Dear Editor,
What a smug, priggish and killjoy letter (Algarve Resident December 14) from Biton Wastra in England, lecturing expats in Portugal about the legality of their watching British television!
Could he please tell us what law we are breaking and whose interests it is designed to protect?
It does not help the BBC who lose viewers, including some who might be prepared to pay for their service.
Nor can I see that it helps ITV, who lose viewers who are potential customers for their funders (the companies who pay for commercial television through advertising).
Is the law required just to satisfy the grievances of some mean-spirited British TV licence payers like Mr Wastra, who begrudge us the “free-loading” which we have inadvertently been allowed ? I doubt it.
Perhaps the knowledgeable Mr Wastra can explain to me who it is that is prepared to spend vast sums of money on the manufacture and launching of a satellite specifically designed to give a UK-limited footprint and exclude everyone else.
Some group or corporation must calculate that they will make a lot of money from it. We need to know who they are and how they expect to profit from it.
Norman Walker
Moncarapacho
