LETTERs

Time for bosses to have a heart

Having been involved with the licensed trade for 40 years, I wonder why so many people are leaving the industry after a short stay.Are they making too much money and retiring early?

How would directors or BDMs welcome pay cuts in return for increasing trade, as we are rewarded with escalating rental costs?

Attracting business should be rewarded, but it seems that only those who don't work in pubs and enjoy a regular five-day week get rewards.

How can supermarkets sell two cases of bottled beer for £16 when I pay

£24 for one? And how can big chains sell beer so cheaply when it comes from the same breweries I use?

How come nobody cares when experienced people leave a pub, then a holding company moves in and the brewery's leasing firms have to pay to keep the pub open?

And why is it so hard for brewery/leasing companies to carry out repairs, when, after claiming their budgets are over-spent, they then reveal £1m spends abroad?

Breweries/leasing firms should motivate people working in pubs, instead of penalising hard work and hard-earned investment.

More licensees need to join the Federation of Licensed Victuallers Associations - the old adage "united we stand, divided we fall" - still applies.

B Copley

Ye Olde White Harte, Hull,

East Yorkshire

Don't follow Publican's lead

Tell me that it's not true. More and more I am hearing ugly rumours that the Morning Advertiser is about to follow The Publican into A4 anonymity - and that, after the recent highly successful nip-and-tuck job on the mag we know and love.

If the MA is contemplating it, don't do it; we all need to be taking a stand against the grey, oily flood tide of dismal and monolithic conformity - coming from outside as well as inside - that is eating away at our industry, and we would expect a great institution such as the MA to continue to lead the resistance rather than knuckling under and doing a me-too thing.

The enemy without in this case is the Post Office. The spin is that A4 is good for you - it supposedly fits neatly into the briefcase and can be more easily read on public transport.

But we all know the only reason The Publican and other publications have recently plumped for the A4 formula is nothing to do with reader preference or design aesthetics; it's about the Post Office telling their customers that if they use the A4 format they will save considerable sums on postage and if they don't they'll have to pay the price of non-compliance.

So please pay for it. This is because the MA now finds itself indisputably the industry's most highly-visible publication and by retaining that format can only continue to go from strength to strength -something that has to be to the benefit of our whole industry.

Denis Cox

Public Relations Controller

Budweiser Budvar UK Ltd

The editor writes: "I'm happy to reassure you, Mr Cox, that the Morning Advertiser is very happy with its current size - and our readers are too."

Time to redress the balance

I am writing on behalf of the People's Network Advocates (TPNA). TPNA has set up the Pubs & Clubs Sports TV Campaign to redress the balance in favour of ordinary citizens against the Sky/FAPL (Football Association Premier League) football TV monopoly - for details see www.pubdefence. co.uk.

The Sky-FAPL axis would like to portray the reception of foreign satellite broadcasts as illegal, to deter its monopoly's competition.

We are astonished at the MA's continual editorial assertions following your stories about alleged rights and wrongs of competing satellite TV systems in pubs.

There are many different alleged infringements, and issues such as closed periods, copyright, FAPL TV contracts, and public versus private performance are complex matters resulting in FAPL/Sky losing all recent prosecutions.

Our legal team has retained Timothy King QC, the barrister who won for licensee Paul Gannon his appeal against conviction by FACT for allegedly dishonest reception of FAPL football broadcasts received from a foreign satellite TV station.

I made a significant deal with Mr Rupert Murdoch during Sky's infancy and set up Sky Satellite Marketing. We sold 160,000 Sky systems in five months and killed off its competition, BSB. I regret that success in some ways.

We first sold Sky at £9.95, but since grabbing control of the key sport from the BBC and ITV, BSkyB has achieved a virtual monopoly of UK DVB-S pay-TV broadcasting platforms, charging more than £50 a month.

The unfair treatment of licensees via predatory monopoly pricing is reprehensible.

Colin McGhee

Founder & Chairman - ESTA

(the European Satellite TV

Association)

Rights Advice Director - TPNA

(The People's Network Advocates)