viewers twiddling their thumbs with spare time.

Bermuda Broadcasting Corporation chief executive Rick Richardson explained why after some avid viewers complained to The Royal Gazette that for several hours a day there was nothing on except a guide to evening shows.

The BBC runs both the ZBM and ZFB stations on Channel 9 and 7 respectively, and Mr. Richardson said that made their scheduling gaps "twice as noticeable'' as any on rival VSB.

Mr. Richardson said major networks had recently cut back on certain programmes during the day and at the same time began enforcing a rule that other programmes could not be played outside certain time slots.

He said having the gaps was "common practice'' in other countries and said Canada often had the screen filled with a colour bar for the same reason.

"If the network decides a programme is not working, they simply drop it and it leaves a hole in our programming.

"The manner in which we got around some of the problems before was we recorded certain network programmes and played them at a later time slot, but that isn't allowed any more.

"Because there is an hour time difference and also the audiences are entirely different, some programmes just aren't suited to the slots they must be played in.'' He said affiliates in larger communities got around the gaps by generating their own local shows.

"But they are in a very different situation because there you are talking about an audience of a couple of million compared with an audience of a couple of thousand here in some of the daytime slots.

"Our greatest audience tends to be in the early evening which is markedly different than other places.

"There aren't enough people in this country to warrant producing our own local programming all day.

"Even with just the local programmes we are running now its hard to keep those up using the so-called independent producers to churn out five-days-a-week programming.'' He said some production companies had already "shed staff'' because the "local community doesn't support local productions enough''.

"A market like Bermuda is very sophisticated but it doesn't have the bucks to support local programming.'' He hinted a new concept in TV would be launched in the new year: "We do have a few avenues that we're tapping to get around this. In the new year you will see a couple of services we will carry to fill those gaps.''