CJOB news director Vic Grant‘s latest ‘Excuse Me’ blog post targets what most media are discussing in their inner circles right now — the idea of saving conventional television.
Grant is one of those — along with many others — who does not sympathize with CTV when it comes to getting a bailout.
They want us viewers to pay for their problems. The local CTV station, which, incidentally is the cream of the local crop, held a meet and greet over the weekend trying to recruit support. The effort fell flat on its face. Didn’t CTV, through its holding , spend ridiculously to secure the Hockey Night in Canada Theme. And then the topper, CTV buying the broadcasting rights for the Winter Olympics, a multi-million dollar investment. And CTV wants each Canadian household to pitch in and save a few of its television stations?
Read and listen to the rest of Vic Grant’s post.
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May 25th, 2009 at 10:28 am
I have yet to hear/read Grant’s rant, but I’m totally against the the broadcast medias’ drive to bring in a TV tax. If they can’t make it because of poor simulcast programming choices, why should we bail them out with a tax you know will just go up and up.
Shame on them for even suggesting the idea.
May 25th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Somewhere along the line Shaw and other providers are going to incur a huge cost if the CRTC approves this fee. Either Shaw is going to shell out millions in cash to pay these fees, essentially paying the price for poor business prices made by CTV, or Shaw and the rest will lose revenue from the subscribers they’ll lose who won’t pay the hike in their bill. Given that all of this content is available for free online, raising cable bills will only accelerate the trend of consumers canceling their cable packages in favor of just the internet.
May 26th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
It is too bad that cable and satellite companies do not let consumers pick and choose what channels we want in our channel bundles. Right now, the way cable companies bundle and package channels, as consumers we end up with channels we don’t want or watch and we have to pay for them. That is wrong. That is the real tax on TV. Let consumers decide. If implemented properly, fee for carriage could result in reduced cable bills for people.
May 26th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
@Bob fair enough, but bare in mind that providers do not have the option to drop local networks. Mewonders how many people would keep their subscription to CTV if it was a choice between that and watching Intervention on TLC?