TV channels on holiday

[IdentFan101]

Not sure if this has been mentioned here or on TV Forum but does anyone have any memories watching international TV channels when you went on holiday?

I have a few:

I've been going to Turkey for a few years now (didn't go last year cause of the pandemic) and my dad owns a apartment on a complex in Altinkum and we've had 2 TVs in the past. The first one I remember watching Ed, Edd n Eddy and Dexter's Laboratory in Arabic on MBC3, the English version of the Middle Eastern channel Spacetoon and the English feed of the French version of Boomerang. The second one (which was 2019, the last I time went) was a flat screen TV and streamed 200+ channels from different countries and I remember watching The Simpsons and Family Guy in Italian on Fox Animation.

I also went to Majorca in Spain and I stayed in a hotel which had a TV with English, Spanish and German channels and I remember watching SpongeBob on the Spanish channel Clan (with the English audio, there was an option on the remote to change audio) and Dennis and Gnasher: Unleashed! on the German kids channel Toggo.

[Steve in Pudsey]

I always make a point of watching some of the Spanish TV (with subtitles) when I'm in Spain in my continuing attempts to learn the language.

The long breakfillers on Antena 3 in the Canaries always make me wonder how pepole put up with it. That channel has some very interested gameshow formats, like Boom and Ahora Caigo. One of the kids channels shows the animated Mr Bean at something like 1am, which is pretty surreal to watch with subtitles on getting back to the apartment with a takeaway!

And of course they still have good old fashioned teletext.

[channelbox]

I've been to Spain a few times, and have came across La 1, La 2, Antena 3, Neox and a bit of Clan and Boing.

When I went in 2019, there were 2 TVs, one had virtually no Spanish channels, it had English TV (BBC, ITV, Channel 4) along with lots of German channels. There might have been one Arabic channel there as well.

While I was there, I watched 3sat (saw ARD Taggeschau & SRF 10vor10 on there), RTL, RTL II, ZDF, ZDFneo, KiKA & Super RTL (The Toggo strand rebranded whilst I was on holiday, pretty sure it was the day before we left)

[TVenthusiasm]

I was in Lanzarote in 2017 on holiday, and during my stay I stumbled across La 1/2, Antena 3, Paramount Channel (I think that's what's it's called), Sky News, Television Canaria, Pick (apparently!) and the Spanish feed of Disney Channel. I watched the Spanish dub of The Simpsons on Antena 3 a few times, and Telediario on La 1.

When I was out on the beach I saw Sky Sports News on some of the buildings (especially pubs) as well as some biEN Sports.

[JasonB]

I first went to America in 2001 and was baffled at their placement of adverts. As I sat down to watch some of my favourite programmes at night, up pops an ad break after the titles, then in the middle which I’m used to and another one before end credits. Some channels cut the end credits off altogether and going in to the next show.

I watched a bit of Polish TV in 2019 which my friend said “was really bad”

[ethanh05]

Good topic for the summer months.

Well, for a start, I have a disturbingly similar memory to [mention]Steve in Pudsey[/mention] of watching the animated Mr Bean (I'm pretty sure it was Mr Bean) at about 1 in the morning on one of the Spanish channels. It was so bizarre, and I basically spent the entire time a) trying to work out what anyone was saying, and b) wondering if someone had spiked one of my drinks or had inadvertently drugged me.

I watched quite a bit of American telly back in 2015, as I was in the Dominican Republic for two weeks. If I recall correctly, I started to grow a fondness for TBS, which I have literally never even thought about since until today, as it showed a lot of Family Guy, MLB baseball and NBA basketball. And as it was in June, there was no football on that I would have watched at the time, so I took what I could get sports-wise. I also believe that, after a while, I recognised every bumper and message throughout the network for a good month or so.

Oddly, I had access to Sky One in a hotel in Spain in 2016. I didn't do much watching of foreign channels, however, as I wanted to watch Euro 2016 with the English coverage - however, I didn't have access to ITV, and so I remember watching the Iceland-England match (among others, but that was the best one) flicking through numerous channels, and then landing on one of the Spanish broadcasters - it was interesting to see that some channels had delays of a few seconds between each other. I also remember watching the simultaneous matches in Wales' group through a Spanish-language channel; well, I think, because I actually watched it on a beach with no sound on whatsoever, and I can vividly remember my frustration as whoever was showing the Wales match started up a good twenty-five minutes later than whoever showed the England match, preferring to show Casas Bajo el Martillo or whatever the hell it was.

