This article says "number of cable TV subscribers receiving digital service will top 1 million at the end of 2001, according to a new forecast by Decima Publishing Inc. "

http://www.decima.ca/publishing/WhatsNew/

It said that ExpressVu and Star CHoice have double that so about 2 million.

IMHO, Rogers is doing a poor job of converting people over to digital cable from analogue descramblers. Customers tell me they have these all the time (real Rogers rentals mostly). They say they don't switch to digital only because they don't have to and don't understand the benefit.

If you get all those people converted, you can get rid of another 5-10 analog channels which would free up room for 10-20 HD channels or 50-100 regular digitals!

Maybe Rogers is afraid of a consumer backlash if they force customers off of analog for a higher price box. They could keep 1 analog TMN and 1 Moviepix and drop the analog TMN2,3 and 4 and the superstations. That could potentially free up 7 analog channels for digital. Shaw forced everyone off of analog without a problem.

Rogers doesn't have TMN or MoviePix on analog any more, at least not where I am (Ajax).

In the building I live in, TMN is included (in analog) for everyone. So, I think it is still available in some areas in analog.

I hope that they can move people off the analog soon.

I think Rogers would suffer a backlash of unheralded proportions if they forced people to go digital. Many people I know will not rent cable equipment and Rogers doesn't offer the option of purchasing the digital box. Many low income people in apartments and houses in Toronto & other areas Rogers serves couldn't afford the cost of digital.
I know of 5 people myself who subscribe to basic cable only as their incomes don't allow them to pay anymore. They'd be without television (well anything other than the local Toronto stations that rabbit ears could pick up) if Rogers did away with analogue cable. The "do-gooders" on Toronto council & other "well-intentioned" souls would never let up and the bad press Rogers would get would leave them in a position they could probably never recover from.

Myself, I'd prefer an all digital Rogers as the PQ on the analogue channels ranges from satisfactory to almost unwatchable at times.
I'm now watching whatever I can on the digital timeshift channels as the PQ is excellent. CKY allows you to watch CTV programming at the same time CFTO shows it.
CIHF (Global Maritimes) simulcasts a lot of programming shown on Global Ontario. If I could stay up later I'd watch other programming on the Seattle nets as the PQ on them is far superior to the Buffalo channels on analogue.

Pure digital would be great but I don't think we'll see Rogers go that way for a long long time to come.

Why do you Guys assume that they have to Eliminate Analog at all to provide a 100 percent digital service. This is not the Case. Rogers can simply Duplicate all the Analog channels in Digital and provide a 100 percent Digital Lineup for those customers who elect to get a Digital Set-Top. Hey, they can even duplicate them on the exact same numbers. Customers who want only analog service can keep it and those who pay a little more for Digital will get it. There is no reason they have to P'Off customers by removing any analog services. It would only take about 6 analog channels to duplicate about 70 odd analog channels in the Digital Format.

I was, of course, referring to TMN, MoviePix and whatever Viewer's Choice they still carry on analogue. Of course you can't force everyone to convert to digital.

Those who still use analogue descramblers are in fact paying rent for those ($7.95, I think) and it's only a few dollars more for a digital box. I say either offer these folks a digital box at the same price 'forever' or offer them 2 years at the same price before they're charged the current price.

You'd also pick up some customers by finally putting an end to usefulness of pirated descramblers.

Those SA boxes should soon be for sale according to John Tory. He even quoted a possible price of $199 to purchase it. I dont personally like the idea of owning the box because Technology changes so fast and if you want to upgrade to a newer unit you may be out of luck.

On 2002-01-11 12:27, JohnnyG wrote:
I was, of course, referring to TMN, MoviePix and whatever Viewer's Choice they still carry on analogue. Of course you can't force everyone to convert to digital.

Those who still use analogue descramblers are in fact paying rent for those ($7.95, I think) and it's only a few dollars more for a digital box. I say either offer these folks a digital box at the same price 'forever' or offer them 2 years at the same price before they're charged the current price.

You'd also pick up some customers by finally putting an end to usefulness of pirated descramblers.


Rogers has already eliminated the analogue TMN, MoviePix, PPV, and WGN/UPN/WB channels
in some areas. Kitchener/Waterloo for example. Didn't appear to be any
complaints ... I don't know why they wouldn't
do the same everywhere! I'm hoping that they
do the same to the METV stations in the next couple of years,
that would free up enough channel space to let them run all the channels digitally, and for future HDTV services.

Nick