I agree with you, if local or Canadian programming is important, we should pay for it the same as we do movie networks, HBO, or Fight Channel.

Leave us to choose freely the channel we want to, and see it on the network we want to.

Is there a way around this, Do you know?

Mark Doucette
North Vancouver

I don't know what Canada you live in, but there are many people in Canada can only receive a flickering ghostly version of local stations over the air. There are even some who can receive nothing without satellite TV.

I for one, am dependant on "peasant vison" as they call the free signals. I wish there were more local news. CTV news only carries a national news program while Global TV only has a very limited regional news which is repeated during the day.

In the small city in which I live, there are three newspapers, but they carry more advertisements than news stories, and are more useful for the flyers included than for content.

So where can we go for our news? Many people over 50 don't have access to the internet, and don't know how it use it, when they do have access. The Communications / Media have focused on the young market so much that they are depriving the older half of the citizenry with information on what is happening in the world. Maybe that is not accidental.

Completely a la carte service would be great for viewers, but somehow I doubt it’s likely

Outside of the basic service, which includes local broadcast stations and CRTC-mandated specialty networks like CPAC and CBC Newsworld, I get my channels a la carte from Videotron. You can choose a 20- or 30-channel a la carte service, with the only restrictions being (1) no Movie Network or other premium channels, and (2) more than 50% of your total number of channels must be Canadian, to comply with CRTC rules.

If you're really so eager to give money to CanWest and CTVglobemedia, maybe you could just send cheques to them once a year.

Completely a la carte service would be great for viewers, but somehow I doubt it's likely, particularly with the way the broadcasters, BDUs, and CRTC work together to squeeze cash out of us. I understand the media conglomerates sell their channels to BDUs in groups -- the BDUs have to agree to take the less popular ones few people watch in order to get the popular ones. So I don't see how the BDUs would completely drop the packaging even if they were allowed to, not to mention that the broadcasters and CRTC would be unwilling to let a lot of specialty channels no one watches just die off, which I think would be a distinct possibility if every single channel was individually optional.

I only count seven specialty channels I might be willing to continue receiving if I had the choice to pay or not pay for them. Obviously I'd never pay for the over-the-air channels since I get them for nothing with an antenna. And certainly not Global or CTV in their present form, since I never watch them because I see the US programs on the Buffalo stations. CTV and Global have nothing originally to offer. Like a growing number of people in southern Ontario (that I think would greatly increase if FFC is implemented), I've almost forgotten Global exists, and the same goes for CTV.

If anything, channels like CTV should be paying the cable / satellite providers for carrying their must-carry channels low on the dial for giving accessibility to millions of people across this nation.

And on top of the must-carry status, cable companies are forced to carry out simultaneous substitutions of American channels because channels like CTV and Global can't come up with anything of their own to air!

This is regardless of how many complaints the broadcasters get from their viewers due to shows being cut off and American shows not being shown due to crappy CTV content needing to be shown instead BY LAW. This is something that CTV has lobbied for through the CRTC, and something the cable companies have no control over.

The best example of these is the Superbowl, where the American ads are NOT seen in Canada as BY LAW the Canadian broadcasters HAVE to carry the feeds from the Canadian CTV broadcast so they can show their ads instead of the ones the viewers actually want to watch.

Many people I know have been personally fed up by these interruptions that they don't even support Canadian cable companies anymore, and subscribe to DirecTV or Dishnetwork to watch American shows uninterrupted. The demands of CTV and other Canadian broadcasters, if they continue to grow and be even more needy, will drive more and more people away from the Canadian system.

Canadian Cable and Satellite companies pay millions of dollars a year into a fund to keep CTV and other “local” networks running.

If it wasn’t for cable companies broadcasting these signals AS REQUIRED BY THE CRTC (they are NOT “stealing” the signal for nothing) these companies would have extremely minimal “over the air” viewership.

Don’t blame the cable companies – they are bringing these channels to you as required by CRTC broadcasting regulatinos that have been lobbied for by companies such as CTV and Global. These signals are NOT being stolen. CTV and Global need to get out of the business before they tick off even more people.

CBC is a national broadcaster, so if you include it here you have to include PBS in the U.S. That leaves CTV, Global and CityTV (the latter has only five stations, none east of Toronto) vs. ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and the CW. And while the number of networks may not reflect the 10:1 ratio, the number of stations and amount of original programming certainly does.

A fee for service would mean that there is some value to local programming, which begs the question what? Local news, guess what I can get local news any time I turn on my radio, 24 hours a day and at no charge and a lot more up-to-date than television.

For regular programming, nope again! In fact as I ALWAYS watch HD programming and even then when the channels are simsubbed, they are simsubbed out of Toronto for the eastern U.S. channels and out of Vancouver for the western U.S. channels. So how much value do the CTVs, Global, etc place on local channels? Not much except to extort more money out of consumers by the FFC brainstorm and make no mistake this will come out of consumers pockets.

