UPC has removed BBC World News from the basic analogue tier on its Amsterdam network to make room for Animal Planet, as reported by Broadband TV News two weeks ago. From July 1, the news and current affairs channel will only be available on digital.
As expected, the first protests are beginning to appear: “Whilst it makes a lot of sense to migrate these kinds of channels behind a set-top box at some point in the future – the penetration of set-top boxes in the Netherlands is way too low at the moment. It is clearly much too early to be messing with the diversity of programmes on offer. As things stand now, most of the hotels in Amsterdam as well as 80% of the population will lose BBC News from cable as from July 1st”, wrote Jonathan Marks in his blog Critical Distance.
“I spoke with the BBC’s representative in the Netherlands to find out why we all didn’t get any warning of this in advance. But it seems this decision by the cable company UPC has only been taken in the last couple of weeks, as Animal Planet has negotiated national analogue coverage for itself. So we have another global first – an analogue switch off plan that lasts less than a fortnight! “
