It looks like the country’s broadcast regulator is finally catching up with the wants of the people, at least in one regard. They’re getting down to the finer points of changing the way we subscribe to cable and satellite television channels.
If, like us, you have Rogers cable, you know you have to choose a whole bundle of channels to get one that you want. If you love baseball and want the MLB channel, you have to also take The Boll Weevil Channel, The Quilting Channel and the Where’s Waldo Channel, or similarly unappealing ones. The CRTC hinted last week at where their ideas, prompted by complaints, are taking them. They’re moving toward creating a basic cable service of Canadian channels for $20 or $30 per month and then a pick-and-pay option after that, meaning you would only have to take and pay for the ones that you want. It will result in the end of the ones that people don’t want but that’s capitalism, isn’t it? Why should we have to pay $150 a month to prop up unpopular channels? We shouldn’t.
However it doesn’t all look like sweetness and light. Number crunchers say the popular channels will want to charge more to make the same money they’re making now. There’s no confirmation that pick-and-pay will cost less for the consumer. We tend to volley back and forth between three to five favourite channels but if each channel costs $15, that’s $75. Add to it $30 for basic cable and we’re almost back where we started.
We would drop cable altogether in a heartbeat if not for NASCAR. Hubby enjoys it and they haven’t got an online presence that comes close to what’s on TV. We could easily get by with what’s on the Internet and Netflix if not for TV’s monopoly on live racing. Until that changes, we’re grudgingly sticking with Rogers. The second we can escape, though, we’ll burst through the wall like the Kool-Aid man.
The grass is always greener on the other side, until you get there and find it’s filled with rocks. These so called unpopular channels, such as many multicultural channels and those which focus on amateur athletics and those marginal channels will very likely disappear. Capitalism, you say, remember 2007, 2008 and 2009 a stellar example of capitalism! And don’t kid yourself, once there is sufficient mass who have shifted there viewing habits to online, the broadcasters will quickly monetize their efforts by encrypting their transmissions requiring you to rent a decoder in order to view the broadcast and then they’ll have you by the short ones. Ah, capitalism!