For the first couple of years we were here in Lanzarote, we relied solely on DVDs and Spanish Television. In our opinion, the Spanish television is mind numbing at best… migraine inducing at worst.

Ok – so it was helpful to be able to watch movies in Spanish if we’d already seen them in English…. but there’s only so many gameshows, news programs, or slapstick comedy shows a person can handle before going completely insane.

You can now also get extra Spanish channels by getting a digibox or by subscruibing to a Spanish service provider. We however, wanted something English for ourselves – it’s all down to personal choice.

So we looked at the options before embarking on English Speaking Television. We were torn between a Sky box without a subscription… or Nilesat. We eventually opted for Nilesat, which is broadcast in Arabic… but has a number of English Speaking Channels… including plenty of movies – which pleased us greatly. It does have Arabic subtitles – but these aren’t too distracting, because of the shape of their alphabet.

For anyone planning to get Nilesat – it involves a one off fee for the satellite engineer to fit you with a box and a dish – but no monthly subscription. Here are just a few of the schedules for the English speaking Channels so you can see before you buy. Remember some of the timings will be in KSA not GMT, so take off 3 hours).

Fox Movies

Fox Series

MBC 2

MBC 4

MBC Action

MBC Max

Dubai One

There is also BBC World News 24, and a variety of other general channels.

Schedules for channels on other service providers that you may find useful are here too:

Setanta Sports

Canal+

Spanish Television

Sky Television

UK Television

For prices of the various English speaking options available – please contact one of the Satellite television in Lanzarote providers already on the Island. Happy viewing!