How to get British TV in Tenerife
TV in Tenerife is one of the few things we think about before relocating here. It soon becomes apparent that no matter how hard we try we cannot live without it, even in this sunny climate, when we can enjoy sitting outdoors in the evening throughout the majority of the year, we still enjoy sitting indoors catching up with our favourite TV programmes.
Fortunately, there are several businesses here that offer TV in Tenerife to us Brits who can’t live without it. Here are your options:
Sky
For less than 600 Euros you can get a full sky install which includes a Sky high definition box a sky card and a 1 meter dish which will enable you to get ITV, Channel 4, Five, Sky one, Uk gold, Watch, Living, Sky Atlantic, music, kids, and all 5 Sky sports channels including sky sports news HD.
There are around 150 Channels available in Tenerife with packages starting at just £19 per month with Sky sports world package at £44.50 per month.
You need a minimum 3m dish for receiving BBC, ITV, and Channel 4. You also need a reciever (skybox) and a sky card. This type of system will cost you around 3500 Euros, without a sky card.
You need to subscribe to your Sky package from a UK address or alternatively you can use one of the shops here on Tenerife who will be able to do this for you. To pay for your subscription you will need a UK bank account or credit card.
Bear in mind that if you are a new Sky customer, you are required to keep your Sky box connected to the phone line for the first year. Do this in Tenerife and Sky will see that your phone number is not in the UK and cut you off. To get around this you should buy a "Sky Dialer". These hide your true number and can be bought off the internet.
If you have friends or family in the UK with Sky multiroom, you might prefer to consider the "sling box" method. You will need a PC or laptop in Tenerife and will then be able to remotely connect to the system in the UK. The signals are streamed over the internet to you so it's necessary for both parties to have ADSL / broadband. You can buy a Sling box for around 180 USD from slingmedia.
TV Club
If you are happy to watch BBC 1, BBC 2, ITV 1, Channel 4, Five, Film 4 and a couple of sports channels then this option could be for you. Equipment is minimal, consisting of a small digital receiver and a small Yagi type antenna.
Your location is the single most factor as to whether this system will work for you. As a general rule, if you can see La Gomera or Mount Arona, then you should be OK.
You can choose to buy or rent this system from many suppliers in Tenerife. To buy costs around 530 Euros with an annual maintenance fee of 90 Euros. Renting will cost you around 40 Euros per month with an installation fee of 120 Euros.
The signal comes from La Gomera and is encrypted, so you can't use any standard unmodified digital receiver.
Others
There are other satellite packages available from some of the suppliers here on Tenerife. Remember, there are lots of satellites up above us beaming a whole host of media towards us. Much of this is Free To Air without subscription so if you're not too bothered about what you want to watch, this might be for you.
Internet
If you have an ADSL connection in Tenerife there are a few ways in which you can get to see your favourite programmes. These are simple, cost effective and reliable.
Option 1. Get yourself set up with IPTV
This is one of the best ways to get your favourite TV programmes. Basically you just have a set top box that you plug into your router. This gives all the main uk tv channels,
BBC1,2,3 4
ITV 1,2,3 and 4
Four
Five
More 4
E
4
Film 4
There is also a 5 day catch up so anything from any channel can be viewed even if you didn't set it to record as its all done on servers. It's a very good product that works very, very well. Read more about IPTV in Tenerife.
Option 2. Download your favourite programmes off the internet.
You can now easily download the latest programmes quite easily if you have an ADSL connection. If you don't already have a torrent client such as Bit Torrent installed on your PC, you should get this first. Without getting technical, a bit torrent client is a small piece of software which will you need. Do a Google search for "bit torrent", download it and install it.
Now you have this, visit this web site thebox.bz and open an account. It's free and very, very simple to do.
Once your account at thebox is active you can then download your programmes. You will find all the soaps, documentaries, comedies and series here. You might have to wait up to a day for the last episode screened to become available but that's no big deal.
Download speeds are generally very good, and you might expect to download a 30 minute programme in around 30 minutes or so. This is just an example!
Once downloaded, you can then choose to watch the programme on your PC, burn it to disc and put it in your DVD /DIVX player, or (if you have the appropriate graphics card and cable) watch it on your TV using the PC as a player.
