Dear Editor, since its establishment probably 20 years ago I have watched with great enjoyment and satisfaction many local and non-local programmes shown on Cook Islands Television (CITV) over the years.

However, now we have more options these days when I flick on my television with the likes of Netflix.

I guess that we are spoiled for choice and less inclined to switch to CITV.  

This is more so with boring non local two star films or television shows, and loads of dreadful, Bible-banging shows that are continually shown.  

What has compounded the problem in recent months even more so for CITV is the unbelievable flickering reception quality that is displayed. 

Frankly speaking, the terrible reception we have to endure every time we switch to CITV these days makes it almost unwatchable.

So if the primary goal of CITV management is to entice more disgruntled CITV watchers to switch to anything but CITV, then I must say it is achieving that brilliantly.  

So come on CITV, step up your game and give viewers a fair go by improving the poor reception shown on CITV in recent times.  

Otherwise television viewers will simply turn to watching Netflix.  

Regards

Given up

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CITV chief executive Jeane Matenga responds

The programme side we can answer. We have not changed the format of our programming for years. The only thing we have less of at the moment is the sport. We use to have all the sport. However, since Covid-19 struck, we don't have much advertising or sponsors to help us buy the sport we used to buy and I am reluctant to run CITV beyond its means.

Also, the price of sport has been going up and we have also been restricted by suppliers in what we can buy and how we can show it.

Our priority has mainly been to create local programmes but this relies on the staff to create the programmes and the willingness of the community to help us do this.

As for the two-star programming, I have had this comment once before too, and this is because the landscape of television has changed tremendously with many of the production companies that used to create programmes for big television stations, now switching to creating programmes for the streaming market such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and Disney. There is no way CITV can compete with the likes of Netflix who have powerful technologies driving the delivery of their service, and of course the funds to create all their wonderful content.

For me I am just grateful to the very few people who advertise on CITV which helps us at least pay our staff who try to create our local content. I would like to add that I have a Netflix subscription which I watch sometimes, mostly because I am always busy. But I do make a habit of at least absorbing some news every day from CITV, BBC, ABC or CNN just to know what is happening in the world.    

The reception side has to be forwarded to Vodafone as they operate the network. Our standard response for poor television signals is to ring the fault line 120 and report it so that the technicians can take a look at it. But the network is old. And there has been a reliance on Moana TV to deliver our signal at a better quality. However, the signal is not dependent on a single transmitter as signals are now delivered directly from town straight to each village's transmitter. You can't rely on bunny ears anymore unfortunately as there are many interfering signals in the air. Invest in an outside aerial, they are still pretty cheap.