A third channel has disappeared without warning from the TV sets of subscribers of Melita, which insists its removal is “unrelated” to that of Living TV and Comedy Central.
Jimmy Italia, a TV station which dealt primarily with drama series and reality shows, has now been replaced with a message to customers in Italian saying that from January 1 “the channel will no longer be available on the Sky platform”.
When contacted, a Melita spokesman said: “Unfortunately, the operators of this channel failed to duly inform Melita it will not be available anymore. We are now in communication with the same operators to understand why the channel has been closed and why Melita was not properly notified.”
Jimmy is the same TV station Labour MP Adrian Vassallo had publicly complained about because it featured pornographic TV shows in its late night schedule. Among other programmes, the station showed sci-fi programmes like Primeval and Babylon 2, popular drama The Practice and, at night, a raunchy reality show about prostitutes called Bordello.
Jimmy’s discontinuation comes just a few weeks after it was announced that two even more popular TV stations, Living TV and Comedy Central, were being discontinued by rival TV service providers Melita and Go (which never aired Jimmy).
The news had prompted demands for compensation by irate subscribers, whose complaints gained ground when a spokesman for Living TV (owned by the UK distributors of Comedy Central) said the channel was effectively being broadcast “illegally”.
The Competition and Consumer Department is looking into the matter and meetings with Melita and Go are scheduled for this week.
The Labour Party yesterday expressed concern about the way Melita and Go had treated customers by charging them for stations they allegedly had no permission to air.
Consumer affairs spokesman Silvio Parnis welcomed the ongoing investigation but said it could have started earlier. He called on the regulatory authorities to take a more proactive role in the telecommunications sector to enable wider choice and better service for consumers.
The authorities and the companies should accept interoperability and content sharing within EU regulations, he said.