[angie]

I think most Brits are aware that regions in Spain including Andalucia are likely to lose UK television such as BBC and ITV this year, well, direct to their tv’s, how will this impact on home from home in Spain? We know of a few who rely on British TV for News, Strictly, Current Affairs, Antiques Roadshow, etc etcand some feel they can’t do without it, a couple are saying they will even have to leave Spain (sad), others say they will watch via the internet and through their TV screens (is that as easy as it sounds?) 🙄

http://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2013/02 … witch-off/

This must be the same for all those in other European countries 🙄

[Chopera]

Watching UK TV from Spain through the internet is as easy as it sounds. You just need a VPN connection to a server in the UK (plenty of software out there to do precisely that) and it will fool all the online TV channels (iPlayer, ITVPlayer, etc) into thinking you are viewing from the UK, so you won’t get blocked. If you really want to watch British TV on a TV (rather than a computer) then you just need to buy an HDMI cable and connect them together. Alternatively you can probably hook up a smart TV to a UK server via a VPN and you don’t need to mess around with a computer at all. The main requirement is to have a decent internet connection (ideally fibre optic cable) and I bet the vast majority of villas don’t have that. But then again, I doubt many people bought nice villas in the Spanish countryside just so they could watch Eastenders, did they?

[angie]

I bet they did chopera 😆

Many can’t do without their Enders and Corrie 😆

So no need to learn more Spanish then and absorb themselves into Spain?

[Anonymous]

It’s easy to get around things like this and I bet new “business” will plop up to cater to people that don’t want to deal with the hassle.

[Anonymous]

I feel the quality and the nature of the BBC will be more of an issue and the ghetto mentality.

[katy]

I can remember when there was only Spanish TV and a few hours of equally bad TV from Gibraltar. Didn’t bother us, suppose you don’t miss what you haven’t had. Better social life then. The problem with watching on the internet is our connection in Spain was very slow, very frustrating trying to watch a film. I used to get relatives to record 3 hours on the old video cassettes before SKY arrived.

[Anonymous]

We had spanish tv and could change language for films so that was enough for me. Watch a bit of Spanish news and great programmes such as Gran Reserva and learn some spanish 🙂

[Chopera]

Yes since TDT (Spanish freeview) came in you can watch most films and series in English (provided they were originally recorded in English). In fact these days it can’t be that expensive or difficult to start up your own Digital TV chanel, and if you can buy the rights to broadcast all the soaps, etc from the BBC and ITV then there might now be enough demand to run a profitable TV station.

[Anonymous]

We watched “Mamma Mia” on Spanish TV on Sunday night, using TDT to change the language to English. What was interesting was that, because the songs weren’t dubbed, there were subtitles in Spanish. “Dinero, dinero, dinero” doesn’t trip off the tongue as easily as “Money, money, money”! We only have Spanish TV (though I subscribe to VNPUK to watch some BBC and ITV programmes on the PC) so we are learning a lot more Spanish this way. It was interesting to see that some of the Spanish subtitles weren’t literal translations!

My husband is a football fan, so loves the fact that he can watch so much football on Spanish TV, including Premier League games, Champions League etc. I reckon he is fluent in Spanish football terms!

[angie]

Suemac, we were surprised at how many Brits in Spain and France rely so much on British TV, for news, soaps, sport etc it’s like they wanted their ‘life in the sun’ but couldn’t really relinquish Blighty.

When we’ve spent long spells abroad, the first thing we do is avoid UK TV and newspapers, it’s great, I practise my limited language skills (even in the States, yarl have a nice day, have a good one etc) often having a laugh with locals at our joint efforts to understand each other, try explaining what you want for haircuts, shopping, repairs etc we get on fine and eventually understand each other. I tried so hard on an early visit to Spain that I ordered 2 cafe con leches, and 2 kakas (cacas) instead of tartas which said waiter went off laughing as he thought I’d ordered 2 ‘poos’, although it might have been 2 Brazilian footballers. But the thing is we both had such a laugh, got on well, I learnt for next time, and were always made welcome. We had great fun 😆 I became an expert at local ferreterias too, any shops ending in ‘ias’ were my favourites 😛

Recently, one elderly Spanish gent passing us in ‘the old town’, I talk to anyone, so said ‘hola’ and he smiled and just said ‘la’ missing off the ‘ho’, saves energy in the heat I suppose 🙄

If I lived abroad I would me tickled pink if I could listen to and understand the news in the language, it would be a bonus for me 😉

[Author]

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