Guide to watching UK, English TV in Spain and Gran Canaria
An
extensive guide to the various methods of watching UK TV for free in
Spain and Gran Canaria, contracting SKY in Gran Canaria, watching BBC
on the Internet in Gran Canaria and the best sites to download UK TV
programmes.
There are various ways to watch UK TV in Gran
Canaria, some free some not, some on your TV and some via the PC, Mac
or smartphone. We will try to explain all the different methods, give
you the best websites and show you the different costs. If we have
missed anything please let us know in the comment section below this
article.
Contract SKY in Gran Canaria
As you are probably
aware SKY is not legally available in Spain as the advertisers pay for
a UK audience, however there are various companies that will install a
dish and set you up. The costs for this are for the dish and sky box
and your monthly subscription. There are 2 sizes of dish available, a
smaller dish which will allow you to access all the standard SKY TV
channels and a larger dish which will also give you access to
terrestrial TV channels such as BBC and ITV too. The cost of the
smaller dish and box is about 600€+ and your monthly subscription about
50€ depending on which package you choose.
There are various individuals and companies that will install your dish and set you up. These include:
Chris - 685622043
and www.skynow.tv
Tel.: + 34 928 05 79 50
Mobile: + 34 67 22 54 200
Watch TV on the Internet
Streaming
TV is becoming more and more popular and one great site we have come
across is www.zattoo.com. You need to download their software and then
you can watch almost any European TV channel live on your computer,
including BBC, ITV, Channel 4 etc. The quality is excellent and as far
as we can see it is also legal. You'll just need a UK IP address to access the UK channels. see below.
Download TV programs
There are
obviously hundreds of places to download films, music etc, however the
best one we have found is a UK based outfit called www.thebox.bz. They
only have programmes shown on UK TV but the list is endless, they have
all the old classic comedies to the latest episode of Big Brother,
sports matches and documentaries. Download speed is superfast and
programmes usually appear within a couple of hours of being on TV. The
site is invite only though, however we have a few invites here at
GranCanariaGuru so just drop us an email and we'll send you one. First
come, first served. The site is a community based site so once you
download programmes you must allow them to be uploaded from your
computer otherwise they'll block you, or alternatively you can buy
extra credits for not much money. We have been members for a couple of
years now and it is a really excellent site.
Watch BBC iPlayer in Spain
As
you probably know you cannot watch the BBC iPlayer or listen to certain
sporting events in Spain, however there is a pretty simple workaround.
Basically you have to subscribe to a VPN (virtual private network),
change a couple of simple settings on your computer and the BBC think
you're in the UK. Once setup you can happily watch the iPlayer, the ITV
equivalent, Channel 4 catchup and any other content that is exclusively
for UK customers. We find it particularly useful to watch sports events
that are streamed on the BBC website, like Wales rugby matches,
Wimbledon, The Open etc.
Companies which offer VPNs include
http://hidemynet.com for $5 / month
www.Lamnia.co.uk for £6.50 / month
https://ssl.alwaysvpn.com for accessing US based services such as Hulu
Watch SKY TV and UK sporting events online
There
are various streaming services on the internet, all as good and as bad
as each other. generally the quality is acceptable but not great
however you can pretty much watch any sporting event or TV channel that
you want.
The most popular streaming sites are
www.justin.tv
www.fromsport.com
www.iraqgoals.net
www.myp2p.eu
If you find you regularly get booted off these services and they ask
you to upgrade to a premium account, consider getting a VPN (see above)
as that seems to solve the problem.