The chairman of Bermuda Broadcasting, Fernance Perry fired back at critics of its Olympics coverage and demanded an apology for their sponsors.

Multiple letters to the editor to this paper had asked why there were four channels listing as showing the Olympics, yet only channel nine, ZBM was showing them - one disgruntled Olympics fan actually even called for boycotting the sponsors.

And Cablevision general manager, Terry Robertson, in yesterday's paper said that Bermuda Broadcasting had requested the games be shown only on their channels.

Mr. Robertson had also told his disgruntled customers to call Bermuda Broadcasting with their concerns.

But yesterday, Mr. Perry and Darlene Ming, the Television Programming Manager said the problem was not on their end, but that Cablevision should have negotiated the rights to broadcast the games as they had.

And Mr. Perry called for an apology to be made to all sponsors of the Olympic Games, including premiere sponsor Bank of Bermuda. Additional TV 9 sponsorship is with Cable and Wireless Bermuda & Quantum; General Motors/Rayclan Ltd; BELCO; Lindos Group of Companies; Pizza Hut and TreeCon Ltd.

"Cablevision needed to negotiate the rights with us for the rights, but they didn't do it and they made no effort and in fact they questioned the validity of our licenses for the copyrights which we paid dearly for," he said.

"WOW has always cooperated with us and they came to us. Cablevision would have had to go through the same channels as us.

"And those people who have targeted our sponsors they should offer them their apologies. It's not the sponsors' responsibility. They are providing the financial support."

Ms. Ming said: "I think it's bad taste to do it like this. We have the rights to the Olympic feed and to pick up the NBC feed. And NBC would only let us have the feed if we could get the rights for the Olympics."

According to Ms. Ming and Mr. Perry, Bermuda Broadcasting has to acquire the rights to air the Olympics through Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) a Barbados-based centralised content-provider for the various Caribbean media houses.

Once the company has bought the rights through CMC they can then request feeds from NBC and other providers.

Because Cablevision had not sought an agreement with Bermuda Broadcasting or with CMC they were unable to show the games on the cable channels.

This, however, was not Bermuda Broadcasting Company's fault according to Mr. Perry.And in response to clients who ridiculed the coverage from Barbadoes, Mr. Perry said that was just plain rude and the community has no right to attack someone for their accents and culture.Ms. Ming further clarified that the morning programming from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. from the Barbadoes was filling airtime, where no other stations was broadcasting the Olympics, before the NBCcoverage started at 11 a.m.Furthermore, she said, it would provide the best chance for Bermuda to see its athletes as CMC was focusing on Caribbean athletes.Meantime Ms Ming also confirmed tonight that Bermuda Broadcasting is in position to extend its overnight coverage of the Olympics and will begin so immediately. "Some of that coverage will come from the CBC network in Canada, which is exciting news to segments of our community that enjoy more international and diverse coverage. "We are also revisiting early evening coverage to see where it can be enhanced. It is important that the public know that there is no afternoon coverage of the Olympics Monday to Friday."Currently TV 9 is carrying seven hours of coverage in the mornings, from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. with an additional four to five hours of NBC coverage in the prime time, beginning at 9 p.m. each night.The weekends are top to bottom Olympic coverage with a full spectrum of competition included in the programming line up, both Saturday and Sunday.