Repretel Blames Cabletica For Poor Signal During World Cup Airings
Though the "Sele" - the national Costa Rican team was eliminated and is now back home, Repretel - local channel 6 - continues with its exclusive televising of the 2006 World Cup games. However, some viewers are complaining that the signal is poor to bad is some areas.

And the blame is going to CableTica, the local cable company that also owns rival Channel 7 and is barred from televising World Cup images until 24 hours after Repretel has aired them.

Repretel is blaming the cable company of disturbing the signal to Channel 6 and its announcers are asking viewers who are experiencing problems to contact their cable company - not mentioning the Cabletica name - and demanding the service their are paying for.

"He who pays, is the boss" - a loose translation of Repretel announcers comments to urge viewers to be demanding.

In defence, Cabletica says it is not tampering with the signal and is only carrying the feed it is supplied by Repretel and rejects arguments by the Departamento de Ingeniería de Repretel (engineering department at Repretel) that it is the cable company that is at fault.

Cabletica says that it has no problems with the other channels, including international channels and that the provider, in this case Repretel, defines the quality of the signal.

However, Cabletica is working with Repretel engineers to solve the problem, which will no doubt clear itself up right after the last World Cup game.

Channel ratings for the three World Cup games played by Costa Rica:

June 10 - Channel 7 - 5.4, Channel 6, 55.5
June 15 - Channel 7 - 5.1, Channel 6, 45.0
June 20 - Channel 7 - 6.5, Channel 6, 33.9