Some call him a pirate, others say he is just a shrewd businessman. He has made money by plucking satellite programmes off the satellite channels.
Nahil Wijesuriya, a 51-year-old self-made million aire, is a likeable guy. Stockily built with short-cropped hair, his eyes twinkle and he laughs easily. He likes the fun things of this world and revels at the chance of a ringside seat to excitement. He certainly had all that when he set up the zanily named Extra Terrestrial Vision, Sri Lanka´s fifth television station.
ETV has bloomed by helping itself, free, gratis and for nothing, to BBC signals taken off satellites orbiting the earth. 'It is rather like this' explains Mr Wijesuriya. & 'If your neighbour´s mango tree overhangs your garden, you are free to take the fruit over your property. That is perfectly legitimate. You are not breaking any law. The BBC signal was plucked from the sovereign air space of Sri Lanka. We did not do anything illegal and despite a great deal of effort, nobody has been able to establish that we have.'
The BBC tolerated it for a while. But not only was ETV pirating the signal, it was also editing out original commercials to replace them with local advertisements. Mr Wijesuriya said that BBC initially was very supportive of their programmes reaching Sri Lanka courtesy ETV, which had got its project approved by the regulators in Colombo on the basis that they were going into satellite transmissions. But as to whether they were going to pay the parties originating these transmissions was, to borrow the ETV promoter´s language, 'not mentioned'.