British TV in Gite?

[LesPonts]

Hello to you all,

From all of your experiences do people (clients) now expect to have a TV receiving British programmes in a gite?? Despite my youth I think that a holiday in rural France means getting away from it all (including Big Brother!!!!).......or am I old fashioned??!!

[Eslier]

A good number now expect it and the rest certainly seem to appreciate it. DVD players also seem to be required more and more too.

[LesPonts]

We have a DVD player and a good stock of "middle of the road" DVDs which lots of our guests seem to watch and appreciate.

I can't get my head round people wanting to watch British telly when on holiday though. Most guests tell us it's great to be away from everything and they do seem to completely chill out by the end of the holiday. I just fear that if British telly is provided they might not relax as much as they are at the moment and might not feel as refreshed as they could when they get home.

[Maddie]

Our British TV and DVD have proved to be a godsend this year and much appreciated.  When it's bad weather and they don't want to explore they can watch it and when it's just too darn hot to go outside they can watch it!  If it's there they don't have to switch it on do they?  For parents it's perfect for keeping the kids out of the sun on scorching hot days without too much complaint.  Many also use it for the radio sations too - good old Wogan keeps many a guest happy!

[Marie]

We only had one request for this last year, but have now installed a sat dish.  No comments so far, either positive or negative! We also provide DVDs and videos, which seem to be appreciated.

Personally, I'd rather do without, as I like to improve my french by watching the news etc, and the weather forecast is a lot more useful when it refers to the coutry you're actually in! I also like to break the square eyes habit of my daughter and encourage her outside more, and that's much easier without english tv.

Guests on the whole seem to expect more to be included - we have now been asked about internet connection, so that will be the next thing to investigate. Me, I like to get away from the daily routine and work as much as possible. There's no accounting for taste.

 

Marie

 

[Opel Fruit<P><BR>Opel Fruit, Dept. 53<P>]

Essential. Irrespective of the thoughts of the "high and mighty" owners, most people expect their holiday Hotel or Gite to have some form of rainy day fallback. And others wish to stay in touch with News and Sport events.

For the measly cost, give them what they want. We book 34 weeks+ pa, and our local competition doesn't. So we reckon it plays a part...

[alnmike]

We have installed the freeview channels, and got the best feedback regarding the radio. People do enjoy listening to English Radio. Can't think why?

[Lizzie15]

Yep.Although people want to totally relax they still want to watch the news etc. I've also found most of our DVD's and videos have been watched,and the weather has been great!!

 

[nimportequoi]

I'm so pleased we got UK TV in the 3 gites, no-one has complained, on the contrary, I think everyone has watched it. Although they have the option of watching French TV, most speak very little French so there is very little language capability to improve on. For me personally, its almost a pleasure now cleaning on a Saturday whilst being able to listen to BBC radio. Not sure my French cleaner est d'accord!

[La Doretie]

We now live here, but during our house hunting days, we stayed in 2 different gites.  The first with British TV, DVD and selection of films (particularly childrens films).  The second had neither. 

For those morning when my 2 lovelies (6 and 4) woke at 6am, for the times when they needed to "chill", and when Mum and Dad were to tired to provide entertainment, the TV and DVD was an absolute gem!!!  Made the holiday a great deal easier, and therefore a lot more enjoyable. 

Liz

[PEPSI & SHIRLEY]

I find the need to add english tv rather depressing

I can understand DVD's Videos etc but small children will watch cartoons in any language

we only have french TV but do listen to Radio 5 for news but sometimes switch it off as its so  doom & gloom

Whenever We have been on holiday we have never wanted to watch ritish tv!!

[mascamps.com]

Our TVs in the rooms only get French TV so as a trial we put DVDs in some of the rooms earlier in the year (2 foot stone walls make satellite TV in all the rooms harder than initially expected so it's only in one room at the moment).

In practice, the TVs (French or UK satellite) and DVDs rarely get used by anyone. However, we did have one family with a severely handicapped daughter who needed the TV to give them a bit of a break and we had a couple here only to watch the rugby who used it a lot (they weren't interested in being in France per se, and were only here for the rugby). Outside those, we've rarely heard any of the TVs in use.

On the other hand, it does let us tick the TV, DVD and satellite TV boxes. That's important because sometimes people feel they need to watch neighbours or whatever even if they don't actually watch it when they get here.

 

Arnold

 

[Opel Fruit<P><BR>Opel Fruit, Dept. 53<P>]

Finding British TV in a Gite rather depressing....

One has the choice if it's there. Turn it on or leave it off.

[Deby]

I was not keen on adding British TV, but did so rather reluctantly.  It is viewed by guests mainly for the news I believe.

Just another perspective. Our non British clientele really appreciate watching British t.v.  Something which I never thought would be of interest as they are holidaying in France.

 

Deby

[sue702]

Surely this is all about having a good prifile of the people you want to attract (which you need anyway to target your advertsing). Any facility you put in your gite(s) should be well thought through and fully costed. If you want to attract people who are likely to appreciate British TV, install it, if you are attracting only the French it's prpobably a waste of money. You need to chat to your guests and find out what they want in the gite, you don't need British TV or anything else just to keep up with the other gites in the area. I also wouldn't ask them directly if they want British TV as the answer would most liekly be "yes that's a nice idea" and you still are none the wiser, see what they come up with as an improvement list.

