Satellite TV on Mallorca: Getting English Channels on a Dish

A satellite dish used to be the default answer for foreign residents on Mallorca who wanted television from home. It still has one advantage nothing else can match: it works whether or not your internet does, and there is no monthly bill for the free channels. But the picture has changed. The satellites that carry British channels now aim a much tighter beam at the UK than they did fifteen years ago, which means the dish you need here is far bigger than the one on your old roof. This guide explains which satellite carries what, what size dish actually works on Mallorca, what installation costs, and what to do if you rent or live in an apartment block.

Which satellite carries English-language channels?

There is no single answer, which is exactly what makes this confusing. Three orbital positions matter for anyone on Mallorca:

• Astra 2E, 2F and 2G at 28,2 degrees East. This is the home of the British public broadcasters: BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, plus the Sky platform. It is what you want and it is the hardest to receive here.
• Hotbird at 13 degrees East. A general European position with a wide footprint over the whole Mediterranean. It carries a rotating selection of free-to-air international channels in English, including news channels such as BBC World News and CNN International, alongside many other languages. Easy to receive on Mallorca.
• Astra at 19,2 degrees East. Primarily the German-language position, with some free-to-air English content. Also comfortable to receive here with a mid-size dish.

The important thing to understand about position 28,2 East is the beam. The Astra 2 satellites use a tight UK spot beam so that British broadcasters can keep their rights within the UK. Reception is excellent over the British Isles and deliberately weak in southern Europe. It is not blocked, but you are picking up the spill at the edge, and physics decides how much aluminium you need to do that.

What size dish do I need on Mallorca for BBC and ITV?

Reception reports from the Balearics consistently point to a large dish for the BBC transponders on Astra 2E: installers on Mallorca and Menorca report success with around 1,5 m. Some locations manage on 1,2 m in clear weather and lose the picture in rain. Anything in the 60 to 80 cm range that worked at home in the UK will not work here.

For Hotbird at 13 degrees East, 80 cm is generally enough, and 1 m gives you comfortable margin in bad weather. For Astra 19,2 East, plan on 80 cm minimum and 1 m to 1,25 m for stability.

What a satellite installation costs on Mallorca

A dish is a one-off investment with no monthly cost, unless you subscribe to a pay platform. Realistic 2026 figures on the island:

Some practical points from island life:

• Use an installer who works the Balearics regularly. When you are on the edge of a footprint, precise alignment matters far more than it does in the UK, and a couple of millimetres is the difference between a clean picture and freezing blocks.
• Insist on a solid wall or mast mount. Autumn storms with gusts over 100 km/h are normal here, and a 1,5 m dish is a large sail.
• Salt air near the coast rusts cheap steel dishes. Aluminium or fibreglass costs more and lasts years longer.
• Ask for the all-in price including travel. Many technicians bill the trip out to your village separately.
• A large mesh dish is visually obvious. If you are in a village with a protected townscape, check whether the town hall has rules on visible installations before you order it.

Renting or living in an apartment: are you allowed a dish?

In a detached house or a finca you decide for yourself. In a building with a comunidad de propietarios the facade and the roof are common property, and plenty of comunidades prohibit private dishes on the outside of the building for appearance reasons.

Spanish telecommunications law does protect your access to reception infrastructure in multi-occupancy buildings, through Real Decreto-ley 1/1998 on communal telecommunications infrastructure. In practice: you notify the comunidad in writing of your intended installation, and it has three months to offer a communal solution that covers what you wanted to receive. A dish on your own terrace or balcony that does not touch the facade is usually the easiest compromise. Sort this out before you drill, not afterwards. Our guide to comunidad and property management explains how these decisions get made.

If you rent, you also need the landlord's written permission. A refusal is common and entirely legal.

When a dish is not realistic, the alternatives are:

1. Streaming over a VPN. BBC iPlayer, ITVX and your home streaming libraries behave as they do at home with a decent VPN. The practical and legal detail is in our guide to streaming and TV for expats on Mallorca, and our post on how to watch American and British TV on Mallorca compares the services one by one.
2. IPTV providers. Paid services deliver home channels over the internet, but they need a stable line of roughly 50 Mbit/s or better, and the legality of a given provider varies considerably. Stick to services that clearly hold the rights.
3. A communal satellite system. If the building already receives 28,2 East, a socket in your living room is far cheaper than your own installation.

All three depend on your connection, so check what is actually available at your address first. Our topic guide to internet and mobile on Mallorca covers fibre coverage and providers.

Conclusion

A satellite dish is still the most robust way to get television on Mallorca, with no monthly fee for free-to-air channels and no dependency on your internet line. The catch is size: British channels from Astra 2 at 28,2 East realistically want around 1,5 m of dish this far south, while international English channels from Hotbird are happy with 80 cm. Get a signal test at your actual address, use an installer who knows the Balearics, and clear the installation with your comunidad or landlord before anything is drilled. If the dish turns out to be impractical, streaming over a VPN gets you to the same place for a monthly subscription and no hardware on the wall.