RaptureTV in dispute with BSkyB; may lose channel number

Paul

Paul

Ghost of Animes
Administrator
RaptureTV - one of the handful of UK digital TV channels willing to support anime (Fullmetal Alchemist, Mezzo DSA, Wolf's Rain) - faces losing its channel number and EPG section on Sky Digital after running into a finacial dispute with the satelite broadcaster over EPG fees.<ul class="menu">"Rapture TV believes that BSkyB is charging excessively high fees for the supply of an EPG service on the UK's only DSat platform. Rapture TV has submitted evidence that BSkyB used to charge much lower fees for the same service.Rapture TV contends that BSkyB is failing to provide the EPG Service on a cost-oriented basis and that this may be regarded as a breach of paragraph 15(A) of the Code of Practice on Electronic Programme Guides."

"It is a requirement of the Communications Act 2003 that BSkyB must enter meaningful commercial negotiations with other network providers. Rapture TV has submitted evidence that BSkyB failed to enter meaningful commercial negotiations with Rapture TV. David Henry Rapture TV’s managing director said “Rapture TV hopes that a full investigation by regulator Ofcom will lead to a industry wide agreement on what level of fee is 'fair reasonable and non-discriminatory'."</ul>If Rapture is eventually removed from the Sky Digital EPG, this will no doubt be a major blow to the channel's prospects, that said they do intend to continue for now as a free to air TV channel that can be manually inserted into your Sky EPG or streamed via the internet.
 
Oh dear :(

It's sad that this is happening to Rapture - and that they are having to go alone against a multi-national and powerful organisation like BSkyB, ultimately, unless they genuienly win this battle with Sky and get these fees lowered, I can hardly see them surviving as a purely web driven / manually subscribed channel.

A bit gutting to be honest - their relationship with anime was and still is very important.
 
WTFDaveMustaine said:
Anime just isn't for the UK mainstream.
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I agree, you just can't force it, anime was a craze, like Pokémon for mainstream, around the times of Dragonball Z, that era died long ago.
 
That might be but when you have channels devoted to (and by no meens do I wish to discriminate but it's pritty damn nishé) gay phone text chat and enough reality tv to make you sick to your stomach, it's almost like some mystal deity has something against the uk geting anything else

WTFDaveMustaine said:
Anime just isn't for the UK mainstream.
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Nether is prono, what's your point? It's a sad day when you can watch all the porn you want on Bravo but to watch something as brilliant as say, Moral Orel (or indeed Harvy Birdman, I meen come on! It's harder to get Harvy Birdman on tv than men and woman doing lewid acts?!), you need to do it online (oblogationary AdultSwimuk.com pointer here)

I would say it also sucks to pay for it, but I suppose that's on par for the course so meh.
 
WTFDaveMustaine said:
Anime just isn't for the UK mainstream.
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Don't be so negative. Anime has potential - we're all fans for a reason, it just needs to be cleverly managed. We look back at all the examples of anime on UK TV and constantly it's either being cut (Naruto), mismanaged (CNX) or just wrongly selected (Sci-Fi and Violence Jack etc). Rapture seemed to be handling it better, but now this trouble :( It's just bad luck really.
 
RaptureTV - one of the handful of UK digital TV channels willing to support anime (Fullmetal Alchemist, Mezzo DSA, Wolf's Rain) - faces losing its channel number and EPG section on Sky Digital after running into a finacial dispute with the satelite broadcaster over EPG fees.
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Don't be so negative. Anime has potential - we're all fans for a reason, it just needs to be cleverly managed. We look back at all the examples of anime on UK TV and constantly it's either being cut (Naruto), mismanaged (CNX) or just wrongly selected (Sci-Fi and Violence Jack etc). Rapture seemed to be handling it better, but now this trouble It's just bad luck really.
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Yes I agree we should not be to negetive but its happening again!
 
I don't really think luck has much to do with it. It's going to take something really amazing to get the mindset of the average TV viewer away from this stereotypical view of anime(violence and sex or the other end being cartoons for kids) and to be honest I don't think that's goning to drastically change anytime soon.

I never thought Naruto would be the show to do it. At first glance it looks like an action show for kids and while it's an action show it has to many mature themes for it to be aired on kids channels. Older viewers may be but off by the(uhm, how do I describe it) rather cheerful looking designs and colour schemes and the fact that it is an extremel generic show(fights that just go on and on episode after episode).

Oh I dunno i'm too tired to type anymore. To bed I go.
 
It would help if Naruto wasn't placed in an odd timeslot for a kid's TV show and cut to the point of incoherence. I don't think you can judge the success (or lack there of) for Naruto on Jetix because simply put, they haven't aired the show a lot of us believe is "the one". The fact its been so successful in the US - even the manga is breaking records - suggests that Naruto can work. Like I said, it just needs the proper treatment.
 