And then, when I was staying in Germany for a week two or so years ago, I absorbed quite a bit of ZDF, ARD1, Pro Sieben and Sat 1 - as German ad breaks are so long, I'd usually end up going 'This has to be the last adv... oh wait, no, there's another one' for about eight minutes. Fun times.

[Philheybrookbay]

Remember some obscure channels in Bulgaria in 2009 but the only one I watched properly was Euronews. Enjoyed that.

Now I mostly holiday on Zakynthos so I've watched a lot of Ant1 and Alpha over the years, with a highlight being the general elections in 2015 and 2019. The coverage was excellent and even in my broken Greek I could work out the results and the graphics were good.

[London Lite]

I first started watching French channels in the UK ironically on my mother's friends satellite system at 5W, so saw presentation from TF1, Antenne 2 and M6 I remember vividly.

When I did go to France, the reception of the local channels was so bad (think trying to watch tv in rural Wales on Freeview) that I never really watched tv in the country of origin. I was more into radio overseas than tv as it was much easier to receive.

[IdentFan101]

I was in hospital in Turkey a few years back and there was a TV in my room and I distinctly remember watching the Turkish(?) dub of Teletubbies and Taz-Mania with my dad.

[Roger Darthwell]

I first started watching French channels in the UK ironically on my mother's friends satellite system at 5W, so saw presentation from TF1, Antenne 2 and M6 I remember vividly.

When I did go to France, the reception of the local channels was so bad (think trying to watch tv in rural Wales on Freeview) that I never really watched tv in the country of origin. I was more into radio overseas than tv as it was much easier to receive.

Antenne 2? I never knew that the channel was already on 5W even before 1992!

[gottago]

I used to go to different parts of Spain each year for a few years during my teens and loved Antena 3's presentation and seeing what different idents they'd serve up each year. I thought this set was great with a really nice jingle though they seemed to get ditched by the next year I was there and looking back them they were a little naff actually!

https://youtu.be/YoSoMwgAkbo?t=2198

I remember one year we stayed in an apartment that had a TV but it wasn't plugged into any aerial or anything, needless to say I wasn't happy!

[nwtv2003]

In most places you stay at you tend to get the local channels as default, whether that’s here in the UK or abroad. The more touristy places in Spain and the likes will also go out of their way to offer British and German TV channels.

The only Hotel I stayed at where the choice of TV channels was commercially driven was at the Hotel Cheyenne at Disneyland Paris. The first few channels on the TV were dedicated to the Park itself as a guide. in multiple languages, followed by the Disney Channel France, UK and Germany. Only then the basic French FTA channels were available and then the likes of BBC World and CNN were further down.

[James2001]

If going to the US counts, I can watch the channels that show old 50s/60s TV shows for hours. Wish we had something like it here!

[Colm]

I first went abroad in 1994 with my family to Italy, and my main TV memories of that trip are seeing the beautiful artistic break bumpers on the three Rai networks:

https://youtu.be/nIwMYHs5hsU

as well as the Raitre signorina buonasera appearing on-screen in black-and-white, surrounded by red quotation marks:

https://youtu.be/0q_b5pKsStg

Subsequent trips in recent years have involved:

?? cycling through the teletext services on TVE et al on hot sleepless nights in Spain - the same hotel offered BBC One South and ITV Central West as the set regions for the available UK channels

?? my partner getting frustrated at the much-slower pace of the Italian version of 'Take Me Out' while staying in Rome

?? my partner also being surprised RTÉ One were still showing 'Shortland Street'

[nwtv2003]

If going to the US counts, I can watch the channels that show old 50s/60s TV shows for hours. Wish we had something like it here!

I’ve only been to the US once and what I saw totally surprised me. I went to New York in 2001 and couldn’t get my head round how terrestrial TV worked there, as the channels begin at Channel 2, for WCBS. And the sheer number of ad breaks also is a whole other world away from British TV.

My ex was Hungarian and I went over to Hungary a few times. Most of the population had cable by default. Whilst the official networks on terrestrial were M1, TV2 and RTL Klub, the latter two commercial channels were usually found on channels 7 and 8 on cable, despite the fact they were the most watched. M2, had been relegated to satellite and cable back in the late 1990’s and was usually found on channel 2 on cable if memory serves. M1 was interesting at this time as it still had a formal start up and closedown sequence each day, usually broadcasting from 5:30 to 12:30am.

Whilst there weren’t too many cable channels in Hungarian, BBC Prime was available with Hungarian subtitles on almost every programme.