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Examples of Specialty Channels Losing Their Way?

7K views 43 replies 30 participants last post by  sailmaker 
#1 ·
Why does History Television show 2 episodes of CSI every night

History Television in my opinion should not be showing episodes of CSI at night. I wish canadians could watch a real History Channel.
 
#28 ·
Welcome to the CDN broadcasting system, where anything goes thanks to the CRTC. There are very few channels today who are sticking to the terms of their license in one way or another. Let's take a look at the list:

Lonestar- already discussed, where is the 'western' programming
Mystery TV- where is the mystery programming, they simply recycle current programming that airs on Global

TVTropolis (originally called Prime and geared towards baby boomers, not teenie boppers, but somehow has morphed into what it is today even though the license still states it MUST show programming for those 50 and over)

Showcase- originally aired great dramas and films (think showcase revue) from around the world now has turned into some sort of FX/HBO/Showtime clone?!

BBC Canada & BBC Kids- These two channels should never have been licensed because plain and simple they do not work as CDN digital channels! They should be airing ONLY BBC Programming with NO CDN content crap. Why are they called 'BBC' when half the programming is not from the BBC?!?

Discovery Channel- great science & technology programming when it first aired, now what do you get- stuff like Monster Garage & American Chopper and cancon repeated over and over.

History Television- already discussed, where is the 'history' progamming, this is a history channel in name only IMO.

National Geographic Channel- A shadow of its US counterpart thanks to the stupid cancon rules, not much original programming produced which degrades the quality of the channel even more.

Independent Film Channel- nothing like the its US counterpart, movie selection is poor, same films repeated over and over.

Much Music & CMT- where's the music? They have gone from being music services into showing mainly lifestyle & reality programming.

OLN- programming is just filler stuff with the odd sporting event like Tour de France, very different channel from when it first launched- where's the outdoor sports? IMO this channel should just be re-branded as TSN2.

Two things are to blaim for this- CDN content requirements and the fact that most diginets operate with small budgets which means not enough $$ to buy quality programming. They are trying to run them on the cheap with mostly filler crap and so far are succeeding since people keep subscribing and more importantly are not complaining to the channels about the crappy programming they are paying good money to watch.
 
#30 ·
Agreed. I certainly don't mind getting to watch shows such as Weeds, The L Word and Rescue Me, not to mention some of their more adult shows like Family Business. It's one of my favourite channels, and their going HD made my decision to go HD a lot easier. (Even if their HD picture isn't all that great.)

cheers,
supervij
 
#32 ·
Family Channel Severly altered their primetime programming. They use to have a lot of evening movies. Now it's just repeats of Hannah Montana, Life with Derick, Naturally Sadie, Cory in the House etc, etc.

TVLand Programming is subpar at best. Ever since CHUM took over, the channel has gone way down hill. Very little selection. CTV has done nothing to make this channel better

Star! Without E! programming this channel might as well just fold

CLT I don't see how Law and Order type shows are considered "Learning"

TLN Every year more english language mainstream programming shows up.

MuchMoreMusic/MuchMusic Starting to show drama series such as OC and movies that have nothing to do with Music
 
#33 ·
I remember Showcase Revue with its nightly foreign films at 10pm EST. When I got my TV guide the first thing I did was look up the movies they'd be showing for the week. Now, I wouldn't even know where to find the Showcase channel - somewhere in the 500s on my Star Choice, I'm guessing.

BBC Canada might as a well be Canada's HGTV.

The History Channel is pathetic compared to the British version.

At least our Turner Classic Movies is better than the TCM they get in the UK, where it shows commercials and is extremely repetitive.

I also find it annoying that there's so much poker on the sports channels.

Lastly, why is the CRTC so strict on The Score (they must always have the ticker even when showing a live sports event) but apparently not concerned about all those other specialty channels not sticking to what their supposed to be showing. Is there a reasonable explanation for this?
 
#35 ·
I have to agree Showcase is one of the best specialty channels. Hopefully its new owner Global does not mess it up. OLN is now owned by Rogers, hopefully they do more with it than CTV. I rarely watch movies on any of the specialty channels - just to many commercials. At least G4TechTVCanada still has Leo Laporte. The US version is more like SpikeTV.
 
#36 ·
About the only channel I use for movies is HDNet -- and they're totally commercial-free, unlike Showcase. Although Showcase does minimize commercial interruptions, which is cool. I remember seeing some movie on Showcase ages ago, and there was only one commercial break. Granted it was a good ten minutes long, but still.

HDNet is great for older movies, but don't have much in the way of the newer stuff. Which is too bad. The Incredibles looked phenomenal on ABC (I think it was them) last night. Why can't HDNet get great movies like that?

cheers,
supervij
 
#38 ·
I know this isn't a specialty channel, but WTF?

E! (Canada)

This is totally against the mandate of the original license intent of CHCH in Hamilton (and other other stations that may be "CH" branded).

When do local channels become specialty channels? ....when the CRTC fails at it's mandate.

Global shouldn't have been allowed to purchase the station and operate it anyway.


This is why CTV couldn't own CTV and CityTV together. CTV chose to own the specialty channels (and the CHUM-exCity building) which was probably a better business move considering revenue potential (MMVA at Queen and John every year along with Film Festival coverage, etc).

Rogers lost out on that transaction with them being forced out of the building and moving to Yonge Dundas square - which while beeen more hip with their demographics will loose their legendary world reknown headquarters.


The CRTC should apply the law equally IMHO.
 
#39 ·
What really annoys me is the difference between the specialy channels we have here and their American counterparts.

Take Discovery Channel for instance. The US version seems to have alot more interesting stuff than our version which plays the same crap over and over.

I like to watch deadliest catch on Discovery. The latest season of it finally came here after something like 6 months of it already being shown in the US.

Then there's the Food Network. Take a look at the show listing on the US food Network website - it's nothing close to our show lineup. I'm sorry but I can only take so much of Christine Cushing re-runs. Hardly any variety here.

Btw, why does BBC-Kids play episodes of Little Britain? That's kinda weird.
 
#41 ·
I wasn't taking about the amount of UK shows - I was talking about US channels vs the Canadian equivalent and the huge discrepancy in variety between the two.

Having lived in the US for a while I know for a fact there a lot more sports variety channels down there than there are up here. ESPN, ESPN2, etc.

My only comment about UK content was the fact that they are showing Little Britain on the BBC-Kids channel which I would think is not appropriate.
 
#44 · (Edited by Moderator)
When you can catch StarGate on CITY as well as Space and I think I have caught it on at least one other channel, when you can catch all the other duplicities over and over and ov.... then it is time to pull back, shake the heads of the political trough feeders who make the (non)decisions at CRTC and dump these political hacks in favour of people with the gonads to enforce the rules. CHCH is now so bad that I only watch the first 5 minutes of 11pm news before they drift off into E! type news. The list goes on and on.
 
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