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Cable/Satellite companies versus Local Television

Posted on 05 November 2009

The cable/satellite companies are engaged in a massive advertising campaign against local television stations for wanting to get paid for their product. The CRTC has allowed the cable/satellite companies to use the signals coming from the local stations for free since their beginning and charge their customers for stations they have never paid for.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit I don’t like cable or satellite companies. They charge for channels they don’t have to pay for and call it basic service which every subscriber must pay for whether they want it or not. They bundle the the channels that aren’t in the basic package into groups and charge extra for each bundle chosen. These bundles group together 5 or 6 channels and one or two of them will be something that people want to watch. So if you want to get 1 dozen or so channels which are worth watching your are forced to buy at least half a dozen bundles.

They also charge a monthly fee for each tv a customer has hooked up regardless of the fact it costs no more for them to supply 2 tvs than one. One more thing, satellite companies advertise 100`s of channels but 50 are probably CBC channels with the same programming, 20 are probably CTV with the same programming etc. And, what about cable company monopolies. I`ve never seen an area where there is a choice of cable suppliers; they all seem to have protected areas. No wonder the prices are so high when they have no competition.

All that said, what really is bugging me these days is they are lying in their advertising. They are saying that the local stations want the CRTC to impose a tax on their services to pay the fees they are looking for for their products. The local channels are asking for a fee for their signals but it`s not to be a tax. In fact, the CRTC is expecting the cable and satellite companies to absorb the few pennies the fee would amount to as a cost of doing business and not pass this expense on to the customer. This is why the cable and satellite companies are so up in arms.

The cable/satellite companies seem to think it is perfectly reasonable to get tv signals for free and then turn around and sell them to their customers.

There are a couple of solutions that I can see,

• One is to allow the cable/satellite companies to continue to get these signals for free on the condition they allow Canadians access to channels for free that they do not pay for. If they do not have to pay for these channels then neither should anyone else.
• Another is to allow the local tv deny their signals to the cable/satellite companies and enable them to deliver them for free through free satellite signals and over the air signals

In short cable/satellite are lying and not to be supported while local tv channels are perfectly reasonable in being expected to be paid for their product. Giving tv signals to cable/satellite for free to is like forcing local newspapers to give their newspapers to corner stores, who will sell them, for free.