Once upon a time, Canadian stations would do whatever they had to to maintain simultaneous substitution with an American network when both were presenting the same show on the same night at the same time. 

It now appears simsub may not be quite as urgent as it once was. At least if you look at what happened Sunday night. 

CBS' telecast of The Masters predictably ran very long (do sporting events ever, ever, ever end on time?) which theoretically would have presented a problem for two different Canadian networks. At 7 PM, Global had "60 Minutes," even though it was delayed on CBS. Previously, they would have vamped with a short newscast or an episode of "Border Security." Instead, "60" started on time here.

The overrun also presented a problem for CTV, which had "Tracker" being simulcast with the Eye Network, which was now 31 minutes behind and still showing the last half hour of "60 Minutes" at 8 PM. CTV went with "Tracker" anyway. 

But to me, the biggest example of how simsub doesn't quite have the importance it used to possess came at 9 PM. For weeks - if not months - CBS has been endlessly promoting its "Billy Joel" special, a rare TV concert with one of rock's biggest stars. Global only recently picked up the show and I was curious whether they'd bother substituting a half hour show to catch up with their American cousin for such a heavily hyped program.

The answer was no, as the Joel concert began at 9 PM sharp in Canada and 9:31 PM in the U.S. There would have been a time that showing it here at its announced starting time and losing the American simsub would have been unthinkable. Apparently, that's no longer the case. 

Three shows on two different Canadian networks that gave up on simsub to start when they were supposed to. Times, it seems. have changed. Or at least air times have.