Sue

[mascamps.com]

Ah, but the problem is that it's not the people who already stay with you that you want to ask as they are presumably happy with what you provide already. It's the people who haven't yet stayed with you that you need to think about.

The problem with them is that a lot of people will look at facilities on offer at a given price and go with the place that offers most (assuming that it's a nice looking place in an area they want to be in etc.). So, if you and your competitors all charge, say, 500€ a week and but your competitors have TV but you don't then they'll stay with your competitors (always assuming that people don't specifically not want a TV).

UK TV also provides CNN which attracts a lot of Americans too or at least they will choose a place that provides CNN over one that doesn't, all else being equal.

It's a bit like internet access. We provide it but it's rarely used. On the other hand, those that do use it use it a lot (usually to book their next place or, increasingly, to book a car)

 

Arnold

 

[Harvey]

I have a French tv plus dvd, in my Gite, which I thought was sufficient for people choosing to have a holiday in France. When I spoke to various families, they all said, they were pleased to get away from TV, and for the children to play bored games, sorry, I mean board games  But, having read mascamps comments – I realise my evidence is from a biased source, obviously they would say that, because that is why they booked my gite in the first place.

 

So, I am now thinking about having British TV for next year. My question is…I live nextdoor to the Gite and already have a satellite dish for my use, can I run a second digi box from this or would I have to install a second dish? YES, I know this should be on Satellite thread but it seems a logical follow on question from this thread.

[Maddie]

[quote]I have a French tv plus dvd, in my Gite, which I thought was sufficient for people choosing to have a holiday in France . When I spoke to various families, they all said, they were pleased to get ...[/quote]

You should be able to depending on the number of gaps in your thingumyjig on your dish where the one cable you're currently using for your existing digibox is.  Hell - makes no sense at all.  Waht I am trying to say is we have a thingumyjig on our dish with 4 gaps so we run 3 tvs/digiboxes - one with sky plus (2 cables required) and a complete Sky package, one with just the complete sky package no skyplus and one with just free to air for the gite.

Sorry that probably makes no sense at all!!!

[Harvey]

That makes perfect sense, until I went and looked at the dish...then I went blank! I will wait until I have a visitor who knows more about these things than I do....I have at least 8 months to get it sorted out.

Thanks for replying 

[mascamps.com]

It depends on where you are and what size of dish you have too. We are near Perpignan which is at the limit of an 80cm dish. One digibox works fine (the standard french boxes are OK for non-subscription channels) but with two we lose a lot of channels because the signal isn't enough to run two boxes when you split it.

We've recently bought a 95cm dish to get around this problem but haven't got around to installing it yet.

Assuming that the signal is strong enough, you just need one of the little splitter boxes from the likes of Brico Depot (about 30€ I think for a decent one). One cable goes from the dish into the box, one from the box to each digibox. The cable is about 20€ for 20m or so.

 

 

Arnold

 

[Patmobile]

[quote]We have installed the freeview channels, and got the best feedback regarding the radio. People do enjoy listening to English Radio. Can't think why?[/quote]

Because French radio is so bad?

[Eslier]

[quote]That makes perfect sense, until I went and looked at the dish...then I went blank! I will wait until I have a visitor who knows more about these things than I do....I have at least 8 months to get it ...[/quote]

To use more than one digibox with you dish you may need to change the LNB (the bulbous bit on the end of the arm) to one with multiple outputs. You can obtain a "quad lnb" fairly easily which is as previously described, having four outputs. You can then run a seperate cable from each of these to different rooms and use four seperate digiboxes.

[Harvey]

Thanks for all the helpful replies. I can see my new pastime is looking at Satellite dishes to see if they have multiple outputs or not! A job to sort out during the for the winter......

[Maddie]

[quote]To use more than one digibox with you dish you may need to change the LNB (the bulbous bit on the end of the arm) to one with multiple outputs. You can obtain a "quad lnb" fairly easily which is as pr...[/quote]

LNB - that's the word! Thanks Eslier!  Yes, we have a quad LNB!  Harvey, I may not know what these things are called but by looking at the existing set we had (with two cables for the skyplus  and seeing there were two "spare" holes I managed to connect and install the other two boxes myself (with MOH holding the ladder!)   Just need to get the connector bits from somewhere like Brico or Casto and some cable (assuming you already have a digibox that is).  If I can do it anyone can (unless you are MOH of course )!

 

[mascamps.com]

Before you splash out on a separate digibox, check the price of a dish with a digital tuner as sometimes it's cheaper to buy a tuner with a new dish than a tuner on its own.

Net effect of this is that we now have three spare dishes in the attic, so if anyone is wanting one, they can pick it up from us.

You only need a Sky box to get subscription channels. A Sky card (but not subscription) is required to get ITV/Ch4/5. BBC channels don't need a card.

Hadn't realised that you could get LNBs with multiple outputs. Anyone any thoughts as to whether this would give me more signal strength than our current single output LNB with a splitter?

 

Arnold