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TV in hotel rooms abroad.

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tigerroar

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I've asked this question elsewhere with disappointingly predictable responses. If you're going to reply, don't be that person!

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What are your experiences with this?

Just been on holiday to Turkey and for the second year running out of 100 channels there was only BBC World News in English. Last year in Gran Canaria was the same. On previous holidays I've had several English entertainment channels so was expecting more.

Is it down to the hotel to get in the tv channels or is it the part of broadcasters to make them available to foreign countries? There were plenty of German and some Russian channels available. I took a fire stick in case and was pleased that Netflix and YouTube worked!
 
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hexagon789

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tigerroar said:
I've asked this question elsewhere with disappointingly predictable responses. If you're going to reply, don't be that person!
Click to expand...

Most people go on holiday to do things other than worry about getting UK TV channels in their hotel room. ;)

My experiences are:

Switzerland - BBC 1&2; ITV 1-4; BBC News
France - BBC 1&2
Netherlands - ditto
Belgium - BBC, 2 &4; ITV1-4, Ch4, Ch5; BBC News, BBC Parliament
Spain - BBC News
Luxembourg - BBC 1&2, ITV1
 
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PR1Berske

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Netherlands recently, BBC, ITV, Five, and BBC News (World Service). Everything else in Dutch, German, Italian and Russian.
 
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As most hotels abroad now have high speed internet access I very rarely even switch on an hotel room TV let alone watch anything.
 
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ainsworth74

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As long as there's a news channel in English (France 24 and Al Jazeera seem ubiquitous alongside the BBC Word News) then I'm not fussed. I actually find it quite interesting to have a gander at the local programmes once I tire or news!
 
TheEdge

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What with the internet if you really are desperate for UK television its not hard to get it.

My experience tends to be English language news (BBC, CNN and Al Jazera) and that's about it.

I do remember as a child trying to understand Spongebob in German once.
 
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Perhaps you want some British TV channels so you can avoid the foreign ones making fun of us because of Brexit?

Probably best to keep the TV off for the whole trip, although then you have to avoid taxi drivers and just about anyone else who will want to ask you about it too.
 
Busaholic

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Bloody foreigners refusing to speak English, even though we know they can all do it perfectly. There, was that the predicted response? :lol:
 
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geml90

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tigerroar said:
Is it down to the hotel to get in the tv channels or is it the part of broadcasters to make them available to foreign countries? There were plenty of German and some Russian channels available. I took a fire stick in case and was pleased that Netflix and YouTube worked!
Click to expand...
Just a guess, but German channels like RTL are broadcast free to air on the satellite Astra 1L, which has a large footprint. You can get those channels in much of Europe with a standard satellite receiver and dish with no subscription, so it's not difficult for a hotel to put it on their distribution system.

The UK channels like BBC One or ITV are on a different satellite with a much tighter footprint around the UK, so reception is more difficult. Some national broadcasters are encrypted, so the hotel might need a card - e.g. for the Dutch NPO channels.

France 24 in English is on about 10 different satellites and Sky News International is available in most of Europe. On your previous holidays you might have got BBC First / BBC Entertainment (formerly BBC Prime). I think these are pay-TV channels, so the package might have changed or the hotel has decided not to use them.
 
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tigerroar

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geml90 said:
Just a guess, but German channels like RTL are broadcast free to air on the satellite Astra 1L, which has a large footprint. You can get those channels in much of Europe with a standard satellite receiver and dish with no subscription, so it's not difficult for a hotel to put it on their distribution system.

The UK channels like BBC One or ITV are on a different satellite with a much tighter footprint around the UK, so reception is more difficult. Some national broadcasters are encrypted, so the hotel might need a card - e.g. for the Dutch NPO channels.

France 24 in English is on about 10 different satellites and Sky News International is available in most of Europe. On your previous holidays you might have got BBC First / BBC Entertainment (formerly BBC Prime). I think these are pay-TV channels, so the package might have changed or the hotel has decided not to use them.
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Definitely had Film4 in both Tenerife and Benidorm. There was a slightly bigger selection in Benidorm IIRC.

WIFI is all well and good and the fire stick was good to fall back on, but unsurprisingly my5, all4, ITV hub and iPlayer didn't work. I like a few home comforts.

Thanks for those who've replied helpfully.
 
