CRTC Wants Your Feedback on Cable vs. Local Broadcast TV

Michael Geist - one of my favourite bloggers on Copyright, ACTA and other governmental communications crap initiatives points out that there is an online consultation web site put up by the www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/home-accueil.htm

"Among the different options under consideration, we are studying whether local television stations should be able to charge cable and satellite companies for distributing their programs."

No matter what I personally think - you should put your oar in the water and tell them what you think. Read on for what I think...

Back when "community cable" first started up, it helped the broadcast stations enhance their coverage - for free. In fact, the CRTC fairly early in the game forced the cable companies to carry channels - especially Canadian channels - and substitute in the Canadian version with Canadian ads of shows that were shown both by US and Canadian channels simultaneously.

Now, the broadcasters want the cable companies to pay for the priviledge of doing something they have been mandated to do for years - because the broadcasters are losing ad revenue (to the internet) and need something to bouy up their business model.

Another side to this arguement is that there are lots of "cable only" specialty channels that do get paid by the cable companies - but again many of them are mandated by the CRTC and others don't show any ads so their only income has to be from the fees they get from the cable companies. Maybe if the broadcasters drop the advertising I can see the cable companies paying for them - but then we, the viewers would expect to subscribe and pay extra for them like we do for other "packages".

Nope - as far as I'm concerned the broadcasters are like the buggy whip manufacturers prior to the automobile revolution - they're becoming obsolete and have to move to a new business paradigm. If some/all of them die then so be it. We, as consumers, have chosen cable distribution (and internet distribution) of our video content to such a degree that true broadcast is no longer necessary - so let's get back all that wireless spectrum for use for other things (and I note that the broadcasters also want to extend the time for moving to digital TV broadcast which will tie up the 700 MHz band for an extra 2 years)

So - count me as NO - don't force the cable companies to pay for the broadcast channels as they currently are.