23 thoughts on “Specialty channel war is screwing customers”

1. Mike Berthold September 15, 2011 at 8:35 am

   As an Anglophone one of the main reasons I’m with Bell TV instead of Videotron is because I was tired of hearing ‘who knows when we’ll ever carry X or X in HD’ when it was an English net; they have an attitude of not caring if you don’t like their policies because they’ve become used to being a huge monopoly that doesn’t need to take possible competitors (i.e. satellite) seriously.

   Bell has enough French content (I do watch both) to keep me happy and RDSHD for Habs games, so I’m not missing much other than frustration.

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   1. Fagstein Post authorSeptember 15, 2011 at 6:13 pm

      As an Anglophone one of the main reasons I’m with Bell TV instead of Videotron is because I was tired of hearing ‘who knows when we’ll ever carry X or X in HD’ when it was an English net

      This is also for the simple reason of market. Videotron operates almost exclusively in Quebec, so they have a lot more French channels (and, conversely, a French channel needs Videotron to carry it to be successful). Bell operates across Canada, where French is the minority, so it will focus on English channels.

      But that’s not enough to explain all the preferential treatment I see here.

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2. Jon Simon September 15, 2011 at 10:24 am

   Rogers is very much in the fray with SportsNet (Not healthy enough for Radio-Canada and Rogers to jump in the fray, but still healthy).

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3. AlexH September 15, 2011 at 11:05 am

   The fun doesn’t just stop at the speciality channels, it also extends to the OTA channels as well.

   With the shift to HD/digital at the start of the month in Canada, pretty much every major market channel is now broadcasting in HD. On BellTV, however, this isn’t working out so well.

   This week, they added a number of OTA channel – all of them owned by Bell’s CTV network, as well as CTV2. Not a single additional Global channel was added.

   Considering the number of SD channels they are carrying in the 200-279 range on the Bell system right now, and considering many of those have shifted to HD, it is remarkable that they just don’t seem to want to add them in HD.

   Oh, but they did fire up plenty of HD pay per view and sports package channels, and they did add all the Bell owned HD speciality channels.

   This is the sort of thing that media concentration gets you. Each one of the companies is trying to go “vertical market”, offering as example only the mandated SD channel rather than SD. It means in the end that none of the solutions offered by any of the companies is complete.

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   1. Fagstein Post authorSeptember 15, 2011 at 6:22 pm

      This week, they added a number of OTA channel – all of them owned by Bell’s CTV network, as well as CTV2. Not a single additional Global channel was added.

      Global Montreal has been told they’ll be added this month. It’s possible others will be too. But yeah, it’s a bit sketchy. The CRTC regulates how many affiliated channels can be added to satellite service as a proportion of competing channels.

      Considering the number of SD channels they are carrying in the 200-279 range on the Bell system right now, and considering many of those have shifted to HD, it is remarkable that they just don’t seem to want to add them in HD.

      Local stations that are part of the same network are mostly identical coast to coast, except for the local newscasts. That’s a lot of seemingly redundant signals taking up a lot of space. With specialty channels, there’s just one or two feeds.

      And there’s the point that people pay for specialty channels.

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      1. AlexH September 17, 2011 at 11:16 am

         It hits the point that “local channels don’t matter”, because they don’t seem to do very much local anymore.

         I often thought that the “local channels matter” deal with a very sneaky way for the channel owners (mostly bell, shaw, rogers, and cogeco) to turn around and charge the big distributors mostly bell, shaw, rogers, and cogeco a fee for local programming, and having the CRTC allowing them to post it as an supplemental charge to users. If they money was coming directly out of the distributors (mostly bell, shaw, rogers, and cogeco) rather than the end users, they likely would have given up the fight.

         Just like in Montreal at CFCF or Global, the “local” contribution is very small overall, and almost exclusively given over to news at this point. The major distributors (mostly bell, shaw, rogers, and cogeco) could run two feeds total for CTV (east and west) and then open up special channels only at the news hours to support local news, because it’s the only time there is any variation. Otherwise, there is no need for all this duplicate services, except to give head to the CRTC.

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         1. Fagstein Post authorSeptember 17, 2011 at 2:28 pm

            I often thought that the “local channels matter” deal with a very sneaky way for the channel owners (mostly bell, shaw, rogers, and cogeco) to turn around and charge the big distributors mostly bell, shaw, rogers, and cogeco a fee for local programming, and having the CRTC allowing them to post it as an supplemental charge to users.

