The right to watch sport on TV (1)

Franco Degabriele, head, sales and marketing at Melita Cable, has written about TV sports rights in an unsuccessful attempt to justify his company's actions.

He posts three scenarios and I would like to refer to scenario 2 which is the one which interests the hard-done-by Melita subscribers. In it he repeats that any foreign broadcaster is obliged to encrypt the TV signal if Melita have acquired the exclusive rights for Malta. The fact is that many do not. So what do Melita do? They block the transmission themselves and, if they are feeling magnanimous, they transmit the event on their promotion channel. While doing so they put on a notice on the blocked channel saying: "Melita is not authorised to re-transmit the current programme".

Now this is the height of ridiculousness. Which body or authority is stopping them? They are perfectly free to re-transmit the programme. They only choose to block the channel to pressurise their own clients to take the sports channel. As I have had occasion to state in an earlier letter, anybody with a terrestrial antenna can watch these channels in the clear. Many subscribers of Melita are now installing these antennae.

The expense involved comes to more than the Lm25 which Melita are asking for a five-month subscription to the sports channel but I, and I suspect many others, will not give in to Melita's pressure.

Should there be a viable alternative to them in the future we shall not forget.

Apparently several regulatory and consumer protection bodies are having discussions on this matter with Melita. One of the important factors these bodies should bear in mind is that Melita is contracted with their subscribers to supply the channels contained in the package for the whole 24 hours.