Thousands of British expats living in Portugal and across Europe using satellite dishes to receive the BBC’s Sky and Freesat transmissions from the UK have been left with no signal from any of BBC’s channels this morning (Thursday, February 6), as a result of a permanent move of BBC services to a new satellite (Astra 2E) with a smaller footprint.
The change took place on Thursday morning (February 6) as the broadcasting company had previously announced.
“Generally, the new transponder will improve reception in the South East of England, the north eastern coast of East Anglia, the North East of Scotland and the Shetland Isles,” BBC had said in the statement.
However, the new satellite has trouble broadcasting its signal to some areas in Europe, such as Portugal and Southern Spain. And this seems to have been the point.
When the change had first been announced at the end of 2012, the director of BBC distribution at the time, Alix Pyde, had said: “The overspill of the BBC’s services will be reduced so viewers outside the UK will find it even harder to receive them. I know that this causes unhappiness to some of you living outside the UK. However, it is entirely appropriate because the BBC domestic services are for people living in the UK only.”
A small number of channels still remain unaffected by the change: BBC ONE Scotland HD, BBC ONE Wales HD, BBC FOUR HD, BBC NEWS HD and CBeebies HD.
