Bermudian show jumper Jill Terciera

The Minister of Telecommunications has taken up the case of Olympic coverage.

For more than a week, complaints about poor coverage of the Beijing Games have flowed where disgruntled would-be Olympics viewers have written, called and blogged about missing crucial moments at the Games, poor picture quality and limited coverage.

With Bermuda Broadcasting Company holding exclusive rights to broadcast the Games in Bermuda, the events are only being shown on Channel 9 ZBM while a number of CableVision channels showing the Games elsewhere have been blacked out.

While both BBC and CableVision publicly said they would seek to improve coverage for viewers, negotiations on how that might be achieved have gone nowhere.

While CableVision has offered BBC a channel to air coverage of the Games 24 hours a day, provided that BBC provides access to its feed, BBC has said this is not acceptable unless CableVision comes to a financial arrangement with the company.

Yesterday, BBC programming manager Darlene Ming said the company had pleaded its case with Telecommunications Minister Terry Lister.

"Telecommunications is satisfied that Bermuda Broadcasting has done everything in its power to bring a solution," she said. "Telecommunications has now confirmed that it will talk directly to the respective parties.

"While we are not at liberty to make public all of what today's meeting discussed, Bermuda Broadcasting welcomes any opportunity to put all of its licence issues under the spotlight."

Terry Roberson, Bermuda CableVision general manager, however, simply reiterated last week's offer to BBC for an additional channel.

He said: "Bermuda CableVision stands by its offer made on Thursday offering a channel, free of charge, on its cable network to broadcast 24-hour Olympic coverage if Bermuda Broadcasting Company (BBC) can provide a feed of its signal to CableVision.

"We feel this is an equitable offer and we are not sure if the questions posed this evening will bring us any closer to rectifying the situation at hand."

Last night, Mr. Lister urged both parties to find a solution to the Olympics coverage dispute.

A Government spokesman said: "Ministry officials have spoken to principals of both companies involved and have determined that a solution to the current issue does exist.

"As a result, the Ministry has encouraged CableVision and BBC to immediately finalise an agreement that will allow the public expectations to be met.

"Failing that, we would issue a Directive mandating the two sides to immediately meet to begin negotiations at the earliest opportunity to solve this problem for the benefit of the Bermuda community."

Yesterday R. Scott Pearman, President and CEO of Inter Island Communications, said only a review of existing legislation and broadcasting regulations would result in better coverage in the future.

"The regulations need to be reviewed. The majority of them are 20 or 30 years old," he said.

"If we had an updated set of laws somewhere, these things could be resolved. The industry has to sit down and rework the legislation because of the new technology and with the issue of rights."

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