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takno

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The TV in hotels generally is far less of a premium product than it ever has been previously. Relatively upmarket hotels in the UK which used to pride themselves on providing a TV that did checkout and room service on teletext, as well as providing a (rather dull) range of international channels, pretty much just give you freeview now. As other commenters have pointed out, people take their own entertainment or stream off the internet and don't even turn the TV on.

I've been staying around Europe in pretty cheap hotels for the last few weeks, and I don't think I've seen anything English-language on the TVs apart from BBC News on a couple. I only really watched in the places where I'm trying to learn the language anyway. On the upside, downloaded Netflix on a tablet has allowed me to comfortably pass a few long train and bus journeys as well as a couple of dull nights in hotels.

If you're staying in resort hotels that cater mostly to British families then you might find a few more UK-focused channels. I would guess that that kind of hotel is getting rarer anyway though, given the fall in off-the-peg package holidays, and the increase in other nationalities heading south in the summer.
 
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radamfi

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tigerroar said:
Definitely had Film4 in both Tenerife and Benidorm. There was a slightly bigger selection in Benidorm IIRC.

WIFI is all well and good and the fire stick was good to fall back on, but unsurprisingly my5, all4, ITV hub and iPlayer didn't work. I like a few home comforts.

Thanks for those who've replied helpfully. Those of you who've hammered their keyboards despite the friendly warning. Why bother? :(
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You can use a VPN service to get those services. A more primitive method is to leave your computer on when you are on holiday and remote into it. Streaming video won't be as smooth this way, although sound should be fine. Alternatively you can get a Slingbox and control your TV set top box remotely.

Sky News and Euronews have live streams on YouTube which work anywhere in the world, unless blocked by the country you are in, like in China.
 
najaB

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radamfi said:
A more primitive method is to leave your computer on when you are on holiday and remote into it.
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I would only do that as an absolute last resort as the bandwidth required is quite high, and the resulting quality comparatively low.
 
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radamfi

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najaB said:
I would only do that as an absolute last resort as the bandwidth required is quite high, and the resulting quality comparatively low.
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If your broadband offers fast upload speeds then it works surprisingly well. I remote into my computer when abroad for other reasons than TV, but I have tried running iPlayer as an experiment using Google Remote Desktop and it wasn't too bad. Maybe paid remote desktop services would give better results. Slingboxes effectively did this years ago when internet speeds were much slower.
 
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radamfi

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Dutch and Belgian public broadcasters have a joint Dutch language service called BVN which includes a wide variety of output, not just news. In a way it is surprising that there is no UK equivalent.

Most UK radio stations can be picked up on your computer or smartphone abroad without using a VPN.
 
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radamfi

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In some countries, typically where a lot of the population speak English well, for example the Netherlands or Sweden, British/American programmes carry subtitles rather than being dubbed.
 
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Last time I was on holiday in the UK, I was rather furious with the hotel management for not having a Dutch channel on their so called free tv! :E
 
DelW

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At one time it seemed to be quite common to find British entertainment channels, or at least English language ones, in bigger hotels abroad, but they do seem to have largely disappeared. In Spain this summer, we got most of our news from France 24 (I think - it was in English) which gave an interestingly different perspective. The only other English language channels were a couple of American news channels. My partner is an obsessive TV news watcher, while I'm quite happy with an occasional dip into BBC.com when I'm away from home.
What is mildly annoying, if understandable, is finding an English language programme you'd like to watch, but it's dubbed into a language you don't understand!
 
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takno said:
The TV in hotels generally is far less of a premium product than it ever has been previously. Relatively upmarket hotels in the UK which used to pride themselves on providing a TV that did checkout and room service on teletext, as well as providing a (rather dull) range of international channels, pretty much just give you freeview now. As other commenters have pointed out, people take their own entertainment or stream off the internet and don't even turn the TV on.
Click to expand...
A lot of them don't even have what you can get at home on Freeview. They may appear to, but almost inevitably the TVs haven't been re-tuned for the frequent updates so many of the expected channels either don't appear in the guide or can be selected but turn out to be blank. And they've nobbled the TV or the remote control so guests can't re-tune them either.
 
Struner

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Well, I must admit, the weather forecast can be useful!
But at home I sometimes miss it.
It’s at the end of the news & by that time I may well be asleeeeep.
 
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