In defence of ZBM

January 7, 2009

Dear Sir,

I am unaccustomed to responding to anonymous letters as they could be from gutless or devious people. The letter from "Mr. Anonymous" addresses the fact that ZBM-TV started the NFL telecast 22 minutes late on Sunday. For this, we apologise. It should not have happened. We will do our best to avoid an recurrence.

However, Mr. Anonymous goes on to make some remarks that I would like to address:

ZBM-TV's service reliability is a function of a tough environment, which we believe is caused by CableVision. First, they have increased viewer choice. We are not opposed to increased choice but it undercuts Bermuda TV stations' abilities to raise Bermuda advertising revenues and support business.

Second, they aggravate this imbalance. CableVision pays as much as $9 per month per subscriber for foreign channels but zero for local TV broadcasters such as ZBM-TV, VSB-TV and ZFB-TV. Local Bermuda TV broadcasters want equitable treatment by CableVision.

ZBM-TV and ZFB-TV are the most popular services on CableVision. BBC conducted an independent survey of 403 CableVision subscribers in mid-December at the time of CableVision's media campaign to illegally drop ZBM-TV. Despite CableVision's slamming of ZBM and ZFB-TV, 98 percent of their subscribers with an opinion stated that they "want CableVision to continue to carry ZBM and ZFB TV". Only two percent were with Mr. Anonymous.

When asked in the same survey, four times as many CableVision subscribers watched ZBM-TV than ESPN and five times as many subscribers watched ZBM-TV News than Larry King on CNN. No contest; ZBM-TV is tops in CableVision viewership.

Mr. Anonymous accepts that the $100 per month CableVision "has problems from time to time" but castigates freely available ZBM-TV. Why the leniency for CableVision?

I suspect that the "horrible" signal is because Mr. Anonymous is a subscriber to CableVision. While ZBM's quality needs improvement, it looks good on WOW and on-air. To help CableVision, ZBM and ZFB-TV have paid for a digital fibre feed to CableVision to provide a direct connection as we provide to WOW. But CableVision refuses to connect! We hope to fix this in a re-transmission consent agreement. CableVision also continues to purposely carry all local TV stations "on channel" causing co-channel interference.

ZBM-TV does need to improve its base signal quality. I personally spent all day Monday visiting the three top Canadian multi-TV broadcast digital engineers in Toronto to review our plans for digital and automation expansion. Improvements are on the way. Even when we improve ZBM-TV's base signal, we are concerned that CableVision's engineering would defeat any such improvement.

For the benefit of all Bermudians, whether subscribers of CableVision or not, it is in the public interest to maintain a strong and independent TV broadcasting system in Bermuda. CableVision as a monopolist needs to provide its fair part.

With regard to Mr. "NFL Devonshire", ZBM-TV owes an apology for missing the first 22 minutes of the NFL telecast. We'll try our best to not have a recurrence. Note: kick-off was at 2.05 and the end of the 1st quarter occurred at 2.36 p.m. so ZBM-TV did not miss "almost the entire quarter". Straight line, we missed about half of the first quarter. Still unacceptable.

One thing for the anonymous writer to consider is that there would have been no half of first, all of second, third or fourth quarters on CableVision if CableVision "got rid of" ZBM-TV. ZBM-TV has certain exclusive NFL rights.

WILLIAM R. CRAIG

CEO

Bermuda Broadcasting Company

Road safety 'ifs'

January 7, 2009

Dear Sir,

Firstly let me offer my heartfelt condolences to all those families who lost loved ones on Bermuda's roads last year and in fact all the years before that. My heart truly goes out to you all in your grief.

I would like to direct this letter to the members of the Road Safety Council and all of the Members of the House.

Please make this the year that you will really deal with the problems on our roads!

IF the sides of the roads were clearly marked with white lines;

IF all kerbs on corners and junctions were marked with reflective paint;

IF the entire length of Middle, South, Harbour and North Shore roads were fitted with "Cats Eyes" ;

IF the solar crossing lights could be placed on all pedestrian crossings and the general public educated on how to use them;

IF the street lighting were better maintained and dark areas eliminated (& illuminated);

IF daylight running lights were the law.

THEN there would be a much greater chance of preserving lives.

The use of headlights during the day may seem odd, but when you have just driven thru bright sunlight and enter a shaded piece of road, while your eyes are adjusting to the change of light level, a cycle rider or even a parked car, can be almost invisible!

So many accidents happen at night, not necessarily through carelessness or even drug or alcohol abuse, but also through poor visibility and insufficient road marking to make the route clear.

While we all are aware that our youngsters feel it is cool to speed and education and big fines/vehicle confiscation are needed to deter this, it is not just speeding that is the problem.

Anyone who has worked long hours, late into the night is at risk on poorly marked roads.

