Moves to improve the Bermuda Broadcasting Company's "shoddy" coverage of the Olympic Games left the starting blocks last night, only to stumble at the first hurdle.

The BBC released a statement, offering CableVision the opportunity to air additional channels — in exchange for payment of part of the programming rights fee.

The 'Board and Management of the Bermuda Broadcasting Co. Ltd.' also said they were seeking an "immediate" meeting with the Department of Telecommunications to "facilitate the additional CableVision coverage".

The offer, however, was rejected by CableVision, which said it was not willing "to pay twice for the programming". Instead, CableVision reiterated its offer to provide the BBC with a free channel for more coverage — a proposal rejected last week by the broadcasting company as "unacceptable".

The impasse will leave sports fans and patriots increasingly frustrated as the second and final week of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games gets underway.

Over the past week, this newspaper has been inundated with complaints of poor coverage of the global sporting event.

The BBC bought exclusive rights to air the Games in Bermuda, screening the event on ZBM Channel 9 and blacking out other channels — normally available to CableVision subscribers — such as CNBC, MSNBC and CBC.

The BBC's coverage consists of a feed from the Caribbean, and some footage from NBC, CBC and CBS.

Many have blasted the "poor reception" and "unscheduled blackouts", describing the quality of coverage as "shoddy", "embarrassing", "disgusting" and "a disgrace".

One letter writer, 'Angry in Smith's' told The Royal Gazette: "I would almost call this a joke if it weren't so upsetting".

Last night, viewer Norman D. Robinson, 36, said he was particularly "annoyed" at the BBC's reported failure to screen the historic women's 100m sprint final, in which Jamaican competitors clinched gold, silver and bronze.

Mr. Robinson, an IT manager from Warwick, said he and his Jamaican wife sat down to watch the event, only to find ZBM had switched the coverage to a basketball semi-final.

It was the first time in Olympic history that any country had swept the medals board in the women's 100m, and Mr. Robinson said: "We are very upset. This was a historic, unprecedented event."

He said: "You only get the Olympics every four years but here in Bermuda, we can't even see it properly. This is crazy. We are also forced to watch poor quality video — where is the HD (high definition) content?

"I am totally disgusted by the quality of coverage — the BBC needs to get with it, and CableVision needs to start working with them. I am now going to switch to WOW."

He added: "No one should have to miss out on the Olympics track and field finals. The whole country should be upset."

The BBC last night claimed that it had not rejected "the concept of placing additional Olympic coverage on the Bermuda CableVision system".

"In fact we propose greater coverage on the CableVision system than that which was proposed by Bermuda CableVision," the company said in a statement.

The BBC went on to make the following proposals: "CableVision to be given the opportunity to air those additional channels depicting Olympic 2008 coverage."

It said in return CableVision should screen the logos and billboards of the BBC Olympics sponsors, which include Lindo's and the Bank of Bermuda.

CableVision should also "pay its share of the rights fee so that its subscribers can view additional coverage free of charge", said the BBC, arguing it "objected to the arbitrary showing of those additional channels without a fee".

Rather than seeking to screen coverage "free of charge", "if Bermuda CableVision wants to satisfy its subscribers, it has an obligation to pay the required fee", BBC said.

The BBC added: "We call on Bermuda CableVision to accept the offer of additional channels: insert Bermuda Broadcasting Company advertising/corporate logos as they have done in the past; and pay its share of the rights fee."

Terry Roberson, general manager of Bermuda CableVision, however, last night rejected the proposals, telling The Royal Gazette: "When Bermuda CableVision made an offer on Thursday to provide a free channel to Bermuda Broadcasting for 24-hour Olympic coverage, our intent was to provide them with another opportunity to show additional programming for the people of Bermuda with no strings attached. We are sorry to see that our offer on Thursday has been rejected.

"We respect that Bermuda Broadcasting has the exclusive rights for the Olympics and will continue to honour their request to block out the designated number of channels, except Channel 9, as they requested.

"To address Bermuda Broadcasting's offer to pay them to show the Olympics and open them up for the public, Bermuda CableVision already currently pays fees for these networks, whether blacked out or not, and it does not make good economical sense to pay twice for the programming: once to the networks, and a second time to Bermuda Broadcasting.

"However, if Bermuda Broadcasting should feel that they would like to reconsider our offer of a free channel to show more programming during the games, our offer — free to Bermuda Broadcasting — still stands, as long as they can provide us with a feed."

Darlene Ming, the BBC's TV and radio programming manager, was last night unavailable for comment.