Canada Will Not Become A Nation of 'Cord Cutters'

The biggest trend in the United States after the rise of Online video sites Netflix and Hulu, thousands have left their cable, satellite and telco subscription television services behind.  Video game consoles and devices such as Rockzz and Boxee box have moved online video from the computer to the living room TV. 

As much as Canadians love to complain about Cable, satellite and telephone companies, canuck couch potatoes North of the 49th will not be quite so willing to follow their American counterparts who have left a traditional cable or satellite to watch Internet video exclusively. 

Firstly Canadians don't have as many online video sources that are available stateside.   Netflix one of the Internet's largest providers of movies and TV shows has been in Canada for just a few months.  The selection available from netflix in Canada is just a fraction of what Netflix offers in the United States.  The Internet's other alternative to network programming that specializes in delivering network programming online Hulu.com is still a forbidden fruit in Canada. 

The biggest thorn in the side of all potential Canadian cord cutters is the current over usage based billing, where ISP's want to have through right to charge high bandwidth users (such as people watching HD programming from online sources).  It doesn't help when the major broadband providers also are the cable and telephone companies that see services such as Netflix as a threat to the subscription television services they sell already. 

One additional factor that is making cord cutting unattractive to Canadians is the lackluster commitment to high definition broadcasting on the part of Canada's broadcast networks.  HD programming over the air is only available in about half a dozen markets.  This is sure to improve after the deadline to switch to digital broadcasting on August 31st.  Two of Canada's broadcast networks are owned by a cable company and a telephone company, there is a vested interest to keep over the air viewers watching snowy analog pictures.

The cord cutting trend is freeing people from the few large companies that control media and telecommunications.  The problem in Canada is that these companies has so much control that it is practically impossible to experience the freedom to watch what you want to watch not what cable, satellite or telephone company will let you watch.

Canadians Deserve a Price Break on Game Consoles

One of the newest capabilities of new game consoles that has been talked about since the recent E3 convention isn't the new motion capture technologies from both Sony and Microsoft designed to compete to Nintendo's Wiimote and Nunchuk control system on the Wii.  The attention of many in the video gaming speculators and analysts ability to watch Hulu on the Playstation 3.and Xbox 360.  Hulu complementing the service for the consoles unveiled by online streaming video store Netflix last year.

This leaves Canadian Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 buyers paying the same price as American consoles but getting less functionality since both Netflix and Hulu have never been available in Canada.  Could Sony and Microsoft recognize that and offer some kind of price break for Canadians, of course they can.  Even a small price break even if it is five or ten dollars off the price of the systems would offer an olive branch to console buyers north of the 49th parallel.

Sony and/or Microsoft could work with content creators to secure the rights for streaming video content to create online stores to sell and rent online video and keep the profits for themselves instead of handing it over to Netflix and Hulu.  That would mean treating Canadian consumers like intelligent people who understand watching online video through legitimate means is better pirating.  Could Microsoft and Sony understand that? All signs are doubtful.

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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.