Choose the lesser evil - but which is it?
CTV, the CBC, and other Canadian broadcasters are suffering – so they say. Last year they only collectively made $8 million dollars in profit; a paltry sum in comparison to the amounts of money raked in by Canada’s communications mega-corporations like Rogers, Bell, Telus, and Shaw.
They’ve asked the CRTC to enforce a fee for carriage – that means that they want cable and satellite providers to pay to carry material that is broadcasted over the air for free on their networks. The idea is that having this programming is a benefit to these cable and satellite providers and that they should pay for the content that draws viewers to their product (in this case, cable and satellite service).
The cable and satellite companies, on the other hand, have objected, saying that this fee for carriage will cost them so much that they’ll have no choice other than to pass on the fee ($10 – far removed from the estimated $3 put forward by the broadcasters) on to customers.
Wait… what? Rogers, Bell, Shaw, TELUS, Videotron… all of these cable and satellite companies collectively made billions of dollars last year. Are we that gullible that we believe that they can’t afford a slight dent in their profits in order to help fund the very broadcasters that drive their services? Of course they can.
The most telling aspect is that many of these providers are doing their best to grow their own broadcasting share; between community television and the consumption of radio stations, is it any surprise that cable and satellite providers might have a hidden agenda in watching Canada’s broadcasting backbone break?
Consider a Canada where your cable/satellite television, your internet access, your cellular phone service, your home phone service, and even the news is owned by one of four organizations. That is the future we’re headed towards. The fee for carriage will help stave off this dystopia for a short time, but only re-regulation of cable/television, along with stronger regulation of internet and cellular services will get us back on track (as a nation) to a place where we can feel confident about the telecommunications services we use.