channels blacked out, says Bermuda Cablevision.

The company was forced to black out Games coverage on the two channels or face court action from the Bermuda Broadcasting Company, which bought exclusive rights to show the Games on ZFB.

Cable viewers tuning into the blacked-out channels -- WDIV from Detroit and BCTV from British Columbia -- have complained of a diet of music videos.

But Cablevision general manager Mr. Don Greiner said: "They haven't missed out, but they don't realise that. ZFB is showing the same thing that WDIV is showing and BCTV is showing. I'm not saying it's 100 percent, because I'm not watching it every day. But basically it's the same thing.

"I think ZFB have good coverage -- the only thing that's missing is the different flavour of different stations.'' As part of its Government licence, Cablevision was obliged to substitute programmes to protect local broadcasters when reasonable requests were made, Mr. Greiner said.

BBC managing director Mr. Malcolm Fletcher confirmed legal action would have been taken if Cablevision had shown the Olympics on the two channels. "We would have taken an injunction against them immediately,'' he said.

He said he could sympathise with cable subscribers. "It's not normal for things to be blacked out here, but it is in the States.'' BBC's exclusive deal was fixed up through the Barbados-based Caribbean Broadcasting Union, which paid $140,000 to the Olympic authorities and $120,000 to NBC for its coverage. BBC paid a share of the fees to secure coverage in Bermuda.

CBU secretary general Mr. Terence Holder said he could see why cable viewers might be displeased by the deal, but said the company had to protect its investment.

The NBC coverage was "terrible'', he admitted. "But you have to take it. We went to the Canadians a few years ago and we found it wasn't so much biased but concentrated on things like canoeing. We used the Americans because the sports they are covering far more closely resemble the interests of the Caribbean.'' More than 700 hours of surplus Olympic coverage bought by ZFB bosses will never be seen here.

Mr. Fletcher said ZFB did not have the time available to show the surplus and had offered to sell it to Cablevision which declined the offer.