Media buyers must push for Sky listings

To find out that Sky has removed the detailed listings from my monthly guide (Torin Douglas, MW May 4) leaves me perplexed. The cynic in me believes that once Sky has got my money, it doesn’t care what I watch and how long I tune in for, other than for the obviously heavily promoted pay services.

If there is a driver to promote a change of heart from Sky it must surely come from the media industry, which schedules ads in specific programmes. What is the point of scheduling niche programmes when the viewer, like me, is unaware of their existence?

Here’s an easy solution: I could search the listings on screen by key words, as I would on the Internet, to find the programmes I want for days ahead.

My love is for surfing. But the only option to track such programmes is to attempt to search the inadequate listings at the beginning of the month and then video my choices, hoping that the listings in the daily papers matched those in the monthly guide.

However, even video recording is a problem. Having entered the multi-channel world, my family battle it out for control of the digibox, so all attempts at videoing have failed as I can only record the channel being viewed at the time. I have 180 minutes of assorted Cartoon Network programming and not a surf board in sight.

David Longman

Marketing and communications director

MRI International

London WC1