artificial intelligence or the criminal profiler or the man who promises to build a rocket to carry three astronauts into orbit or the young girl who takes pride in connecting with us by speaking Gaelic. It is repeats unlimited on the Discovery Channel.

I often queried why this channel repeats these short films. They could not possibly earn any revenue as there is no commercial content to them. However, the Discovery Channel were way ahead of me in their thinking for I have now discovered that these "short" films run for about six to eight minutes each and are a very clever way of boosting profits by cutting costs.

Repeated many times daily and not wishing to bore you with the arithmetic involved, the accumulated times of these "short" films annually are the equivalent of 650 three-quarter-hour programmes. The Discovery Channel can be an excellent channel to tune in to after a hard day's work despite its many other repeats. One can understand that repeats of main programmes are essential but the channel is running the risk of the viewer switching channels when these short films are shown. That means a poor service for the paying viewer.

I am surprised Melita Cable, along with other cable service providers, have not put pressure to bear on Discovery Channel to lessen the amount of these short repeats and to urge the introduction of new programmes. Melita Cable charge an advance fee for a service in the future. Worse still, it is rather smug about the service Discovery Channel provides with its use of the Rumanian language. It is about time Melita Cable looked after its subscribers' interests a little more if it hopes to renew its licence when the present one expires.