[cslusarc]

Satellite television access to CBC/Radio-Canada: It’s time to get it right

It seams our public broadcaster is dissatisfied with the CRTC because it only requires the two national satellite companies to distribute "a minimum of 5 CBC and 5 Radio-Canada stations, including one from each time zone."

The problem is that both Shaw Direct and Bell TV are bandwidth restricted. This means that they'd likely have to remove "cable" specialties if they were to deliver to Canadians each and every local OTA station. Satellite companies make most of their money distributing these specialty services, and OTA stations are loss leaders. If I were a BDU I'd like to carry the least amount of local OTAs that I could, so that I could distribute the most high margin specialties.

Its my personal opinion that CBC distributes too many unique stations. It currently has 14 English language stations and 13 French language stations. I'd like to reduce the number of stations because each station only produces about 8.33 hours of local programming each week.

For the English network I think the should have 12 stations, consolidating stations in Saskatchewan and the Maritimes:
- Vancouver
- Edmonton
- Calgary
- Saskatchewan
- Winnipeg
- Windsor
- Toronto
- Ottawa
- Montréal
- The Maritimes
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- The North

For the French network I think the should have 7 stations, consolidating stations in Western Canada and in the Belle Province:
- Western Canada (a single station based in Winnipeg but using a Mountain Time Zone optimized schedule.)
- Ottawa
- Montréal
- Québec
- Rimouski et Saguenay
- Sherbrooke et Trois-Rivières
- Atlantic

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I think that a reformulated CBC Maritimes could carry a minimum 30-minutes of local news from PEI, a minimum 60-minutes of news from New Brunswick and a minimum 60-minutes of news from Halifax to all viewers in the Maritimes each weekday.

 

[tofinoguy]

Doesn't Bell offer additional CBC local newscasts from the channels that aren't carried? I don't see what else is required.

 

[NB Josh]

Right now CBC New Brunswick provides the only New Brunswick news, I would like to keep it that way. Same for PEI.

I don't think there is a need for all local stations to be on satellite either, if someone wants their local station bad enough it is always available OTA. I think that Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver and North should have to be carried, with the rest being optional.

 

[cslusarc]

Yes Bell does offer some of the local news but not all. I guess that the CBC wants to show the local commericals its sells.

 

[NB Josh]

There is no doubt that it could... but I don't think it would. I think it would be a lot more likely that there would be a 90 minute "Atlantic" newscast that would mostly focus on Nova Scotia. I would be fine with 30 minutes of each, but I couldn't see it happening.

 

[kirjtc2]

CBC's best news ratings are in Atlantic Canada, and the local focus as opposed to the Halifax-centric focus of ATV is the reason.

Consolidating newscasts would be ratings suicide.

 

[vjose78]

Bell and SD wouldn't have to get rid of cable specialties to make room for these channels, they need only to eliminate some of their dozens of pay per view channels.

 

[Fry1989]

It seams our public broadcaster is dissatisfied with the CRTC because it only requires the two national satellite companies to distribute "a minimum of 5 CBC and 5 Radio-Canada stations, including one from each time zone."

The problem is that both Shaw Direct and Bell TV are bandwidth restricted. This means that they'd likely have to remove "cable" specialties if they were to deliver to Canadians each and every local OTA station.

Not that unreasonable of a request. Satellite Providers in the US are required to provide the local station/affiliate of all the main OTA stations (CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC) in their targeted region.

If they can do it, so can Bell and Shaw, so technically it's our companies that are the whiners, not the CBC.

 

[Reed Solomon]

well, easily solved. If they don't have a digital signal up in certain cities by august 2011, then take them off of the satellites.

 

[thenewdc]

In the U.S. the rules in place are, if you carry one station from any market, then you must carry them all from that market.

 

[classicsat]

@Reed Solomon: And make them pay for any additional carriage they want.

@thenewdc: Pending "good faith" negotiations of course.

 

[TJ77]

CBC makes me angry. I just keep finding that as time passes, they are becoming more and more irrelevant.
Satellite customers have long complained about duplicate channels. The last thing most of us want is even more of them!

Back when Shaw (Star Choice) dropped CBC Regina, they suggested that CBC place the channel on the F1 transponder which they own! CBC refused.

 

[SportsFan]

For the English network I think the should have 12 stations, consolidating stations in Saskatchewan and the Maritimes

CBC Saskatchewan is "consolidated".

13 Radio-Canada stations does seem like a lot considering they serve 1/3 the population that CBC does with 14 stations. Shaw Direct not carrying the 2nd largest French speaking city in the country is pretty shabby.

 

[madhi19]

How many CBC clones do we need anyway?

 

[mon_Key_C]

I really get a charge out of CBC dragging out that "Satellite does not carry Windsor CBC" banner every time someone writes a critical article about CBC coverage.

This from a taxpayer funded organization that thinks Ontario ends at the GTA borders except for Ottawa and a meagre attempt in Windsor (And Windsorites know that if you want up to date info on a major local story, tune in a Detroit channel)

This is all about the CRTC hearing later this fall on Satellite capacity. CBC is merely trying to influence how Bell loads N6 and Shaw G1 in 2012. The CBC is not looking to working with Shaw/Bell on what is best for Canadians. If they were, all they have to do is to offer Shaw that they will change their F1R transponders to DCII 8PSK open key if Shaw will then change their present CBC SD feeds to CBC HD in MPEG4. To make it fair for Bell, all they have to do is buy 2 N6 transponders and cut the same deal with Bell.

But this solution makes sense - something in short supply at the CBC.

 

[cslusarc]

But in the US, they built their satellites for spot beam technology. In Canada the CRTC mandated that they were a "National Service" not requiring the deployment of spot beam technology and leaving us with timeshifting every local.

 

[mma2003]

The one negative about bell tv as a windsorite is no local coverage at all, quite a few people I know have cable instead with that as one of the reasons.

The only time I ever see the windsor cbc station is when there is a big hockey game in Detroit.

But aside from local news what else would these additional stations provide?

What would be nice is if they could do something like they do with the weather network, and provide the local news via internet or something that you could load over the system, or watch the national feed.

 

[classicsat]

Not everybody has Internet, yet.

Local channels would provide local advertising as well.

 

[vjose78]

Personally I think that everyone whether on cable, satellite, or OTA should have access to their local publicly funded CBC/SRC network.

 

[roger1818]

Personally I think that everyone whether on cable, satellite, or OTA should have access to their local publicly funded CBC/SRC network.

Everyone? Although the vast majority of Canadians can receive CBC OTA, there are a small percentage who can't. What we need to do is decide what minimum market size is worth investing in OTA (be it a CBC transmitter or multi-cast service). Back in the 70's that was set at markets of 500 people or more. Is that number still valid? For radio it may be, but I am not so convinced it is for TV, especially if a free skinny service is offered by BDUs.

Assuming a free skinny service is available and every station has an OTA transmitter in their city of license, every province and territory should have at least one CBC TV station (either in the capital or largest city), plus every city with an English population greater than 300,000 should also have a CBC station. In smaller markets, the CBC should be required to co-operate with private broadcasters to let them affiliate with the CBC. Where there is no CBC station (owned or affiliated) they should work with community groups to be part of a multi-cast service.

The only thing I am not sure about is that 300,000 number. I chose it because the CRTC used it for picking mandatory markets, but I am not sure if it is really the best number to use.

What does everyone think?