music videos instead of the Barcelona Olympics. We think their anger is justified.

There are a number of problems involved.

Bermudians, generally, are not very enthusiastic about the nothing-but-Americans approach to the Olympics demonstrated by the American networks. This is especially true in the wake of the hash CBS and zany Paula Zahn made of the Winter Olympics.

What you get from the networks who spend millions and are under heat from US advertisers, is not a report of the Olympics but a report on the United States team and even then, generally, it is only the winners in the United States team because you might be highly touted before you compete but if you lose you get very short shrift. It is not good reportage. It is not good television and it is simply not representative of what happens at the Olympics or of the spirit of the Olympics. That may be all well and good in the United States but it is not what other people want.

As an example, CNBC, which is now playing music video, had a good reputation in the wake of the Winter Olympics for being comprehensive and fair.

Bermudians are being deprived of that in favour of NBC broadcasting which clearly plans to bore us to death with the US basketball "dream team''. In fact they are going to make us all root for a basketball underdog, any underdog.

But Bermudians without dishes are forced to watch or be deprived of any Olympics. It is a bit like The Royal Gazette saying that since it has spent a great deal of money sending its Sports Editor Dexter Smith to Barcelona, you can only read about the Olympics in The Royal Gazette . Doubtless you will get the best coverage of Bermudian competitors in The Royal Gazette but not to the exclusion of all other athletes.

We would have thought that Bermuda Broadcasting's sense of self- preservation and fair-play would have dictated that an already weakened company not further annoy the Bermudian public. While Bermuda Broadcasting's viewing percentage will probably go up if it has the only Olympic coverage, it has to continue to attract viewers after the Olympics. On a regular basis, Bermuda Broadcasting now has a very low viewing ratio and takes the risk that angry viewers will just give up on ZBM and ZFB.

Bermuda Cablevision already has angry viewers because subscribers signed on for X number of channels, depending on their package, and two channels are not now broadcasting the Olympics. Do they think they have been cheated? Of course they do.

It is nonsense to deprive the Bermudian public of programming which is available. We think Bermuda deserves better from both Bermuda Cablevision and Bermuda Broadcasting. We cannot see any reason why Bermuda Cablevision and Bermuda Broadcasting could not have sorted out the mess in advance in a way which did not deprive Bermudians of the Olympics.