interest in the Winter Olympics taking place in Lillehammer, Norway. So much interest, in fact, that it has been leading to considerable fury at the television coverage of the events in Norway.

The fury arises over the blocking out of Cablevision Channel 18, which arrives from Canada, so that ZBM, or Bermuda Broadcasting, can exclusively broadcast the CBS coverage from Lillehammer. This makes some people furious at their cable station and some people furious at ZBM for blocking out what they see as better coverage from Canada. And from what we have seen the Canadian coverage is clearly better.

The high-point of fury came on Friday morning when Canadian coverage was blocked out. The CBS weather man was on air talking about wood cutting in Norway. The great Dan Jansen skated to a world record and gold medal, having had disasters in 1988 and 1992. Presumably CBS was saving its coverage for the evening.

In the evening, when CBS comes on, the Canadian station is also blocked out.

The Royal Gazette was getting calls from people wanting to know Dan Jansen's result.

There are any number of issues here. One is having Cablevision channels blocked out after you have paid for them. It does happen. The point is that people often buy Cablevision to have not to cope with local TV or to have the very choice which the Canadian Winter Olympics coverage offers as an alternative to CBS.

CBS coverage is distasteful to many non-Americans. It tries to give the impression that there is no-one else in Lillehammer and, if there is anyone else, they are manifestly inadequate. CBS also makes some strange attempt to turn the Winter Olympics into a prime time "show'' by compressing the events and adding a good deal of irrelevant and boring human interest fillers at the expense of actual coverage of the events. That causes enormous frustration for people who are not interested in Norwegian-style wood chopping but would like to see something more than the American competitors in the downhill. Then too, in Bermuda much of the meat of CBS also comes on after 11 p.m. by which time people are so frustrated by innumerable ads in a row and by the fillers that they no longer care.

The Canadians are certainly not free of boosting Canadian athletes nor are they free of the occasional feature but they do cover events as events in a straight up and down manner and they do recognise that some other countries are present and functioning in Norway. The Canadians cover the Winter Olympics, featuring Canadians because Canadian viewers are naturally interested in how Canadians are doing. CBS covers an American event which is taking place in Norway, which may be the Winter Olympics but that fact is incidental. What is all-important to CBS is that the whole thing is a good advertising vehicle.

It seems to us that ZBM could give up CBS as being unacceptable and buy the Canadian or some other proper and realistic telecast. If they cannot or will not do that, then they should leave Channel 18 alone and let Bermuda watch the Winter Olympics in peace on Cablevision 18. In the meantime, Bermuda could send a message by tuning out.