On Monday 1st March thousands of British ex-pats living in Italy tried to tune in to Sky Italia’s channel 138 to find, instead of their favourite programme on the BBC Entertainment [formerly BBC Prime] channel, a notice from Sky informing them that the channel was no longer available.
The international news channel BBC World was still broadcasting on Sky Italia, but of BBC Entertainment, which screens soap operas, drama series, British comedy and documentaries, there was not a trace. The British ex-pat community was in despair.
Would they never know who killed Archie, a character in the London-based series “Eastenders”? Who would get the ward sister’s job in the long-running hospital drama, “Casualty”? And gone from their lives was their weekly hour of nostalgia as they settled down with a cup of tea to watch “Coast”, a journey around the entire British coastline.
But soon despair turned to anger and, being British, the ex-pats’ anger turned into action: now they are bombarding Sky Italia with phone calls, emails and faxes and a 550-strong group, “Bring back BBC Entertainment on Sky Italia” has been formed on facebook. Group founder Carlo Castiglia writes:
“Like most of the British ex-pats when we subscribed to Sky Italia, we did it because BBC Entertainment was part of the Sky channels. As most of you have noticed from the 1st March BBC Entertainment is no longer part of the Sky platform! Without informing any of us they just took the channel off the platform. It’s disgraceful the way Sky are treating us.”
Sky Italia are sending out standard emails to members of the group and others who contact them. These say that Sky have not renewed their contract with BBC Entertainment and point out the other channels offered by Sky. This does not appease the British ex-pats, who say that they will cancel their Sky subscriptions en masse. Carlo Castiglia has been contacted by the BBC, who, in a courteous response to his email, say that they are aware of the facebook group and appreciate their support of BBC Entertainment. They state that, when the contract came up for renewal, they were unable to reach a mutually acceptable agreement with Sky.
You may wonder why British ex-pats who have lived in Italy for many years still wish to watch BBC Entertainment. These are people who love Italy and have embraced its culture. But when it comes to television, Italian channels with their endless quizzes, reality shows and dreadful soap operas have little to offer them. BBC Entertainment was, for many, a link with “home” and, whatever criticisms one may level at the BBC, one has to admit that, compared to many other broadcasters, the quality of its drama and documentary output is high.
The facebook group fights on and a side-benefit of its existence is that friendships are being formed among its members, who have this message for Sky Italia:
“We shall never surrender”.
