I was first introduced to television from the United States when I was a small boy.  In Ontario, where I was born, we could with an antenna receive a number of television stations from the surrounding area.  We mostly got stations from Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo.  It worked reasonably well and I had no complaints.

When we moved to Alberta we got Cable which gave us, initially, some stations from the Great Falls area.

Then we moved out to the country for a few years and suffered with three very paltry channels.  Of course this was at the same time VCRs were coming so we made our way around the problem.

Then we moved back to Toronto and there we got local over the air channels and c-band satellite which offered us ESPN and HBO among other things.

For the most part I would say that was the height of my viewing for a number of years.  Nothing was restricted and we got to choose what we watched and did not watch.  There was no need to regulate anything.

As the television systems went through transition from analogue to digital the Liberal party got back in as government there was a slow and steady change in how television was delivered and controlled.

Now we have hundreds of channels tightly controlled from the government and the various distributors and providers.  While the choice has never been better the control has never been tighter.

The government has allowed both broadcasters and providers to make money off of Canadians through subsimming (providing Canadian feeds over simulcast American channels).  Now they are arguing over how to deal with the finances of the local channels.  I have a feeling most of the public would like to say a pox on both your houses.

So with this in mind here is how I would suggest fixing the system:

1.  Change the manditory Canadian specialty channel packaging to a fee per channel basis.  Right now you can do that with digital channels but other cable channels  (in the earlier analogue band) are kept locked up.  As well it would allow the providers offer non Canadian channel packages.

2. Remove the CRTC noncompetition regulation within various specialty channels.  They never really made sense and simply allow bad channels to survive (History Television).

3. Do not regulate the types of American channels allowed in, set a quota but do not create false standards, allow ESPN to compete with other Canadian networks for example.  We do not need a “Canadian” HBO we just should have HBO if the viewers want it.

4. Charge a slight premium fee for American channels, call it a tax, which would not be charged on Canadian channels that offer 50% Canadian programs.  Use that money to support CBC.

5. Stop government funds to Global, CTV and others because these companies are not doing enough to add to Canadian content so there is no reason to support them specifically.  Use that money to fund a commercialess CBC which must show 80-90% Canadian programming.

6. The rules should be the same for French TV and English TV.

7. Allow competition from non-Canadian providers.  If Directv Dish Network or Sky (Europe and Asia) feel they can compete within the rules set up let them do so.

8. The CRTC should be brought into line to follow a more traditional role of a regulator rather than a place for broadcast communism.    The time has come for Canada to grow up and join the other nations of the world rather than following the same old ways of protectionism at all costs.

Look at how the Canadian magazine market has been working, there are American and European choices going against Canadian ones.  The Canadian content magazines get special discounts and grants but they are not given a protected space where no one else is allowed in.  I could see this working for the Canadian broadcast market.

The arguments made for protecting local stations is a red herring.  These stations even in major markets generally do not produce enough local programming to make them absolutely necessary.  Look at Lethbridge for example.   The city of 85000 people has two television locals, CTV and Global.  CTV local programming is laughable, one local news program a day.   Global is only slightly better.  What is the point of artificially keeping stations in Brandon, Waterloo, Red Deer, Abbotsford and other places that has a miniscule amount of local programming.

Combined with my changes is an attempt to prop up the national government owned broadcaster.  For many conservatives this is anathema but there are those who feel that the Canadian culture needs to be protected.  For this reason I would rather see a well funded CBC which has strict watchdogs and does not offer commercials over another government hand out to the CTV and Global and protection for the various monopolies along the provider level.

Local TV has been dead ever since the advent of digital TV and I think it is time for Canadians to rethink how they want their TV and who should be managing it and why.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 8:23 PM and is filed under politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.