Television viewers accused cable provider Cable Bahamas of “stealing signal” this week when scrambled channels showed a message from digital television provider Direct TV.
According to Minister Tommy Turnquest, in the past Cable Bahamas has denied this.
The viewers spoke out on Gems Radio talkshow host Steve McKinney’s show on Monday evening about how several channels lost signal just after 9 o’clock Saturday night and a message from Direct TV popped up.
Mr McKinney claims that this indicates the cable provider used, or is using, a local domestic Direct TV dish to transmit channels to its customers.
Between nine and 12 channels were affected, Mr McKinney claimed.
He has since attempted to contact Cable Bahamas and Direct TV for answers but when he received no response he spoke out about the incident on his radio show.
He said: “I got a lot of emails about it over the weekend and several calls during the show.
“And what happened is indicative that they were getting the signal from a local domestic dish.
“That is not supposed to happen.
“Often we will just take these things as they come, and accept things the way they are, but the truth is, if these things are happening they are wrong and should not be accepted.”
Mr McKinney said he forced Cable Bahamas to respond when he discovered the service provider was showing HBO, Showtime and Cinemax allegedly without authorisation in the 1990’s and got a Cable Bahamas official to admit this on his show.
Allegations were put to Cable Bahamas public relations manager Keith Wisdom on Tuesday, but Mr Wisdom said last week that senior management had not yet provided a response. Minister for Broadcasting Tommy Turnquest said he had not received any complaint about Cable Bahamas “stealing” signal and if he did there would be an investigation.
“If Cable Bahamas is stealing signal it would be breaking the law,” Mr Turnquest said.
“I don’t know if they are doing it or not, I have been in hotels and I have seen the same thing goes on.
“But Cable Bahamas has told me they don’t steal signal.”
Source: The Tribune
