Quote:
Originally Posted by nfotiu
I am having trouble seeing what all the bitching is about in this thread. Seems like the exact situation that is happening here in the US. I don't see a philosphical reason why a company that owns content shouldn't be able to negotiate payment from a company that makes money off of retranmitting that content.
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The issue I have is that for the last 20 years I have had to put up with signal substitutions as more Canadian networks pick up more US programming. Now they get into bidding wars over how much they will pay for the programming, to the point where it costs them so much for programming that they need to charge a fee instead of recovering it from advertizing.
Whereas if they had not been allowed to signal substitute, I would have watched the exact same show on NBC, Fox, etc.
So I am being asked to pay for a greedy company's over bidding. In the mean time the whole point of Canadian Content has actually sufferred; because networks string together hours of crap (example- 3 hours per day of "Feed the starving children") so they can balance their lust for hijacking American programming.
The local Spokane (population 300K) stations LOVES letting Calgary and Edmonton (pop 2.1 million) watch their programming; the more viewers the better. That is why they have Alberta news stories and Alberta weather (in Celcius even!) on their broadcasts. And you know what- I was happy watching my shows on American stations. Assuming I was OK with substitutions- watching them now on Canadian stations was a "meh." But don't ask me to pay to have to allow Canadian stations to buy US programming that I already get.