            1. Cogeco doesn’t own any TV stations.
            2. The “Local TV matters” and “Stop the TV Tax” campaigns predate both Shaw’s acquisition of Canwest and Bell’s (full) acquisition of CTVglobemedia. It was after those things happened that both campaigns kind of fizzled out.

            The major distributors (mostly bell, shaw, rogers, and cogeco) could run two feeds total for CTV (east and west) and then open up special channels only at the news hours to support local news, because it’s the only time there is any variation.

            Bell had exactly that idea and got approval from the CRTC to do it in 2005. It runs local news programs on channels 196 and 197.

            You also have to consider local advertising, which runs all the time. Using this technique means eliminating local commercials outside of local programming.

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            1. Fassero September 19, 2011 at 11:12 am

               And ending “Local TV Matters” turned out to be a wonderful thing for Bell, Rogers, and Shaw. Buy/own broadcasters + still collect new LTIF fees as mandated by CRTC (which were, and still are, charged directly to customers) to now, in effect, pay yourselves = EASY PROFIT!

               Improvements to local television? Er, um, not so much.

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               1. Fagstein Post authorSeptember 20, 2011 at 1:40 am

                  LTIF fees as mandated by CRTC (which were, and still are, charged directly to customers)

                  LPIF fees aren’t charged directly to customers any more than any other tax on cable and satellite companies are (contributions to the Canada Media Fund, for example). Tacking it on as a separate line on cable bills was done by the cable companies as a way to get public opinion on their side.

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4. Dan September 15, 2011 at 9:49 pm

   Just came across this blog while searching to see if Telus Optik (Vancouver) will carry TVA Sports. I really need to see the Montreal Impact games. Hopefully by March 2012.

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5. Me September 17, 2011 at 10:47 pm

   I think it should be noted that when you say:

   “(Not healthy enough for Radio-Canada and Rogers to jump in the fray, but still healthy)”…..

   IMO it has more to do with them not really having a fair shot at launching these channels rather than either of these companies not wanting to launch a sports channel in French. I don’t speak French, so I can’t speak of what the articles you link to say, but IMO, neither of these companies really had a shot of launching their French sports channels when TVA decided they wanted to launch theirs.

   Videotron and to a lesser extent Bell (both of whom own French sports channels) essentially own the French BDU market. And if a channel wants to survive then it basically has to be carried by Videotron and a lesser extent, Bell. This rings even more true when you’re talking about a sports channel which is considerably more expensive to run than say Disney Junior for example.

   So, now that Videotron (Quebecor) has TVA Sports and Bell has RDS, neither of these companies are going to want to launch a rival sports channel from Radio-Canada or Rogers because it will drive up the costs of bidding for programming and likely lower their viewers because of competition.

   This is a perfect example, along with what you mention in your posting, as to why BDUs should not even be allowed to own specialty channels.

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   1. Fagstein Post authorSeptember 18, 2011 at 10:11 am

      So, now that Videotron (Quebecor) has TVA Sports and Bell has RDS, neither of these companies are going to want to launch a rival sports channel from Radio-Canada or Rogers because it will drive up the costs of bidding for programming and likely lower their viewers because of competition.

      If that’s true, it’s not what we’ve heard from those broadcasters as reasons for holding off. While carriage is a big issue for new channels, the bigger problem is contracts with sports franchises. RDS has the Canadiens locked up until 2013, and is also the exclusive Alouettes carrier, plus has deals to carry most major sporting events. TVA Sports got some leftovers like Ottawa Senators and Impact games (and even then not all of them), plus stuff like UFC and boxing, while it waits for either a chance at the Canadiens rights or their magic Nordiques gravy train. A new sports network not affiliated with RDS would have to practically invent new sports.

      Both Bell and Videotron carry sports channels from third parties, including The Score, Fight Network and Rogers-owned Sportsnet and Setanta Sports.

