on the frustrations of ZBM television and Bermuda Cablevision coverage of the Winter Olympics at Lillehammer, Norway.

What seems to have thoroughly annoyed a great many people over the past weekend was the interruption of BCTV Channel 18 during the top heat of a major speed skating race and the substitution of ZBM's CBS coverage which was showing feature filler.

Readers who call The Royal Gazette generally feel they pay for Bermuda Cablevision and should get what they pay for without interruption. This, of course, is particularly true when what is being interrupted is better than what is substituted.

It is fair to say that Bermuda could watch Sunday's ice dancing on BCTV Channel 18 on Sunday afternoon. Anyone who was foolish enough to wait for CBS to boost its ad revenue by holding events for broadcast on Sunday evening was waiting for what must have been one of the most frustrating evenings in television's history. That was despite the fact that skating now draws a larger TV audience than top tennis.

It seems to us that the public has a right to know what is happening to their coverage if only to alleviate the frustration. To be fair, top management at ZBM says the interruption of Channel 18 is not ZBM's fault. That being the case, ZBM may have been falsely accused by about half the Country. Then why is it happening? Our readers who called have suggested all sorts of reasons.

Clearly ZBM has the rights to the CBS coverage, dreadful, disastrous and frustrating though that coverage may be. In case anyone thinks that the big, bad Royal Gazette is abusing poor struggling ZBM, let us say that The Sunday New York Times said in an editorial that CBS coverage is dominated by the CBS advertising department. The editorial savages CBS and says that next time the Olympic Committee should examine how it awards exclusive television rights.

For now, CBS has the rights. ZBM pays for CBS and has a right to stop anyone else broadcasting its CBS coverage because it would not contain local advertising which pays for ZBM's coverage. But the CBS coverage is United States coverage and with it being blocked out is neither CBS nor American but Canadian. Why then is better coverage from another country, Canada, blocked out by CBS coverage when CBS deigns to come on the air from Lillehammer? It seems to us that it could not possibly have to do with ZBM's rights to CBS.

What then does it have to do with? Our readers, or those who have been calm enough to talk, have questioned first whether ZBM has somehow managed to get Cablevision to take off the Canadian coverage or whether it is caused by some sort of Bermudian broadcasting regulation which forces Cablevision to block out BCTV Channel 18. If the latter is the case, surely it amounts to a form of censorship and any law covering such action should be changed.

For now, surely viewers of both ZBM and Cablevision are owed an explanation as to why they are being tortured by CBS.