Get ready for higher cable TV bills

News from the world of Television

Postby tuned » Tue Dec 12, 2006 6:05 pm

The CRTC is considering a proposal that would force cable companies to pay local over-the-air stations for their signals much like they have to pay for channels like TSN or Sportsnet. Viewers won't get anything out of the deal except a higher cable bill ($3-$7 more a month) and companies like Canwest and CTV will pocket millions. Of course the CRTC will force the broadcasters to spend some of the money on Cancon but they will still be left with a tidy profit on the arrangement. At the recent CRTC hearings the Commission seemed to favour the idea and were trying to wrestle with the details. There are some people that think the idea is a non-starter but I think it's a done deal and just a matter of dividing up the loot.
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Postby Mike Cleaver » Tue Dec 12, 2006 6:35 pm

A bit off topic:
Has anyone tried Telus TV?
A flyer arrived here last month.
They offer most of the channels carried by Shaw with a few notable exceptions.
Those of us who live in apartments or high rise condos are pretty much restricted to either rabbit ears (or current alternative) or cable in one form or another.
Regulations limit satellite dishes and outside antennas.
Back to the subject: Cable firms have been taking over the air signals for free since their inception and selling them to their subscribers.
As mentioned, cable only channels already receive payment for their programming and the over the air's are now calling for the same thing.
The television, radio and print media are losing advertising share to new media such as the internet.
From the network's point of view, they feel they deserve the same treatment as the made for cable channels.
However, there are other factors at play here.
Most Canadian television is simply American television with commercial substitution as mandated by the CRTC.
Cable and satellite should allow subscribers to pick and pay for the channels they want and not bundle services as they do now.
Half the channels offered by Shaw digital are things I'd never watch but I'm forced to take them to get the few channels I really want.
And is anyone receiving High Definition Signals off-air from any of the Vancouver stations?
If so, where did you get your receiver amd what type of antenna are you using?
Are the results satisfactory?
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Postby Mike Cleaver » Tue Dec 12, 2006 7:59 pm

Excuse the intrusion, but I've just deleted the post that Mike was referring to.

I for one would like to see Mr. VanMan kicked off this board - I think that's what he wants too - but someone else will have to ultimately make this decision.

Pluto


************************

I usually don't get sucked in by Trolls but who the f**k are you and what have you ever contributed to this board or this industry other than smart remarks?
If you do your research, you'll find the vast majority of Lower Mainland homes have cable.
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Postby johnsykes » Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:31 pm

Mike, don't fall into that turkey's trap.....ignore the kid and he'll go back to his playpen eventually. The sooner the better. Who the hell babysits the kid anyway.

Mike on the subject of cable.....that's the only way I can have TV in our condo building....I'd prefer sat tv but I can't get either Starchoice or ExpressVue to guarantee me a good signal....another building is blocking the signal track.
I have Shaw Digital.....but I don't subscribe to any channels I don't want.....check it out....things may have changed for you. I only carry Fox Sportsworld Canada that I pay extra for. Many other digital channels are free.

I've responded on the other subject re a get-together for Christmas/New Years...check it out...let us know.
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Postby johnsykes » Tue Dec 12, 2006 9:49 pm

See, you don't read.....I said there's a building blocking the potential spot where the sat would be installed and the sat up in the wild blue yonder. You can't have a building block the signal. And I'm not going to move just to get a TV satellite.
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Postby tuned » Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:27 am

I much prefer Shaw cable over satellite. Those little dishes look nice in trailer parks and slum apartments but not on tuned manor. Their high def box has two tuners and lots of recording capacity. My wife blew up one of the high def boxes piling crap all over it and Shaw came and replaced it within 24 hours no questions asked. Can the satellite guys give you 6 mb/ps high speed internet service? The quality of the pictures on all the channels is excellent and they aren't affected by weather. How's the picture when your baby dish is filled with snow? You can't even record two high def channels simultaneously without having a dual feed dish. If you can get Shaw there is no point in wasting your time with a dish.
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Postby skyvalleyradio » Wed Dec 13, 2006 1:21 pm

Hey Tuned - any idea if the CRTC is going to hold public hearings regarding this outrageous proposal? If nothing else, the public should be allowed to file interventions supporting/condemning this bullshit
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Postby raverocks » Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:29 pm

If I could unbundle cable or any tv service, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Imagine just paying for the 25 or so channels you do watch and not paying for the 80+ other channels you'll never watch that you have to currently pay for. Even Telus tv had the silly outdated concept of having to buy groups of channels. Some channels you could swap out of a group and others you could not. When I calculated the costs under Telus' tv package, it would have cost me about 8 bucks more a month for almost the same package I now have from Shaw. And Telus couldn't tell me how long before I could get (my new favourite) TCM which they currently don't have the rights to.

