CBC asks for a basic cable with fees to themselves, natch.

[Dan Say]

The press release
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/November2009/03/c5273.html

Some analysis and the choices in Montreal make us jealous

CBC fee-for-carriage solution isn�t really one
http://blog.fagstein.com/2009/11/04/cbc-fee-for-carriage-submission/

The actual CBC submission to the CRTC
http://blog.fagstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/cbc-submission.pdf
Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2009-614 27 pages

"The CBC's proposal does away with that (what a surprise) and goes back to
forcing the cable companies to carry their stations. It mentions that they
would "negotiate wholesale rates", but what kind of negotiation can you have
when the only response the cable and satellite companies can give is "yes"?

So this would go to "arbitration" in front of the CRTC. Which means the CRTC
would simply set the rate for carrying local stations."

.."Cheap cable solves digital TV?

The submission also pretends to offer a solution to the digital TV transition.
In addition to requiring many people across the country to modify or replace
television sets that are up to half a century old, the transition will mean
many Canadians in remote regions won't have access to free, over-the-air TV,
because the broadcasters are too poor/cheap to replace the analog transmitters
with digital ones.

I've already argued that this digital transition is completely unnecessary,
and that goes double for remote areas with few television stations. But the
CRTC is going ahead with it anyway, and in August 2011 will create a problem
where none existed.

So what is the CBC proposing? Well, their argument is that cheap cable can
replace free television:

While not everyone would choose to subscribe to such a service, those who did
not would not be deciding on the basis of affordability.

If this sounds a bit familiar, it's because Bell thought up the same thing
with cheap satellite. Both seem to ignore the fact that cheap is not free.
Though it's unclear how much basic cable would cost under CBC's plan (I'm
willing to guess it won't be much cheaper than it is now), it will still be
infinitely larger than zero.

There's also another problem with this idea: The CRTC setting the rate for
basic cable tips the economic scales, and reduces the incentive for
entrepreneurs to enter the cable market, especially in remote areas where the
economies of scale don't work out as well in their favour."
----

"What is basic?

The CBC's submission is based on the premise that basic packages contain a
bunch of channels that Canadians don't want and are being forced to pay for.
It doesn't list them, nor does it list the channels it would want to keep.

To get some context, I looked at the channels that are included in my basic
(digital) service through Videotron:

and here I get jealous at the selection.

See link for more and the various Montreal commentators