How to watch British TV in Spain

Perhaps you live on the Costa Brava full time, or maybe you spend a few months there every year. Depending on what you’re trying to escape – the winter at home or the tourist season over here – the weather may vary but you always get the chance to eat great food, drink cheap wine, and enjoy a more relaxed existence.

But there is still something missing.

You’ve got the TV, but let’s face it, most of the time neither Spanish nor Catalan TV is up to much. You may have learnt enough Catalan to get the hang of the weather on TV3 and most televisions these days have the option to watch programmes in the original language using Dual.

However, despite being able to watch some programmes and films in English something is still not right; your life will not be complete until you are able to watch British television.

Obviously there is no way you’re going to be able to pick up UK terrestrial channels through your aerial, even if you have a Freeview box from the UK. However, there are a couple of solutions to this.

How to watch UK TV in Spain

There are two options that will allow you to watch British TV programmes even if you live in Spain; the first solution is to install a satellite dish, the second to watch over the internet.

Both are rather grey market solutions, but shouldn’t get you into any trouble either, at least as far as I know. If you are worried about following the advice below though you should consult professional legal advice.

Installing a satellite dish

Note: you cannot receive BBC, ITV or Channel 4 programmes as of February 2014 and the advice below may no longer apply.

For the Costa Brava and at least down as far as Barcelona you can get away with a 90cm dish, in other areas you may need a larger dish as you are further away from the target footprint of UK satellite broadcasts.

However, you need to install the dish, complete with LNB – that’s the bit on the arm that receives the signal – on your roof or somewhere in line of site with the satellites. While dish installers have equipment to help them aim the dish, you can do it with a compass and some trial and error equally well.

In addition to the dish and LNB you will need a length of satellite cable running into your house. While it looks similar to regular TV cable, it in fact prevents radio-frequency interference from your system.

Then you need a satellite box – a Sky box for instance. However, Sky won’t allow you an account if you live overseas.

If you live on the Costa Brava for part of the year it isn’t much of a problem for you. Buy a second Sky box and bring your Sky card over when you travel. Easy.

If not, there are a few routes:

• Ask someone to use their address for your Sky account, although if they are a Sky subscriber there may be a problem.
• A cheaper option is to have a Sky Freesat Card card set to an address in the UK. This costs £25 and will allow you to receive the free to air channels over satellite, plus channels like Sky News.
• You will also find that some people in Spain can organise Sky cards for you. This is a grey market solution and they use correspondence addresses in the UK to get hold of your card, but experience is that they work.

Note that sometimes Sky updates cards and you’ll need a new Sky card or Freesat card when they do this.

TV over internet

While a few years ago this was merely a pipedream, ADSL was actually invented by BT in order to stream movies into the home over the telephone network.

Regulators prevented them from pursuing this business model and instead ADSL became used for broadband internet; a shame then that Britain benefitted from broadband relatively late compared with other countries.

BBC and other television channels all have the ability to watch their programs online for up to two weeks after being originally broadcast, so this isn’t exactly like broadcast TV. However, it does allow you to catch up with what you might have missed, although they don’t show films over internet; for that try renting films from iTunes instead (you need a UK credit card to watch films in English though and an account in the UK).

The problem with the latter is that BBC iPlayer and other TV channels in the UK block you from watching if you’re overseas, so you need to find out how to get around it. There are a number of ways, depending on what devices you have and whether you want free or are prepared to pay a small amount.

One free service is Expats Abroad, which allows you to watch online TV as if you were in the UK. You will have to watch on your computer monitor, unless you can connect your computer to the TV; usually this is just a question of the right cables.

There are also solutions for iPhones/iPads and other devices. You need a VPN account in the UK, so that to any website you visit it appears you are in the UK. There are free services, but I’ve never had much luck in getting them to work, but for a small monthly cost you can do the same and connect you device up to your TV to watch on the big screen.

February 2014 UPDATE: BBC, ITV and Channel 4 are unavailable by satellite in much of Spain.

If you have lost UK channels in Spain then don’t despair. There are bound to be new solutions coming along as there are many people in the same boat as you, and to get some simply solutions by email join my mailing list below:

As soon as I learn of new products and services I’ll let you know.

Tags: BBC, Dish, Satellite TV, Sky, socialmedia