The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune

A popular phrase these days is, “there are many ways to skin a cat”, with apologies to cat and animal lovers. In the context of retail, or commercial business, one might find the cat being skinned by a not very subtle increase in the selling price. Or, a little more subtly, a reduction in the quantity of the product being sold but at the previous price. In the world of our good friend Junior Roberts, if he should slip, either way on products that are “price controlled” the authorities will be around with the cuffs, and ready to take him downtown.

But our not so favourite internet and television provider Cable Bahamas, seems to be immune to things like this, although they are supposed to be governed by the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority. Cable Bahamas tend to use the more subtle method of skinning the cat and just change, or remove, or substitute, the programming that they have contracted to provide us, for the price that we have agreed to pay. Several months ago, pleading financial difficulties, they summarily dropped the Fox News Channels and substituted something else. No reduction in the package price mind you, but when enough people screamed at them, they reluctantly brought it back, but at AN INCREASED PRICE.

Recently, they’ve had their financial scissors out again, upsetting another segment of their clientele, by cutting TCM, AMC, Hallmark, and a couple of popular sports channels. And then, to add insult to injury, they are replacing these programmes with Spanish language programmes, as if we are a multicultural Spanish/English society, when, if anything, we are French Patois/ English.

But that’s not all, and the media bluster you hear about the sister company ALIV, one might think that they are rolling in money, but on a recent visit to their Mall store, with a service complaint, I was given a site visit time between 1.0 and 3.0 on …….. eight days away? It used to be three days max, so now, for the same service price they have almost tripled the service time lag. With bulging eyes, I asked the young lady if I would be given a pro-rata credit on my $250.00 a month billing, as I had no TV service and would not have any for the next eight days. She was a little taken aback I think, but she seemed totally unaware of what’s happening behind the scenes at her company.

BRUCE G. RAINE

Nassau

July 7, 2019