There is a bit of a battle going on between broadcasters and cable suppliers in Canada right now. The broadcasters are asking that they be paid by the cable industry who carry their signals in regional markets. The cable and satellite purveyors think this is outrageous because the signal is captured ‘off air’ and it is therefore a free signal.
This battle is being waged through a series of hearings by the CRTC (Canadian equivalent of the FCC). Shaw cable is one of the ‘whales’ of the cable industry, supplying not only Cable, but also Internet and Phone services in many urban areas of Canada. In the fourth quarter of 2007 it boasted a $112 million profit on almost $744 million in revenue. This is hardly a ‘poor’ company trying to eek out a living! The Company serves 3.3 million customers, including approximately 1.5 million Internet and 400,000 residential Digital Phone customers.
I am a customer of Shaw, my cable bill keeps going up, and the number of channels goes up, while the quality of programming continues on a downward spiral.
It was with great humor that I read the following quote from Shaw CEO Jim Shaw on the subject of giving a few dollars to the regional companies whose signals Shaw filch.
“We operate in a competitive environment where to be successful we must offer our customers choice, value, innovation and high quality service. But the CRTC seems to think you can keep Canadians tuned into Canadian broadcasting by forcing them to do so, restricting their choice, and charging them for broadcasting services that are free over-the-air. It is a naive approach that totally ignores the communications environment in which we live where consumers have many unregulated options from the Internet to U.S. Satellite services.”
Without these regional broadcasters there would be no local programming whatsoever. Let us hope that their quest to get into Jim Shaw’s wallet is successful, and the CRTC prevent him from passing the cost on to the consumer.
Simon Barrett
1 user commented in " Shaw Cable – Bring Out The Violins! "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackbackget you head out of you butt, the regional stations are getting viewed less each day, they repeat the programming many other networks do and offer nothing of great importance you cant get elswere ie the internet or newspaper, if anybody still reads print. in the near future when they are forced to go digital no one in there right mind is going to spend money on an antenna to recieve a few channels unless the canadian government wants to subsidize this technological transition, they just want money because there advertisers or going to bail when they realize how many people are not watching, the same is true for the fm radio industry, how long before they figure out that most people have a satellite radio, an ipod or a good cd playing in the car, or at home or in the office they have dmx piped in with 40-100 or more channels. i cant wait to here how they expect to collect for this service which we also get for free.
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