Our Cable/Sat Bills are about to get bigger! Yay! :(

[To Be Quite Honest]

Guy's, it's because the CRTC and the Media groups are run by lizard people. They are not human so they don't care that we have to starve to watch Maury Povich. Poor Povich! Damn green blooded overlords.

This is the fight that Canadian's lost all control over our TV's. Thanks Bill.

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Two words: Apple TV.

Cable is obsolete.

Apple TV is looking very attractive these days.

I don't think it's great if you watch lots of TV or sports at the moment. But for someone like myself who only watches a couple selected shows I think it will be great. I think the HD offerings are lack luster (so I've heard, not seen). But with the money I will save from my huge cable bill I will be able to buy more Blu-rays. Plus the ability to download any episode is a plus. If I want to try out a show I can download the first episode instead of starting in the middle of the season. And for shows like South Park. I end up paying to watch them on cable and then I pay again to buy the physical copies. I would only have to pay once with Apple TV.

I think after the hockey season I will be scaling my cable subscription back a lot. I might keep basic cable and give the Apple TV a shot. If Shaw allowed me to have only the HD channels and not pay for everything else underneath I would buy an Apple TV right now.

[boogerz]

Cable and satellite operators are not forced to pass along any costs to consumers, but Rogers, Bell and Shaw have already said they will

LOL


I call shenanigans. Like hell they care about the consumers...

[BlackEleven]

It's a pretty ballsy move when an industry is slowly starting to become obsolete raises their prices to make their product even more unattractive.

I've been debating replacing tv with online content for a while now and if my bills gets jacked up another $10, it may just be the push I've been waiting for.

[Matty81]

So true that raising their prices while losing customers is just ridiculous. I really wouldn't care about people paying more for CTV, etc if I could just choose not to get them but in order to get any HD or digital channels I have to pay for basic which I don't even want.

I watch about 5-10 channels which should cost 20 bucks or so, instead I get all this garbage and more than half my cable bill goes to subsidize crap like American Idol.

[I_H8_Crawford]

Originally Posted by GreenTeaFrapp

You example is completely wrong. The CRTC allowed Wind Mobile because they were looking to break up the wireless oligopoly in Canada.

No, the CRTC blocked Wind because Telus expressed concerns about foreign ownership, and the CRTC conducted a huge investigation and amazingly agreed with Telus.

It was government legislation that overruled the CRTC that allowed Wind mobile to launch.

[Hack&Lube]

Time to drop cable entirely then. I have no reason to have cable TV when everything and more can be found on the internet.

I will miss having the movie channels though. There are so many old and vintage movies as well as B movies that I would never have seen if I wasn't channel surfing on late nights that have been some of the most important movies that I have seen.

With the internet, it's always something I have to consciously go out and look for instead of being surprised with.

[Russic]

Originally Posted by Burninator

Apple TV is looking very attractive these days.

I don't think it's great if you watch lots of TV or sports at the moment. But for someone like myself who only watches a couple selected shows I think it will be great. I think the HD offerings are lack luster (so I've heard, not seen). But with the money I will save from my huge cable bill I will be able to buy more Blu-rays. Plus the ability to download any episode is a plus. If I want to try out a show I can download the first episode instead of starting in the middle of the season. And for shows like South Park. I end up paying to watch them on cable and then I pay again to buy the physical copies. I would only have to pay once with Apple TV.

I think after the hockey season I will be scaling my cable subscription back a lot. I might keep basic cable and give the Apple TV a shot. If Shaw allowed me to have only the HD channels and not pay for everything else underneath I would buy an Apple TV right now.

The Apple TV is awesome if you're not in need of sports. Beyond that I find it to be an essential device. Why would I pay for cable when I can buy the show commercial free, keep it on my computer and push it to my mobile devices? Throw in the price of renting or buying a DVR and you're well ahead of the game. That isn't even touching on the awesomeness of digitizing your dvd collection and having everything a button press away.

