1 of 1- mace
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A Good CRTC Rule
The CRTC in general is not overly popular with members here, but the mandatory carry rule that ensures all local channels are carried by cable companies ensures tha Canadian subscribers don't suffer what American viewers routinely must deal with. the endless squabble between networks and cable companies over carriage fees. Over the years, every cable/satellite company has done battle with all four networks over these fees which usually results in the network services being removed and the viewer ends up losing his programming. The latest battle is between YoutubeTV and Disney. Youtube settled with FOX in August and NBC/Universal in October without any service interruptions. Disney was different. For the last two weeks, no ABC/ESPN plus other Disney properties have been missing. In footbaal mad America, this IS a big deal. It has meant the loss of two MNFgames and a boatload of Division One College games. Youtube has offered a $20 credit to disgruntled customers. It appears that an agrrement was reached late Friday. Unfortunately, details were not released. Guaranteed though, the customers cable bill will increase next month. While most of the carriage fees for the likes of CNN and A&E are generally under $1/per month. Disney gets $10/month for ESPN, which is passed on to subscribers.Since cable operators put ESPN in a basic package, non sports fans get hit as well.
- RadioActive
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Re: A Good CRTC Rule
This dispute has finally ended, after two weeks of ABC/Disney/ESPN blackouts on the service.
Disney and YouTube TV reach deal to end blackout on streaming service
It's over now, but as Mace notes, thanks to this idiotic system they've set up down there, it's only a matter of time before it happens again with another network. (Like Disney, CBS has been known to be especially hard to deal with in the past.)
As much as the Rogers and the Bells drive me crazy, at least they can't hold viewers hostage by depriving them of CTV and City TV content. They can charge for specialty channels like TSN and Sportsnet, but over-the-air stations people can get for free should never be subject to this kind of blackmail, especially at the expense of their own customers.
I have my issues with some of the CRTC's policies, but I agree, a retransmission agreement is one thing we don't need and thankfully don't have here.
- tvguy
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Re: A Good CRTC Rule
There’s another reason why these disputes don’t disrupt OTA Networks and viwers in Canada.. In Canada the Copyright Board determines the rates for “distant retransmission” of out-of-market stations, that includes all of the US OTA stations carried on cable/satellite, the “super stations” Peachtree, WGN, CW, and distant Canadian stations such as CHEK, CHAN, BCTV. The Copyright Board sets the rates every few years. The current rates are approx. $1.30 per subscriber per month. So long as the cable or satellite company pays the fee, they are permitted to carry US and Canadian “distant signals”. There’s no way the stations can withhold distribution rights and they cannot link distribution of the OtTA signals to packaging, rates, or linkage to sports services such as TSN or Sportsnet. And most of the money, which is over $100 million a year, flows to rights holders of programs….so statons only are compensated for the programs they produce and own. The distant signal retransmission system has been in place in canada for over 30 years and there’s been no disruption of OTA signals over that period of time. Broadcasters tried from time to time to lobby various gov’ts to give them additional negotiation rights but that was a non-starter.
Last edited by tvguy (November 15, 2025 8:58 pm)
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Re: A Good CRTC Rule
tvguy wrote:
There’s another reason why these disputes don’t disrupt OTA Networks and viwers in Canada.. In Canada the Copyright Board determines the rates for “distant retransmission” of out-of-market stations, that includes all of the US OTA stations carried on cable/satellite, the “super stations” Peachtree, WGN, CW, and distant Canadian stations such as CHEK, CHAN, BCTV. The Copyright Board sets the rates every few years. The current rates are approx. $1.30 per subscriber per month. So long as the cable or satellite company pays the fee, they are permitted to carry US and Canadian “distant signals”. There’s no way the stations can withhold distribution rights and they cannot link distribution of the OtTA signals to packaging, rates, or linkage to sports services such as TSN or Sportsnet. And most of the money, which is over $100 million a year, flows to rights holders of programs….so statons only are compensated for the programs they produce and own. The distant signal retransmission system has been in place in canada for over 30 years and there’s been no disruption of OTA signals over that period of time. Broadcasters tried from time to time to lobby various gov’ts to give them additional negotiation rights but that was a non-starter.
And a good thing, too, given the mess viewers down south constantly find themselves in.
How I miss the day when all TV was free!
- RadioActive
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Re: A Good CRTC Rule
Just one last thing about this story. I well recall when I had my old 10’ C-Band satellite dish, Disney was always one of the worst offenders when it came to greed and price hikes. They were constantly asking for more and more money for their Disney Channel, which back then, was a huge draw. (It’s a bit of an afterthought now.)
