Skycable apologizes for signal loss last Dec 13

MANILA, Philippines - SkyCable Corp., a unit of broadcasting firm ABS-CBN Corp., yesterday blamed power failure as well as the equipment malfunction as the cause of the signal losses experienced by subscribers last December.

In a statement, SkyCable explained that the signal loss experienced last Dec. 13 that only lasted for seven minutes was caused by the power outage in Metro Manila.

“We wish to expound that the signal loss was due to a power fluctuation that affected all our channels in Metro Manila, at 2:13 p.m. of December 13. By 2:20 p.m., we were able to restart our equipment in order to restore the channels,” the company said.

TV5, a unit of MediaQuest Holdings Inc. owned by dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and a sister company of cable provider Cignal Digital TV, has filed a complaint against SkyCable for failing to air its program last Dec. 13 for more than two hours.

Aside from failing to air TV5’s signal for over two hours last Dec. 13, de Padua pointed out that there were also erratic airing when TV5 on SkyCable fluctuated and was interchanged with AksyonTV.

Monitoring records showed that TV5 was not aired by SkyCable in Metro Manila from 2:10 p.m. to 4:47 p.m. last Dec. 13.

The report added that there were 10 other free-to-air channels NBN, 9TV, GNTV, ABS-CBN SPORTS+ACTION, RJTV, 9TV, IBC, ABS-CBN, GMA, and Aksyon TV that were affected by the loss of signal for seven minutes.

However, SkyCable argued that the signal loss of TV5 was caused by the equipment provided by the broadcast arm of MediaQuest Holdings Inc.

TV5 is a sister company of SkyCable’s direct competitor Cignal “SkyCable wishes to clarify that any extended signal loss of TV5 was due to the fact that the set-top box that they provided to us defaulted to AksyonTV not TV5 once equipment were restarted,” the company added.

However, SkyCable still apologized to its partner networks and subscribers for the signal losses last Dec. 13 and vowed to continue working round-the-clock to minimize and immediately resolve service interruptions.

“We will work with the NTC and TV5 to prevent similar occurrences in the future,” it said.

The company also urged subscribers to immediately report signal disruptions to allow technical teams to immediately resolve cable TV problems.

This is not the first time that SkyCable is facing a complaint before the NTC. In early 2013, GMA Network Inc. (GMA7) also filed a complaint against SkyCable owned by rival ABS-CBN Corp. of the Lopez family over channel reassignment.

The broadcast company owned by the Gozon, Duavit, and Jimenez families complained over its channel reassignment to Channel 99 instead of Channel 12 by SkyCable.

GMA7 has been complaining about the channel reassignment being undertaken by SkyCable. Its channel assignment was changed to Channel 14 instead of Channel 12 in 2003 and to Channel 85 instead of Channel 12 in September 2012.

In both instances, NTC directed SkyCable to return GMA7 to Channel 12. In May 2012, SkyCable entered into a P3.5 billion deal to acquire the cable television business of rival Destiny Cable Inc. (DCI) and Uni-Cable TV Inc. (UNI) as well as the broadband Internet assets and subscribers of Solid Broadband Corp. (SBC).