No matter what the networks end up doing, they should always keep in mind the following: In these troubled times, people need real entertainment and escapist TV more than ever. They want intelligent dramatic and comedic television shows that will help them forget their own sad reality for thirty minutes or an hour. Deliver that, and viewers will be there in their recliners, with their feet up and a bowl of popcorn wedged in their laps.
Canada May Soon Have A Lot Less TV
In Canada, meanwhile, the conventional broadcasters have been immersed in public hearings before the industry’s regulator, the CRTC. They demand, among other things, that cable companies compensate them for carriage and that the rules for producing local Canadian content be relaxed. The two main commercial networks, CTV and Global, have already threatened to close down several local stations, leaving many parts without local coverage, if the CRTC fails to comply with their demands.
In the U.S., cable companies pay carriage fees to the main networks, but no network has an automatic right of carriage, unlike in Canada where broadcast networks have to be included in the local cable TV company’s lineup. Another problem in Canada is the fact that most people cannot watch local TV just off the air. Transmitters are either too weak, or the steel and concrete structures in big cities block the signals. Relying on old-fashioned rabbit ears, therefore, will get you one, maybe two channels – mostly with grainy, snowy pictures. In other words, if the broadcast networks weren’t carried on cable, they would easily lose ninety percent of their viewers, since cable TV is their main, and in most of Canada their only, means of distribution. For that reason alone, forcing cable subscribers to pay around 50 cents a month for each of the conventional broadcast networks would be nothing short of consumer fraud and highway robbery.
But almost every day, the networks find themselves in front of yet another CRTC hearing crying poor. Yet, they have all spent almost a billion dollars (in Canadian dollars) on importing U.S. network shows. After years and years of bidding wars among them to land the next big hit from the States, they have pushed up the prices for U.S. shows beyond what is reasonable. These shows are available to most Canadian viewers via the original U.S. networks anyway, so paying such inflated prices for the privilege of acting as mere playback machines for American networks is not only short-sighted of Canada’s networks, but outright dumb. Networks are all branded, and each one must promote its brand and make it stand out from the rest somehow. But with Canada’s broadcasters being nothing more than appendages to American networks, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that viewers have left for stations on cable and/or satellite that have something unique to offer.
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