It was once dubbed Britain’s satellite street, and any visitor to Esslemont Avenue in Aberdeen could tell you why.
Around 65 dishes jut out from the frontages of properties on just one side of one short stretch of the Rosemount street, many of them blotted with rust patches and clearly unused.
These relics of a rapidly passing era of television entertainment fill the granite face of the terraced tenements, a situation that is not appreciated by passers-by or those living in the buildings.
“It’s not very nice, is it?” said Chris Hargreaves, a resident of a third-floor flat on the street.
“It’s Aberdeen, granite buildings, it doesn’t look great anyway, and when you stick satellite dishes all over the place it’s not aesthetically pleasing.”
She added: “It’s just absolutely rammed. ”
Esslemont Avenue is not alone.
Several other addresses in Aberdeen have a problem with disused satellite dishes, and the rise of streaming services, as well as dish-free services such as Sky Glass, will mean more falling out of use in the near future.
On a walk around the streets of the city centre, it’s difficult to miss all the rusty antennae dotted about.
And the fact that many of them are taking up space pointlessly, having not been used for several years, confounds the situation.
What can be done about it?
Most of the satellite dishes in the UK are set up to receive Sky television.
The company’s position is that once the hardware is installed, it becomes the customer’s responsibility – and it is up to them to take it down once it is no longer needed.
Have you noticed a large number of unsightly satellite dishes? What should be done about them? Let us know in our comments section at the foot of this article
But what happens when a property is rented out long-term, and a succession of tenants decide not to use the satellite?
Back on Esslemont Avenue, Chris said: “I know downstairs doesn’t use her dish, the tenant in before her didn’t use it either.
“A lot of these flats are rented, so how many of these dishes are being used, and how many are just sitting there?”
Sky policy ‘isn’t working’
Earlier this week, Aberdeen Central MSP Kevin Stewart wrote to Dana Strong, the chief executive of Sky, and called for the company to take responsibility for the “unsightly” dishes that “pollute” the city’s streets.
He said: “If you take a short walk around Aberdeen you will find many streets littered with old, out of use, Sky satellite dishes and it’s something that I think Sky needs to take more responsibility for.
“I’ve no doubt it saves Sky a fair bit of cash, but clearly the current policy of placing the burden of removing the dish on to customers isn’t working and it’s leaving our cities in a mess.
“At the very least Sky should make it clearer when a contract is started and ended that the customer is responsible for the removal of the dish, but ideally I’d like to see Sky take full responsibility for removing the dish when a contract ends so we don’t continue to see dishes plastered over our buildings.”
However, a Sky spokeswoman said the dishes could be used for more than just receiving their television packages.
She said: “Our contract with customers has always been clear that when they become a Sky customer, the satellite dish our engineers install becomes their property.
“We do this as the satellite dish can be used over a long lifespan and often to provide alternative satellite services, like Freesat.”
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