And then there was ESPN itself, before Disney bought the controlling stake in it. They were always demanding more money from subscribers and because they were considered must carry, there was no way to opt not to take the channel. I remember my monthly bill always going up after another outrageous demand from the sports channel.
I couldn’t care less about sports and almost never watched them, but you weren’t allowed to drop the station and watched your bill increase in perpetuity, as the greed mongers at the network never stopped demanding more.
Now Disney owns ESPN and ABC and it appears nothing has changed. Disney may be the House of Mouse, as they’ve been called after their theme parks. But when it comes to this never-satisfied avaricious company, they’re more like rats. No amount of cheese is ever enough.
- tvguy
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Re: A Good CRTC Rule
The CRTC probably did us a favour when they allowed cable cos to drop poorly performing channels from their packages. A lot of Canadian independent channels were put to death in the past year and a half due to that policy, including the suite of Wildbrain kid's services. No loss in our household. But of course cable and satellite tv prices never declined. I was in one of those constantly upwardly price spiralling “best” packages in order to receive the sports channels that we actually watch. Bell's price increases were constant. (So were rogers - so there was no point switching) Then one day I figured a way to get all the sports we watch (and don’t watch) in a lower cost tier, and dropped everything else, other than the $24 a month “skinny basic”. Savings of about $70 a momth. The sports package over the past year or so, has remained affordable at about $25 a month…no major price hikes, like the hikes seen with the large cable/satellite packages. I lost CBC Newsworld, CP24, CTV News Network, CTV Business, and all the crappy channels we never watched. Ironically since we dropped the Bell big package, CBC streams various slimmed down versions of their news channels (including a CBC Toronto news channel) on Pluto, Roku and some other “free” streaming platforms. Rogers at least is smart enough to provide CityNews for free on the same platforms, plus the Amazon FireTV platform. GlobalNews is also available for free across a wide swath of platforms. CTV Business channel - another “pig” at the trough, was no loss, lots of free streaming business channels which are excellent. Bottom line, the management at Bell doesn’t get it. The CTV (free) streaming news channel is a steaming tire fire of out dated newscasts from its local sations and yesterday’s CTV national news. Why bother? And I can live without CP24…but I ask the rhetorical question, why doesn’t CTV embrace reality and stream full versions of their news and business channels - free of charge? There are a lot more people who now depend on streaming than actual cable satellite subscribers....I believe "cable cutters" have passed the 50% threshold. Mirko Bibic probably doesn’t understand that the consumer world has changed. Probably Bell and Rogers are happy to gouge the diminishing Cable/Satellite universe, but as it contracts into a black hole, it’s going to catch up with them one of these days. The other pig at the trough, CNN (owned by discovery), is $7 bucks a la carte. Can you believe that???? A slightly slimmed down version of CNN, with live content and breaking news is also streaming for free on Roku (and probably other free streaming platforms) And yes, folks, this "Black Friday" week/month you can buy a roku “stick” at a $28 CDN one time cost from amazon prime, with no future service charges!!!! And Roku has a lot of good US services that the CRTC never allowed into Canada. I appreciate that some of the Roku channels are curated with thematic programming, and repeats but hey, isn’t that what Corus’ Showcase (another pig at the trough) became, hours and hours of reruns of old US drama series? CSI, etc??? You’d be hard pressed to find much in Corus’ $14.99 a month “stack tv” that you cannot find streaming for free on Pluto Roku, etc. Even the Global and CTV streaming apps (free of charge) have lots of first run content. Wake up Mirko!!!!
Last edited by tvguy (November 16, 2025 9:03 am)
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Re: A Good CRTC Rule
Sorry to continue this rant, but I have no respect for Bell’s management. Their other “shell” game was to move some of the Sportsnet sub-channels out of a mid-tier package to a higer cost package. Because Rogers mix and match sports programming - across Sportsnet’s regional channels, SN1 SN360 etch, you could not watch a whole season of Blue Jays games, or Raptors, without paying a lot more to bell in order to receive all of the Sportsnet channels. Probably another $20 a month. Of course you got a plethora of other channels in the “best” tier…but it was a forced purchase I did not want to fund any longer. The Bell shell game is pretty clever when you think about it, until it isn’t and people like me with some time on their hands figure out how to “game” the system. I cannot see Bell’s TSN and Rogers Sportsnet+ will continue to survive as stand alone over-priced sports streaming packages. Right now they’re probably betting that $60 a month for the 2 streaming sports packages will deter their cable/satellite subs from moving. