They're the voice of the right - the Conservative Television Network, the primordial swamp that spawned Toadus Duffy, and the ever right nut-licking CanWest Global, the rotting shack that Connie the Con and Izzy the Mort built. They're the media paragons of free enterprise, the eviscerators of all thing lefty, all rank socialist nonsense - - - until it comes time to lining their own pockets.
Unless you're long dead you haven't been able to escape the media war underway between the "private" broadcasters and Canada's cable companies. Strip away the bullshit and boil it down to a fine reduction and what you get is the television networks pleading for the government to give them a hunk of someone else's earnings. Shit, does that sound mega-Socialist or what?
Suddenly the voices of arch-conservatism want - why they want to share the wealth! So long as its somebody else's wealth, that is. What's next, a Red Star adorning CTV's logo?
The Nets used to earn their money. They sold advertising based on the number of folks who watched their shows. Ever get suckered into filling out one of those BBM (Bureau of Broadcast Measurement) booklets to record every show you actually watched every day for two weeks?
It didn't matter whether you watched Lloyd Robertson via cable or got the signal via bunny ears antennae. All that mattered was that you watched Lloyd and dutifully recorded it. No matter where you watched Lloyd, once you recorded the fact it went to his network's numbers and that determined how much advertisers would pay for a 30-second or 60-second spot on that show.
Cable operators picked up that signal - right out of the airwaves - and spread it around to even more viewers. Try living among the coastal mountains and seeing how much Lloyd Robertson you can get if you don't have cable. So, cablevision is actually increasing the Conservative Television Network's bottom line by spreading the Gospel of Lloyd to the weak-minded everywhere. They take that post-menopausal reptile to all sorts of places he otherwise wouldn't be able to reach. Hell, cable ought to be charging CTV for that disservice to the public.
Oh no. You see the networks are hurting. It seems they've just spent so much bringing us American Idol and Survivor, So You Think You Can Dance, Real Douchebags of New Jersey, Big Brother and all that other bullshit programming that they're no longer happy with their bottom line. And when a real Conservative believer starts feeling the pinch, what do they do?
Ask Wall Street. They start looking to loosen their belts with somebody else's pocketbook. All of a sudden, they're Socialist as all Hell. And like all Pinkos, they head straight for the government (assuming its a sympathetic Conservative government that owes them favours, big time) for a little relief. Relief as in - the other guy's money.
Trust me, I'm no fan of the fat cat cable companies but the Land of Lloyd really gets my goat when they start pulling this crap. Hey jerk - live by the sword, die by the sword. We've already given you a much too big hunk of the public airwaves. If you can't make a go of it from that - Piss Off!
I'm no fan of the cable and satellite companies and I'm not against the big bad Conservative Television Network trying to make money.
ReplyDeleteCurrently, cable companies are required by the CRTC to air the over-the-air channels and air them on the lower channel slots. Why should cable companies be forced to pay a carriage fee for a so-called "local" television station that the CRTC forces it to carry?
If the networks want carriage fees for their local stations, then the CRTC should make these local channels optional rather than mandatory for the cable and satellite companies to carry. And as you (MoS) suggest, the cable and satellite companies can charge the broadcasters a fee to carry their "local" stations on the cable or satellite dial. It's like the ethnic programs or infomercials buying time on a television station rather than the stations buying ethnic or infomercial programming.
On a side note, the CTV Olympic website won't publish my mildly negative comment about boycotting the Olympics but it did publish my positive comment under my JWilliams alias.
http://skinnydips.blogspot.com/2009/11/will-this-broadcast-website-publish-my.html
The broadcast companies want the CRTC to force the cable and satellite companies to block US signals that carry the same US programs that the Canadian networks have purchased. For example, if CTV wants to air American Idol on Thursday evening at 8 p.m. instead of airing the program when the Fox wants (I think it's Fox), the cable and satellite companies would be forced to block the US signals. This means more money through advertising for Canadian stations.
ReplyDeleteMore from the Toronto Star: http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/731932
ReplyDeleteI won't dismiss the merits of requiring cable companies to delete American broadcasts of shows aired by Canadian nets. Cable companies and TV nets are both regulated and protected by fed legislation so I suppose there's at least an argument there.
ReplyDeleteToo bad they won't transmit Comedy Central instead of force-feeding us CTV's mediocre version, the Comedy Network.
It bothers me that we can't force CTV and Global to ditch a lot of that crap "reality" programming from the US and their own Canadian knock-offs of the very same tripe.
As for Lloyd, I don't know what the deal is there. I thought once you had a total loss of brain function they could declare you dead.
The networks now want cable fees to be regulated. Does that mean they also want their advertising rates to be regulated. Logic dictates so.
ReplyDeleteI think if you lose brain function, you end up being a Conservative senator.
ReplyDeleteHa
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