How The TV Networks Underestimate OTA Viewership

With a few weeks remaining until free over the air TV goes digital in Canada's major cities.  Unlike the American digital TV transition two years ago,  the conversion to digital TV is much more low key.  Canada's television broadcasting industry claims that because higher usage of cable and satellite television services is the reason for the much less than enthusiastic approach to the change over to digital TV.  Canada's 30 top media markets will get digital and high definition TV over the air for free after August 31st.  Residents in small towns and rural areas who watch over the air TV from rebroadcast relay transmitters will remain stuck with analog service for the next few years.

Canada's private television networks have found themselves getting bought out by the companies that distribute their programming through wires or by satellite.  Many blame this ownership as the sole reason that television networks down play the role of over the air transmission as part of their business.  It is estimated by the TV networks 9 percent of viewers receive their programming by over the air signals.  The estimate by the television broadcasting industry only takes viewers who use antennas as their only means of television reception.  Friends of Canadian. Broadcasting estimates that 30 percent of Canadian households have at least one TV set with an antenna. 

There are many viewers of over the air signals that are not counted by any of the estimates, long haul truckers with small TV's in their rigs using just an antenna to receive TV programming during overnight stays at truck stops.  While some who tour across the country in their recreational vehicles have satellite TV service the majority of RVer's just raise their TV antenna on the roof of their unit to catch the news or favorite shows after parking at a campground for the evening.  Even a significant number of those whose second recreational home is in a fixed location such as a cottage or cabin get their television signals with an antenna. 

While Canada's private television networks are only upgrading transmitters that serve the CRTC mandated markets by the August 31st deadline, both CTV and Global are going to upgrade all their rebroadcast transmitters by 2016.  Despite the high cost of replacing transmitters is pretty high, It is in the economical interest of TV stations to upgrade to digital due to the lower operating cost through lower power consumption of digital transmitters.  Only one tenth of the wattage is required for digital broadcast compared with the analog counterpart. 

While most who are dependent on over the air TV will have a few years to wait for digital broadcasts, Global and CTV will be doing a lot more than CBC.  The public broadcaster whose mandate to be available over the air to all Canadians is staying analog in all areas that are not mandated by the CRTC until the analog transmitters reach the end of their lifespan and die and then no new transmitters will be installed.  It's surprising unexpected that the profit motivated private networks have a stronger commitment to over the air viewers than the network owned by the people for the people.

Why Canadians Should Care About DTV

Last week's changeover to digital television broadcasting in the United States went off with very few problems. This at least negates some of the excuses that Canadian TV stations give for sticking to analog only with just two years before the Canadian deadline to shut down analog. The only TV stations in Canada that have begun broadcasting in Digital are those in southern Ontario and in BC with densely populated areas close enough to the border with access to American over the air DTV signals. For the rest of us in the rest of Canada are restricted to analog only, no access to DTV converter boxes and plenty of analog only TV's still on store shelves this is not a very good sign.

The Canadian broadcasting companies claim that it would be too expensive to buy and operate digital transmitter for the 9 percent of TV households that depend solely on over the air broadcast signals. They don't factor in the households where there is at least one TV set with an antenna because people don't like paying fees for extra outlets or renting additional set top boxes. What TV station operators need to realize is that the sub-channels that broadcasters can send out with DTV can be used as a source of revenue for broadcasters. Digital Television allows TV stations better reach viewers who currently receive such poor reception that they are cable or satellite subscribers because of poor over the air reception.

Canadians are known for hating their cable, satellite and the telephone providers, so any new competition will be very welcome, switching to DTV will free up radio frequencies to allow for wireless broadband and advanced services such as VOiP and IPTV using WiMax or other wireless technology. Digital television is bringing an exciting new world but most Canadians are being held back. Start calling your local TV stations to start asking about DTV they will need to start providing answers sooner or later.

Save "Local" TV, They Can Save Themselves

For the past couple of weeks CTV stations have been running ads promoting their savelocal.ctv.ca website. These ads and their web site are an attempt to create public support for a proposal from CTV and their competitor Canwest Global to charge a carriage fee to cable and satellite providers for the use of their signals. Cable and satellite providers have been very up front that any carriage fee would be passed directly onto subscribers.

Making cable subscribers pay for the same old analog signals that those using antennas will still get to use for free just creates an unfair subsidy. Subsidizing those who do not have access to cable or satellite tv service simply is not acceptable.

The broadcast networks claim that their situation is critical and the would be forced to shut down over the air stations. Their current "crisis" has come from using the same old business model from the time before cable TV came into people's homes in the 1970's. Running the same shows from NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox simply won't cut it any more. There are many many shows that don't even get a chance to be seen on Canadian television. Maybe picking up some of those shows will give people a reason to tune in to their local CTV or Global stations.

Don't expect me to save CTV and Global from their outdated business practise, they can save themselves.

Why There Is No Hulu In Canada

One sign of how far the world wide web has revolutionized our lives in just 20 years is the popularity of hulu.com A joint venture between Fox and NBC where these old media TV networks put shows online. For those who forget to record favorite TV shows can watch online. As popular as hulu is with American web surfers, it's only available to Americans.

Despite demand from Canadians, those in charge of Hulu.com still will not make their service available North of 49th. Many of the shows produced by NBC and Fox that are carried on Hulu are also carried on Canadian networks, those Canadian networks also bought up the Canadian online distribution rights to these shows. Global TV makes some shows available to be watched online only the most recent episodes are available. Global doesn't have an archive of eposodes that Hulu does have.

CTV one the other hand has made absolutely no effort to provide online access to the shows they carry. BitTorrent is the only option for Canadians who need online access to shows they carry. CTV may carry a lot of programming from ABC and CBS who have been sluggish on putting TV shows online.

Internet Service Providers claim that putting Network TV online stresses their networks, but it should be known that Bell Canada one of Canada's largest ISP's is a minority stakeholder in CTV Globemedia.

Hulu is an excellent example of how copyright holders putting legitimate access to content gives a better alternative to piracy. I say that Global and CTV should let the American parent networks take care of the online content distribution so that Hulu can be made available to Canadians. Maybe CTV and Global can work together just like NBC and Fox work together. Could that work, given the mindset of Canadian broadcasting executives, maybe not. Hulu.ca has already been registred by a domain squatter.