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      1. Me September 18, 2011 at 9:33 pm

         But, there are a lot of other sports out there for the picking to be broadcast in French. RDS and TVA Sports may have a lot of the big draws like Canadiens, Senators, Impact, etc, but there’s lots of others out there too. Without counting multiplex channels like Sportsnet Sens or TSN Habs and counting all the regional feeds of Sportsnet as just 1 single channel, I counted 16 or 17 if you count Leafs TV. There’s also, several US sports channels in Canada too. So, in essence, there’s tons of English sports channels out there in Canada, as opposed to 3 (RDS, RIS, TVA Sports) and soon 4 (RDS2). All those other English channels can fill a schedule, so I think there is still tons of good stuff left to fill a French Sportsnet or Radio-Canada Sports.

         Yes, Bell and Videotron carry other non-affiliated sports channels, but all the others are niche channels like Fight Network and Setanta Sports. So, I don’t think it’s exactly comparable to a general interest sports channel that can air whatever types of sports it wants. Also, I don’t think Bell and Videotron really have the power to thwart a English sports channel if they wanted. If the NHL Network wasn’t carried by Videotron because it didn’t want the competition, I don’t think it would hurt them to the point that it would shutter. There’s too many other larger BDUs out there that would carry it and it could survive off those, it may not even need Videotron. And who knows, eventually once it becomes popular enough, pressure from customers would likely get the channel added to Videotron in the end.

         I don’t think the same can be said for a French sports channel, it would need Videotron to survive. So, if it didn’t carry it, especially if Bell did the same, it’s likely not worth launching.

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         1. Fagstein Post authorSeptember 20, 2011 at 1:36 am

            But, there are a lot of other sports out there for the picking to be broadcast in French. RDS and TVA Sports may have a lot of the big draws like Canadiens, Senators, Impact, etc, but there’s lots of others out there too. Without counting multiplex channels like Sportsnet Sens or TSN Habs and counting all the regional feeds of Sportsnet as just 1 single channel, I counted 16 or 17 if you count Leafs TV.

            Sportsnet Sens, TSN Habs and Leafs TV are all regional feeds and can’t be carried nationally because they don’t have national broadcast rights to those games. TVA Sports isn’t a regional channel, so you have to strike those off the list in a comparison. They are also, for the most part at least, part-time channels only used during games, so they don’t fill their schedules.

            Programming is the real issue. With French being so predominant in Quebec and so rare elsewhere in Canada, any French channel needs to market to francophone Quebecers to be successful. And that means Canadiens games, or maybe Alouettes. Senators, Jays and Impact games have some audience, but it’s barely a blip on the radar comparatively.

            That’s not to say a different channel couldn’t be successful. One devoted to golf and tennis, for example. But RDS carries rights to most of these other sports, too. And while sports channels are the most profitable, they are also the most expensive to operate.

            I think another French sports channel could work. But I don’t want to diminish the difficulty involved.

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6. Ron September 19, 2011 at 9:13 pm

   I’m so glad I gave Bell the boot and switched to Shaw

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   1. Joe September 25, 2011 at 6:13 pm

      I’m so glad I gave my TV the boot 10 years ago. The Internet has all the “channels” I want, whenever and wherever I want. No wait-until-the-show-starts-wait-during-advertising TV channel bundle can beat that.

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7. Jimmy Jack September 27, 2011 at 6:10 pm

   Too bad your colleague, Peter Hadekel, didn’t read this before writing his ridiculous column a couple of days ago. While reading the column, I could only think he hadn,t a clue about the subject he was writing about.

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   1. Fagstein Post authorSeptember 27, 2011 at 11:49 pm

      I actually wrote Hadekel after he published that column, challenging some of his points. He defended them well, even though I still disagree.

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8. Jimmy Jack September 28, 2011 at 1:05 am

   So, how about a “he said, he said” in the gazoo between ya both?

   ya know, you will win.

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9. cowellj September 29, 2011 at 2:59 pm

   I absolutely cannot stand Cogeco in Kingston…..get off your ass and get TSN-Habs and RDSHD !!!!!
   even if they made them available for extra $$ I would get get those channels, but they can’t even do that !!!!
   I have smoke coming out my ears every time I watch a Habs game in SD on RDS
   F**** YOU COGECO !

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10. AlexH October 11, 2011 at 4:38 pm

    You may want to update all this, Bell has added Food, History, and HGTV to their HD offerings.

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    1. Fagstein Post authorOctober 11, 2011 at 10:30 pm

       Done.

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