Off the air

There are lots of little annoyances about being a TV viewer in Canada. The main regulator, the CRTC, imposes mandatory Canadian content requirements on local broadcasters, which results in a lot of sub-standard, highly parochial stuff making it onto the air.  (If you are reading this outside of Canada, I will make a sizable bet that you will never have the joy of seeing such comedies as "Corner Gas" or "Little Mosque on the Prairie").  Stations broadcasting US programming at the same time as just-across-the-border US stations are required to substitute local commercials for those from the US, which both angers the US stations and leads to regular technical issues. And cable TV providers have a nasty habit of "bundling" services in a way that forces most viewers to pay for stuff they never watch, in order to get the ones that they want.

All of this, and a whole lot more, is up for debate as the CRTC holds hearings on the future of Canadian TV.  One media commentator has characterized the hearings as "The Netflix Show". The broadcasters and cable companies are running scared of Netflix,  which is not subject to as many pettifogging rules as traditional content providers are.  In the time-honoured way are looking at how they can wrap it up in regulatory knots, rather than figuring how to compete with it.

As for the bundling of cable services, the cable boys are responding to the CRTC's suggestion of allowing viewers to "pick and pay" for only the channels they want with something like an open threat.  They are insisting that the amount they would charge for individual channels under such a system would result in many or most people paying more than they currently do with bundling.

The public broadcaster, CBC, made its pitch to the hearings a day or two ago.  There's a lot of technical stuff about who pays for what, but there's also this little bombshell:

"The CBC is also recommending that TV stations no longer be obliged to offer over-the-air services to the 5 to 7 per cent of households without cable or satellite."

Got that?  No more fuddy-duddy, old-style TV over the airwaves, if CBC gets its way.  If you're one of those nasty folk who've invested in a bigger antenna in order to pick up better signals while ditching your cable contract, and even worse, if you're evil enough to be supplementing that with a Netflix subscription, why, you're undermining the entire foundation of Canadian broadcasting, if not of the country itself. It remains to be seen whether the CRTC will go along with the CBC's recommendation, or with any of the other bilk-the-consumer schemes that have been laid before it, but right now, there doesn't seem to be anyone speaking up very loudly for the interests of the general public.