Indeed, but I don't agree that this difference applies to Naruto. It applies to Emma - A Victorian Romance, but not something with as much broad appeal as Naruto.

In an attempt to steer this back on topic, it will be interesting to see if and when Rapture disappear from the EPG, especially with their new anime show starting soon. I read on another forum that it's not that they can't afford the fee, it's that they refuse to pay it on principale.
 
Paul said:
Indeed, but I don't agree that this difference applies to Naruto. It applies to Emma - A Victorian Romance, but not something with as much broad appeal as Naruto.
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Good lord i'm still not gone yet?

Anyway I disagree. I think anime shown on TV needs to move away from these overall shallow fighting shows as a representation of anime. As fun as they can be it is one of the main reasons why people mock anime in the UK especially after Dragonball Z. I don't think people are going to be interested in another "lets have a fight for 6 or so episodes" show over here. We need something... well more mature in the sense of story. Something that isn't so generic to grab peoples attention.

But even then I still don't think it would make that much of a difference. Cartoons are for kids after all.
 
WTFdave, that avatar is just gross. Ewww!

Back on topic now and why is everyone blaming the anime? That report doesn't say Rapture isn't paying the fee, just that it's in dispute over what I'm guessing is a fee increase. BskyB could pull the channel from them but if Rapture is still paying for it whilst still in dispute, Bskyb must still provide the channel, or face more legal issues with breaking contract agreements. I'd be willing to bet that Rapture isn't the only one complaining either. But still it says nothing about anime causing BskyB to raise it's fees, so why the lament?
 
Mohawk52 said:
WTFdave, that avatar is just gross. Ewww!

Back on topic now and why is everyone blaming the anime? That report doesn't say Rapture isn't paying the fee, just that it's in dispute over what I'm guessing is a fee increase. BskyB could pull the channel from them but if Rapture is still paying for it whilst still in dispute, Bskyb must still provide the channel, or face more legal issues with breaking contract agreements. I'd be willing to bet that Rapture isn't the only one complaining either. But still it says nothing about anime causing BskyB to raise it's fees, so why the lament?
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No-one is blaming anime for this but is lamenting the fact that one of the few channels that is willing to support anime is effectively being priced out of the market by exorbitent fees imposed by BSkyB for an EPG listing. I am sure you are right in that more than Rapture are complaining but Rapture, being anime friendly as they have been, have been trying to keep anime fans abreast of what is going on, what could happen and how to get around that eventuality should it come to pass. None of this is by any means a certainty and it could be that BSkyB gets forced by OFCOM (for once possibly working in our favour) to retract its recent price increases in the interests of fairness.

Of course it would be nice if anime was shown on bigger channels with greater stability or that Rapture itself was a little bigger and more widely known and distributed than it is.
 
It's a real shame - not just for anime on UK TV but as a textbook example of the larger corporations imposing the rules on the small fry. A disappointing thing indeed. By the sounds of things Rapture at least have a case to put forward and if other minor channels who are suffering a similar fate their combined effort may be enough to make a difference.

Here's hoping.
 
Gawyn said:
No-one is blaming anime for this but is lamenting the fact that one of the few channels that is willing to support anime is effectively being priced out of the market by exorbitent fees imposed by BSkyB for an EPG listing. I am sure you are right in that more than Rapture are complaining but Rapture, being anime friendly as they have been, have been trying to keep anime fans abreast of what is going on, what could happen and how to get around that eventuality should it come to pass. None of this is by any means a certainty and it could be that BSkyB gets forced by OFCOM (for once possibly working in our favour) to retract its recent price increases in the interests of fairness.
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It sure reads that way though with some saying "maybe if this, or that title was licensed instead, etc. , like that would make a difference. I mean they already have one of the best titles of anime running with FMA and Mezzo isn't that bad really so even if they were showing Pokemon, or Sailor Moon it wouldn't matter as it's not the reason they are in dispute with Sky.

Of course it would be nice if anime was shown on bigger channels with greater stability or that Rapture itself was a little bigger and more widely known and distributed than it is.
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Well that would be down to Rapture's advertising budget wouldn't it? If it could place ads in other places beyond NEO, say bill boards, or buses, and in TV listing mags it might increase their audience, but they won't know unless they try.

BTW they have put a instruction page on their web site on how to manually select their frequency on the "Other Channels" listing, it's here But again this may not be necessary as yet.
 
Despite not being able to see Rapture in the first place unless I watch it online, I think that this is a sad thing to see really.

Imho, the UK as a whole will never be ready to except the majority of anime as mainstream, but it can survive well as a niche and cult following if channels like Rapture show anime such as Wolf's Rain etc and move away from the "massively edited kids fighting anime" (such as Dragonball Z and Naruto) and the "drenched in gore and filled with nudity" (like Violence Jack and erm.. almost every anime made in the 80's).
 
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