[ken0042]

For those of you looking to Apple TV et al as a substitute for cable- how is the picture quality on a bigger TV; like a 50"?

I ask in all seriousness, because as much as I hate this, I can't see myself giving up watching HD content on a 50" TV.

[Russic]

Apple TV has HDMI and iTunes offers most shows in HD. Some HD seems to have trouble streaming over wifi (can get choppy), but if you have a network cable running to it it works great. Any video I download not using iTunes in HD quality (legally of course) I can stream over wifi just fine ... I'm sure when I encode the video it's less than full HD quality, but I don't really notice the difference.

[Homer_J]

Originally Posted by OilKiller

There is a big difference between protecting Canadian companies and screwing the consumer. The various broadcasters in this country have free reign, can produce next to zero local content and continue to line their pockets at the expense of the consumer. Canadians have consistently been screwed when it comes to broadcasting.

The cable/satellite companies are the ones who are lining their pockets with the consumers dollars. They're making hundreds of millions of dollars in profits every year. They don't need to pass this expense on to the consumer, but understandably, like any corporation they don't want cut into their profits. The local broadcaster's signal is free with the purchase of a set of rabbit ears.

[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.

[ken0042]

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.

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.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by ken0042

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.

I honestly don't understand this logic. Why shouldn't a producer of content be able to sell the exclusive rights of their content to a Canadian station?

[ken0042]

It's not the American broadcasters who are at fault here- they can sell their content to whoever they want.

(I'm going to use CTV, Global and NBC as examples below- but it isn't just these companies.)

It's just that in the 80s we were buying it directly from the NBC in the form of paying for cable. Then CTV stepped in and bought it from NBC, and we were forced to watch the CTV feed of the channel. Next Global comes along and starts bidding with CTV for programming; and NBC sells to the highest bidder. (And who wouldn't sell to the highest bidder.)

Now CTV and Global are trying to tell me that they bid more than what they could recover in advertizing costs, so they would like me to cover the shortfall. So the people who were against this who process and liked things the way they were before are being asked to pay for the "service" that they never wanted to begin with.

Imagine a company approaches the Flames and offers to buy every seat in the Dome and all of the TV rights; offerring more than the Flames get now. Flames agree, but now the cheapest seat in the Dome is $50 instead of $40, and every game is a $25 PPV game. Myself as a fan- I was fine with the way it was before; but have to pay a service to a middle man that I never wanted in the first place.

[Flash Walken]

Has anyone watched NHL Gamecenter on their HDTV?

How does it look?

I'd really like to cancel my cable and chuck my PVR through the show-tower windows.

If it wasn't for hockey, I'd have a 30 dollar a month utility bill.

[fredr123]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

I honestly don't understand this logic. Why shouldn't a producer of content be able to sell the exclusive rights of their content to a Canadian station?

I don't think ken has a beef with the content producers. His complaint, which I personally share, seems to be with the system created in Canada allegedly to protect Canadian stations and Canadian content.

American programming is popular in Canada. We all love our Glees and our Chucks and our HIMYM. The population, in general, seems to love it some Dancing With The Stars and American Idol. There are decent Canadian shows too but by and large American programming is most popular.

All things being equal, we could just watch American programming on American stations. The CRTC and others have seen fit, however, to step in and protect the Canadian marketplace from this happening. There are Canadian content rules that dictate a certain amount of Canadian content to be available and limit the ability of foreign stations to enter this market (among other things). Canadian stations see how popular the American programming is and purchase rights to broadcast it here in Canada alongside American stations showing the same programming. But how to ensure the eyeballs are on Global instead of Fox when Glee is playing...

I know!

We will come up with a law that requires cable/satellite providers to substitute Canadian station feeds for the American station when they are both playing the program that the Canadian station has paid for. Now when it doesn't matter if consumers are watching Global or Fox because they are both showing the Global feed right now. Booyah!

