The Tribune

COMPLAINTS work.

THAT’S one lesson to take from the lead story in today’s Tribune. Regulator URCA had been given the task of investigating the restructuring of Cable Bahamas’ REV TV cable packages. They have approved the restructuring – but in the process they received complaint after complaint after complaint about service interruptions and other issues.

What’s the outcome? Well, URCA is now going to open a new probe into the company’s service quality.

For some, it was pixelated channels. For others, it was service interruptions with error messages appearing on screen. For the night owls, it was a regular service outage at 2am. For those planning ahead, it was an on-screen TV guide that bore little resemblance to what was actually on the channel. Then there’s the channels that seem to disappear from packages without notice.

Yet others found themselves hit in the pocket, with URCA noting that customers felt “Cable Bahamas did not practice any leniency when applying late fees or sending bill reminders despite regular disruptions”. It certainly seems that if the company is demanding with its customers over payment, those customers are entitled to be demanding of the company over quality.

Cable Bahamas is facing more and more competition, of course, with streaming services such as Netflix or Disney Plus drawing viewers who might cut down on their subscriptions as a result.

That aside, they must keep their customers happy with the basics. At the end of a long day, a service interruption when you just want to sit down and watch television is just one more frustration – and it’s not as if in the time of COVID-19 and working from home that we’re short of frustrations.

So it is good that people raised their voice and complained – not just for them, but also we would suggest for Cable Bahamas. Being made aware of problems can make a company better, if those problems are listened to.

Cable Bahamas is already listening in some regards – adding channels that are popular to one of its packages – so here’s hoping this leads to a good outcome. And if you turn on your television and that annoying error message is on screen again? Well, don’t just shout at the screen – complain. It might just do the trick.

Independence solution

The row over the choice of performers for this year’s Independence celebrations seems to have been a self-inflicted wound for the government.

How do you organise a celebration and end up annoying a whole entertainment sector? The chairman of the Independence Secretariat, Mark Humes, explained that this year’s celebration was about a Christian message – which left secular performers out in the cold. Christian theme or not, surely there was room to encourage a range of performers – not least the opportunity to give all manner of acts a platform for the international eyes of the tourists arriving once more.

Still, a solution of sorts has been cobbled together, with the addition of a new, two-day event at the end of the month. That will showcase local performers and will involve 48 artists to represent 48 years of independence.

This is a good outcome – and who knows, if this is successful, it might just become a regular feature of future years. What’s important is that it is swift action to deal with a problem that didn’t need to happen in the first place.

And you know how it happened? People complained. It worked.