It may be said trust us, it will bring a stronger local broadcaster…Well this was said with simsubbing in that it would allow us to have made in Canada programming! Well take a look, there is virtually no Canadian programming anymore, but simsubbing is fast and fierce in the country while Canadian content is going the way of the Dodo bird. I challenge you to watch tv on any given evening and you will find American programming rampant on any channel except possibly the CBC. In fact it is so bad that you will find the Canadian broadcasters playing reruns of American shows instead of even contemplating buying/playing anything Canadian in primetime.

Instead of continually giving into Canadian rebroadcasters, let the market decide who survives and who does not. We now have CTV, CBC, Global, CityTV and to a lessor extent SunTV (Sun is a wannabe) as what I would consider national broadcasters. Now the USA with 10x the population has ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and again to a lessor extent TheCW. The fault in this I am sorry to say is our system which has the same amount of national broadcasters as our U.S. counterparts with us having 1/10th the population…something has to give here and the CRTC should not just keep giving in to the broadcasters. Let the market/viewers decide…and at a share price of 0.27 dollars for Canwest Global the market is trying to tell you that Global is worthless.

Finally if you want to introduce FFC, give me the option subscribing to the channels if I wish to…the national broadcasters would still make their money off advertisers with their simsubbing with their eastern/western channels out of Toronto/Vancouver. Me I can continue to pay for channels that I can’t watch due to simsubbing, but hey the broadcasters are happy, which is the main thing isn’t it?

So for example, For $20 a month I can pick 10 local channels, 5 cable channels and 3 specialty channels. Or say for $40 a month I can pick 10 local channels, 10 cable channels, 5 specialty channels and 1 premium channel. As consumers we should not be forced into paying for channels we never watch. Get rid of these bundles that contain maybe 1 of the 5-7 that we actually watch. Further if the local channels want to get more money from the cable companies it should be part of the deal that they follow the lead of the cable channels.

Frankly I blame the practice of signal substitution for ruining the Canadian television system as all that did was encourage them to further their US progam buying and rebroadcasting way of doing things. It's time to change things drastically and maybe even let them fade to black if they can't offer anything remotely Canadian.

When the Super Bowl is available on CTV but the Grey Cup is only available on their specialty channel I think that pretty much tells you what they think of being a Canadian broadcaster (can't simsub the Grey Cup so leave it on the specialty channel)...pull the plug already.

If we can survive without a TLC Canada or A&E Canada (we get the US versions), then why do we need to have CTV and Global to air the shows we can already see on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox or The CW?

The answer is a confusing one. Clearly the only driver for CTV and Global to exist aside from rebroadcasting US shows is to provide local news competition against the CBC, and also Canadian content. But they're not doing a very good job with the Canadian content, and local news can easily be transferred to solely newspaper and online services.

So what's the solution? If I had it my way, CTV and Global would become defunct, and then Fox and CBS (and the like) would set up affiliates in Canada. That way the Canadian advertisers would be happy, there would be few lost jobs, and a primetime show like House would air just as it does on a US Fox affiliate. So no more simsubbing, and no opportunities for missed sections and bits of Fox ads and clips because of a Global simsub gone awry yet again!

CBC could continue to be our outlet for Canadian content, and we clearly don't need more than the CBC for Cancon... it's just not very popular. Now and then Fox could set up a "Canadian Idol" or something, whatever. Canada is just too small of a country to have as much self-owned private terrestrial broadcasters as it does. Heck, we even have too many cable channels (most of which are merely Canadian bastardizations of US cable channels).

We already have Sears Canada, Walmart Canada, Best Buy Canada... can you really argue against Canadian versions of the US television networks?

Bottom line, there is no need for Global or CTV... and there is especially no need for these crybabies to whine like a bunch of premadonnas when all they are worthless hacks that can't cut it in the TV industry and just copy US shows non-stop left and right.

If CTV and Global want fees-for-carriage then fine — it will mean that simultaneous substitution REQUIREMENTS for these stations will cease. As with cable stations, simsubbing will still be ALLOWED, but will not be required by law.

This means that since Bell TV has a stake in CTV channels, they can simsub those channels when appropriate, if they wish. However, since Shaw Direct for example has no stake in any of these networks, they will not be required to simsub CTV over CBS, for example.

If they want fee for carriage like the cable stations, then they should also acquire the status of not being able to get simsub rights, like the cable stations.

That's not necessarily an argument for requiring the cablecos to pay the locals, however - at the end of the day they already get a kick at the can because the very fact that they must be included in a cable company's package is likely the only thing giving them ANY ability to sell local advertising. Seems like a fair tradeoff to me (and with simsubbing - maybe more than fair).