Anyone who has good vision in daylight but difficulty driving at night is at risk.

Anyone who for whatever reason is not wearing their prescription glasses to drive is at risk.

Anyone who is not familiar with a particular road, on bike or car is at risk, due to rotten road markings and signs, overgrown hedges obscuring junctions and street lights.

Those of us who have been privileged to drive overseas must all be aware of the contrast between our roads and those in UK, USA, and Canada where cats eyes are the norm and at night the shape of the route is clearly displayed for 100 yds or more ahead as your headlamps pick them up. This is a huge safety assist!

Lastly please require all vehicles to "light up" as soon as the street lights come on. Driving at dusk without lights can make many vehicles, particularly cyclists speeding or "making the nip" almost invisible and those drivers seem impervious to the fact that other drivers may not see them from sufficient distance to avoid them!

Lives are precious, please let us not lose one more, ever, on our roads.

MARGARET FORSTER

Pembroke

Tech education needed– December 16, 2008

Dear Sir,

Re: Bring back Tech (December 5, 2008)

Times have changed; apprenticeships are no longer the arduous five-year skill of hand and machining that they used to be. Technicians are no longer expected to be skillful in hand tools and machines, but they need to be skillful in other areas, programming electronic devices, with less emphasis on making or repairing things, and more on installing and replacing things.

Electronic controls have replaced the semi-automatic controllers, programmable logic controllers remove the operating skills and enable systems to control themselves. Basic start-stop equipment has been replaced with continuous operating equipment which ramps up and down saving valuable operating dollars.

With these technical advances technicians need more mathematics and physics to understand the operation of such devices, R. Bracewell's letter to the Editor, in The Royal Gazette on December 5, 2008 is right; too wide a diversification cannot be high school level as things today are too sophisticated. The KISS principle must be followed to ensure a thorough grasp of basic principles before embarking on wider fields of knowledge.

It is with the basic principles of mechanical, electrical and electronic engineering firmly understood and mastered, one can build on any field of technology. Technology in this context is the "Human innovation in action that involves the generation of knowledge and processes to develop systems that solve problems and extend human capabilities".

We have left the industrial age, the age of "Tech". We are now in the information age, which started with William Shockley and the transistor, the age where technical education is thought to be obsolete by some politicians who are unfamiliar with the current needs of industry.

The truth of the matter is because the politicians failed to prepare the youth of Bermuda for the 21st Century, we now have nine generations of school children that failed to be properly educated because academia failed to interest them at school. An article addressed this dilemma in the Bermuda Sun on the December 5, 2008, where "an 'underground economy' appears to be growing creating a generation of Bermudians who have no health insurance calling them the "lost generation". Larry Burchall stated that this number is 16,000 and growing but does not appear on any employment lists. Could it be that this number and growing are the lost nine generations of school leavers that were "forgotten"? No qualifications, no chance of paying pension or insurance, just "hustling" for a living; then at 65 years of age no pension or insurance and a burden on the country. The jails are full; hence the saying "better to build the school houses for the boy or the cells for the man" stated many years ago by Eliza Cook and is still as applicable today.

So if all these things that have been highlighted are true and I believe they are, the result of failing to properly educate our youth is 16,000 lost souls, expatriates employed in their place because industry "needs" them, and an even bigger burden on the horizon.

Why can't this be seen? Why do we fail our youth in this way? The answers that have been suggested is to introduce a technical workshop school to train supermen in two years because they do it in Rhode Island. Now we are talking about school leavers up to 25-year-olds, those that have been through the education system and 50 percent of them were failures, the remainder "switched off".

Wake up people. It is too late for the majority of these guys unless they wish to start all over, which we all know is very difficult indeed and will take more than two years. Students at 14 years of age can be saved, students at 17, in the main, have been "switched off" to education for more than four years.

So the answer is re-introducing a technical high school, but with the turmoil being evident in the public system there is no hope of introducing the programme that is needed, if NCCER is anything to go by. We need the standard of City and Guilds or the stationary engineer to be the beginning and the facility and ability to take the next levels which would enable promotion, knowledge, experience and eventually management positions for Bermudians.

Modern day students need modern day programmes, they want to be challenged but the challenges must be realistic and relevant. They need to be interested, excited and stimulated to take on the challenges of the 21st Century. Innovation using the basic technical knowledge to build the future without being stifled and contained, thinking "outside the box", those are the types of challenges we should be looking at.

There is no limit or height that our youth could reach given the right guidance and knowledge, we have the raw material but seem to be wasting it. Throwing it away because we have no clue how to develop it and make this country great. It is up to the people of Bermuda to speak by supporting the proposal for a technical high school as outlined on www.bdaths.com, we need to act and the time is now. The plan is sound we have now to believe and put it into action.

COLIN V. PALMER

Flatts