Satellite chaos set to hit ITV and Channel 4 in Gibraltar

Families sat down last weekend to watch BBC only to discover, to their frustration, the TV scrambled with nothing more than static and white noise.

Many of Gibraltar’s residents were subjected to four days without their beloved BBC channels as a new ‘Astra 2E’ satellite was put into place, disrupting the usual signal.
Julian Sheriff, Marketing Executive for Gibsat, said they were able to recover the BBC channels yesterday, but expect more disruptions some time this week. He said the next changes should be the ITV channels and Channel 4 and, just like the BBC, they will only be able to react once it happens.
In response as to what exact date this should happen Mr Sheriff replied:
“Unfortunately we do not have access to this information. We have asked for it in the past, but they are not willing to provide us with it.”

He said that the information gathered following satellite transmission issues with the BBC will now aid in roughly predicting what will happen with the ITV and Channel 4.
“We do our best to have the service up and running as soon as possible,” said Mr Sheriff, “Sorting out the BBC took us a couple of days, but this time the channels should appear much more quickly, it should only take us one day.”
The channels should disappear in the same way as the BBC, and Gibsat will follow the same procedure in order to deal with it quicker.
“Now we know exactly what we have to do and should be able to do it much more quickly and efficiently,” he added.
Speaking on the changes made to the satellites and subsequent influence on Gibraltar’s television Mr Sheriff said: “Whereas before we were able to receive the signal on the Southern tip of Spain, they are not doing so anymore, so Gibsat has had to source from another satellite.”
He added that the ‘Astra 2E’ satellite has become more efficient and unfortunately is now focussing UK channels solely on the UK itself.
On the possibility of new channels available for viewing in the future he said:
“We are always thinking about new channels and I would like to boast that we have tripled our channel list over the past five years whilst our prices have remained static,
If there is high demand for a particular channel we tend to look into that and see whether it is feasible and provides a good return of investment.”

By Mark Viales at the Gibraltar Chronicle