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Networks unprepared for digital TV shift: CRTC Head

3K views 12 replies 11 participants last post by  El Gran Chico 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
#4 ·
What the delay, I got four Digital OTA Station in Ladysmith BC using an outdoor Antenna but elsewhere in canada expect Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. There no Digital Off Air Channels at all until 2001. That two from from the Feb 2009 cut off from American Off Air Channel and their power are 1/5 as example what used to be 5000.000 watts is now 1000.000 watts and there is no place to find hd tuner in canadian retail stores, you get them on ebay.

What the big delay. we can't even get Digital Ota in Nova scotia and i miss off air channel from seattle, wa using an outdoor antenna but that days for me is over.
 
#5 ·
The good news is that it made the news. :)

I like the 'shot accross the bow' statement. And the response that its not time to panic yet.

I think canadian stations are patiently waiting to see what happens after feb. 17, 09.
When Digital OTA becomes a big hit it the US, canada will get moving.
 
#6 ·
Your Right, Let not Panic Unitl Feb 17. Then the CRTC Decide that HD American Network Station been downcoverted to 16x9 Analog or Stop Providing American Network Station to Analog Cable and be forced to spend $400 for Off Air American Program because Canada can't catch up with HD because of Supporting Canadian TV Shows
 
#8 ·
After Feb. 2009 is when they'll start moving - by then there will be (hopefully) a large amount of ATSC gear in the US and coming north of the border. Once people realize they can't watch their US stations w/ NTSC anymore, they'll learn about ATSC and start asking why their Canadian stations aren't up yet (if they aren't already)
 
#11 ·
Looking at it from the broadcastor side would be a different story.

Why would a broadcaster want to lay out a whole bunch of extra money to Broacast DTV as well as analog up till 2011. Sounds like a whole bunch of money down the drain to me.
Its only now just starting to make sense to broadcast digital in the largest markets, there are almost enough people with digital tuners to be a noticable market share.

it goes back to the chicken and egg thing. Why bother broadcasting digital if no one is watching. or why bother buying a digital tuner if no one in your area is broadcasting.
That's why we have regulations and standards committees etc. so we can mandate that all new TV's have Digital tuners, then we can "force" the broadcastors to transmit digital.

There was a story (don't really know if it was true) out of texas about the first digital OTA broadcast. The station was playing a netowk feed, no commercials, no sd, it was black except for prime time HD because they didn't know any better.
The one guy who had a digital tuner actually called up the station and asked them to pause.

In any given market, doesn't make sense to be the first to go digital. But you certainly don't want to be last either.
 
#12 · (Edited)
In any given market, doesn't make sense to be the first to go digital. But you certainly don't want to be last either.
In the cases of the GTA, Vancouver, Montreal and other major markets close to the U.S. broadcasters, if you are a Cdn broadcaster that depends on simsub for revenue, do you really want to be the last to market when you're non-BDU viewers could get used to watching the broadcast from the US source? For example; tuning to ABC instead of CTV to watch Lost.
It appears the Cdn broadcasters have marginalized the OTA viewership in their business models.
 
#13 ·
It appears the Cdn broadcasters have marginalized the OTA viewership in their business models
So true. Yet I can empathize with the broadcasters so some degree since the numbers of OTAers is small percentagewise. From a straight cost/benefit decision, it may be better economics to just exit the OTA business (I think canwest was making this argument a while back).

But also consider businesses like retail stores/shopping malls that need to provide things like wheelchair access and/or handicapped parking spots. They could also argue they'd rather lose that business than incur the extra cost to service it. That's when regulation can be a good thing.

I think the "broadcast OTA/simsub rights on cable-satellite" regulation overall is pretty fair. Not perfect, but fair. I expect the amount of HD programming will continue to increase (I still can't believe how much SD stuff is still being created in 2008!), so it will become more and more compelling broadcast HD OTA.

As an aside, I've informed TVO that I will resume donating once they go digital and not before (well unless there's a campaign to explicitly fund the conversion ;) )
 
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