But, as we said, American programming is popular and the best way to make money from deals with advertisers is to show the most popular content. More American content is purchased. There is more competition for that content and the price goes up. Suddenly, Canadian stations aren't able to make ends meet in large part because of their desire to spend such large amounts of money on American programming. Crap. We're going under. What to do, what to do...

I know!

We'll lobby for even broader signal substitution rules. And we'll wage a campaign to force cable/satellite companies to pay us for carrying our station feeds. We'll make it seem as though those big bad cable and satellite companies are driving the local hometown stations out of business (and hope no one notices that many of these local stations are owned by the same parent organization that runs the cable and satellite companies we are vilifying). Brilliant!

Oh, and we have to make sure that consumers won't have a choice in any of this. We have to make it mandatory to bundle packages of stations and make it impossible for consumers to freely choose what channels and programming they actually really want to pay for and support. A la carte is for losers.

What also bugs me is that none of the local stations seem to realize that their advertising revenue is determined at least in part by the number of eyeballs watching the show and the advertisements that run alongside it. Cable and satellite providers are doing these stations a favor by bringing them into far more homes than terrestrial antenna broadcasts will in this day and age.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by ken0042

It's not the American broadcasters who are at fault here- they can sell their content to whoever they want.

(I'm going to use CTV, Global and NBC as examples below- but it isn't just these companies.)

It's just that in the 80s we were buying it directly from the NBC in the form of paying for cable. Then CTV stepped in and bought it from NBC, and we were forced to watch the CTV feed of the channel. Next Global comes along and starts bidding with CTV for programming; and NBC sells to the highest bidder. (And who wouldn't sell to the highest bidder.)

Now CTV and Global are trying to tell me that they bid more than what they could recover in advertizing costs, so they would like me to cover the shortfall. So the people who were against this who process and liked things the way they were before are being asked to pay for the "service" that they never wanted to begin with.

Imagine a company approaches the Flames and offers to buy every seat in the Dome and all of the TV rights; offerring more than the Flames get now. Flames agree, but now the cheapest seat in the Dome is $50 instead of $40, and every game is a $25 PPV game. Myself as a fan- I was fine with the way it was before; but have to pay a service to a middle man that I never wanted in the first place.

CTV and Global own the content, should really be up to them if they make their money from advertisers, or programming fees. I don't know why you'd want a government agency to step in and tell them how they can run their business. It is the exact same situation here with affiliates wanting to charge retransmitters for what they used to offer for free.

[ken0042]

I guess Fred and I aren't reaching you, nfotiu. The problem is the government involvement up to this point, and how they are taking a problem that they created themselves, and adding to it.

In the 80s when CTV found that people were split between watching their show on NBC and their own channel, instead of finding ways to make us watch their broadcast, they asked the gov't to step in and force it upon us. There are many ways they could have had the same results using standard business practices; in fact back in the 70s and 80s it was common to see contest giveaways during prime time shows. That was how they did it then.

Let's look at other media. Say the Associated Press produces a news story; and both USA Today and Calgary Herald buy the rights to publish that story. The Herald does not have the right to force Canadian USA Today subscribers to not unly subscribe to the Herald, but also force USA Today to run the Herald article in their paper along with the Herald ads.

I don't mind that CTV wants to charge more for me to subscribe to their channels. What I have issue with is that in order to get Rogers Sportsnet or TSN, I am forced to buy CTV. Never mind the US channels; which as you point out can be a muddy area with respect to ownership of rights. So going back to my print media; it's like saying I cannot subscribe to MacLean's (Canadian political magazine) with also subscribing to the Herald. Then having the Herald; now being manditory subscription- tripling their rates.

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by ken0042

I don't mind that CTV wants to charge more for me to subscribe to their channels. What I have issue with is that in order to get Rogers Sportsnet or TSN, I am forced to buy CTV.

I totally agree with your post. Of course this part right here is not CTV, Global or CBC's fault. That is the cable companies doing. Unless there is a law or rule in place, cable companies aren't helping customers out either.