Correspondence with BBC and Campaign ideas

[expat2]

This is what BBC had to say after I complain for moving to Astra2D
I only cancel what I consider private
Dear G…….

Thank you for your e-mail to Greg Dyke. As I am sure you will appreciate, the Director-General receives more correspondence than he can deal with personally, so once e-mails have been read they are forwarded by his office to BBC Information. This department has a wealth of knowledge about BBC programmes and policies and is experienced in the workings of the Corporation. The Director-General has therefore authorised us to reply on his behalf.

I was sorry to note your disappointment with the BBC's decision to migrate to the Astra 2D satellite. For more information on why this decision was taken, please visit the following BBC News website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/2843621.stm

Thank you once again for taking the time to contact the BBC.

Regards

Na…………….
BBC Information
__________________________________________________
BBCi - The BBC at your beck and call
http://www.bbc.co.uk/

-----Original Message-----

Forwarded by the Correspondence Unit.

Team Assistant, Correspondence Unit

Governance & Accountability

Room 2……………….

Tel: 020…………..

Fax: 020 ……………..

-----Original Message-----
From: zzGreg zzDyke
Sent: 02 June 2003 13:10
To: E……………
Subject: FW: Bye bye beeb



-----Original Message-----
From: gi
Sent: 30 May 2003 17:05
To: zzGreg zzDyke
Subject: Bye bye beeb


Dear Mr Dyke

Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European
Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the
Regions on certain legal aspects relating to cinematographic and other
audiovisual works/* COM/2001/0534 final */

<http://europa.eu.int/cgi-bin/eur-lex/udl.pl?REQUEST=Seek-Deliver&COLLEC
TION=com&SERVICE=eurlex&LANGUAGE=en&DOCID=501PC0534&FORMAT=pdf>

Official Journal C 043 , 16/02/2002 P. 0006 - 0017

This is the bill there is about copyright from the EEU. I read the
amount of money that SKY was asking for remaining on the sky EPG, but
you certainly you did not think for a minute for all expat who live
around Europe and want to remain in touch with Britain, I known you
might say is due to the copyright, but if we all pay the licence in UK
and pay the SKY subscription by direct debit, ( like me and my wife)
officially BBC & SKY they do not infringe the law, but thousands and
thousand of British people living abroad are mostly happy to watch the 6
o'clock news and feel like they still live in England.
We can only hope the "The United State of Europe" will become soon a law
and forget the copyright problem
Yours

 

[anton]

@Jim
Is this thread dead now?
The question was what else we could do?

I also wrote to G.Dyke- in my e-mail I literally spilled my heart expressing my sorrow at the loss of BBC TV
and generally just made it very personal just to see if there could be some sort of ‘human’ response. But I also raised several points about the economics behind their move and possible alternatives which could work out even better for them whilst keeping many more people happy....
After a few I got some sort of automated reply which proved the following:
-the mail never got to the man himself
- the person who replied on his behalf probably didn’t read it either
- not a single of my points was actually answered
BUT, interestingly for me, it openly admitted two things:
1) BBC openly admit they are aware that their signal can be received in several European countries and make no bones about it, quote:
‘The BBC will be using the Astra 2D satellite which has a more targeted footprint, allowing the BBC to limit broadcasting to the UK and SOME SURROUNDING COUNTRIES. ‘
2) as far as they are concerned they are not against anybody trying to pick their signal at any location
‘A local electrical retailer or installer, would be able to tell you if it is possible to receive a signal from the Astra 2D satellite at your location.‘‘

Point 1 makes of course a big laugh of any possible debate about any ‘per territory sold‘ programme rights.
(just as I pointed out in my mail)
Point 2 is the ULTIMATE point for anybody concerned telling them to forget trying to raise any political/moral/whatever discussion on making BBC officially possible in the whole of Europe and concentrate
on taking things into their own hands
(although in my mail I stated how very much I would prefer giving my money to them rather than to just anybody selling expensive reception gear)

So what are the options left?
1. Forget about BBC and watch/listen to any crap there is available at your particular location
2. UK citizens simply go back home or as Pet Shop Boys say ‘’GO WEST (enough)’’
3. For other nations- also go west enough or even claim asylum in the UK on the grounds of your addiction to BBC and the impossibility of supporting your drug habbit from your current place.

But seriously and realistically now: the only option is trying to upgrade your gear at a reasonable cost and I see currently only two alternatives to spending a fortune on a massive dish:

1) For all people affected to somehow come together, e.g. on this forum and commision production of a tailormade dish (or slightly different sizes for people from roughly the same area)
I don’t know how cheaply such dish could be made, but the prices I have seen so far are surely huge and I suspect the cost could be brought down if some not too greedy producer could be found.

2) For me, the most interesting discussion at the moment seems to be going under the PHASED ARRAYS thread, and it seems there are some brains out there which can come up with alternative solutions but would need some support for their research (the idea is about using 2 or more smaller dishes rather than 1 huge one) For this, I for one would be inclined to make a donation specifically for this cause.

What do you think?