More and more of my tv viewing is comprised of watching downloaded AVI's of current tv hits like Lost, Boston Legal, Dexter, Heroes, etc. I've watched the entire Lost series and haven't watched one episode with commericals. Watching programs in widescreen and without interruptions is where its at and commercial tv will be shortlived under the current business plan or we'll be seeing 95% reality tv on all the commercial networks before the end of this decade. Commercial TV will soon go the route that radio went in the 50's. We have so many choices today and are no longer beholden to the three U.S. networks for innovation and ideas. They no longer control the TV sets of the country. If commercial TV is going to degenerate further to pulp content, I don't want my cable bill to be paying for it. If I can get it for free over the airwaves without a bunch of hazzle, fine! To get the same feed through the convenience of cable rather than antenna, I shouldn't have to pay the tv station any more than what they would have gotten from me if I wasn't attached to cable, which is zilch.
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Postby tuned » Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:41 pm

People can email or write the CRTC or better yet their MP regarding this latest subsidy of Lenny & Squiggy etc.
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Postby Mike Cleaver » Wed Dec 13, 2006 3:26 pm

All this harkens back to when Rogers in Ontario first introduced the new cable only channels and told people they'd have to pay if they DIDN'T want to receive them.
Rogers would send the channels down the wire to everyone and charge for them but it you didn't want to pay for them, you had to pay something like 50 bucks to have a Rogers "tech" come over to install a trap on your cable line to stop the reception of the new channels.
Don't know whether they tried that out here or whether Rogers even owned cable in Vancouver at that time but public outcry quickly told Ted to go p*ss up a rope and Rogers had to go the more expensive route of providing set top boxes to those who wanted the new channels and leave everyone else at the old rate.
Try complaining to the CRTC or your MP.
It can't hurt but it probably won't help.
The CRTC has a poor record of actually listening to the public.
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Postby Cliff Bashly Kinkade » Wed Dec 13, 2006 4:09 pm

Excellent point Mike, and for the record, the incident you reference is thought by many to have been the tipping point for satellite TV in this country. There were line-ups of people handing in their converters and canceling their subscriptions. The negative option billing scheme is also often used as a "how not to do it" case study by marketing and business schools.
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Postby Aaron » Fri Dec 15, 2006 5:12 pm

I've had no problems with Rogers, and I hear problem after problem from people with ExpressVu.

Rogers is alo very good at being first to offer new technologies and programming. (Dual-Tuner PVR, HD Channels, TCM, etc.).
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Postby jon » Sun Dec 17, 2006 4:53 pm

Ted Rogers single-handedly gives the entire Canadian cable industry a bad name. His "you can't tell me what to do" speeches are legendary, and usually aimed at the CRTC. When digital cable first came out, he almost killed the channel owners by charging double what Shaw did for each channel and package.

Shaw, of course, is not perfect, still refusing to carry TVLand, even though it was #1 in number of subscribers among the new cable channels when they first came out. Rogers, of course, carried it.

The best example of Ted's speeches was one where he said that the Technology was not available to allow other ISPs to provide broadband Internet off Rogers network, but the Technology was there for Rogers to provide broadband to its own customers by the hundreds of thousands. Less than a year later, an independent cable company in Timmins or Tillsonburg or someplace like that had an ISP using its network.

And that it is ancient history. That speech was made shortly after the CRTC re-iterated its previous order to allow competitors to use cable company and telco backbones to provide high-speed Internet service. I am not aware of any other cable company, besides the one in small town Ontario T-town in the late 1990s, that has yet allowed an ISP to offer broadband over their cable backbone.

One thing I am pleased to see Rogers offer is wireless Internet for $50/month, unlimited usage, available in (and travelling through) about 20 cities in Canada. Something like 1.5Mbps to you and 256Kbps to them. Not blazing, but a lot faster than any of the "wired" High Speed Lite offerings of telcos and cable companies.

Finally, as for ExpressVu, Bell has repeated offered it to Shaw for $1, and Shaw keeps saying the price is too high. And they are probably right, as they would inherit the debt. Shaw also has an ulterior motive, as they have been petitioning the CRTC to have cable TV deregulated because of "all" the competition from satellite TV. They already own one of the two players, Star Choice, so cable/satellite TV would arguably be a monopoly again if Shaw got ExpressVu.

One final interesting, but unpublicized point: both Canadian satellite TV companies have dropped out of the Internet market, forcing the CRTC to allow two U.S. (including Hughes) satellite Internet providers to sell to Canadians. I believe that one or both of the U.S. companies offers two way satellite Internet, instead of the stupid dial-up connection from you to them that ExpressVu and StarChoice used to force you to use.

And, finally, Shaw made a huge deal about being the first cable or satellite TV company in Canada to offer TCM (November 2005 debut, as I recall). They recently added AMC, too. Any idea, ADG, if Rogers beat Shaw to introducing TCM?

One question: does TCM offer a Hi-Def service in the U.S.? And/or are there any plans to offer one in Canada?
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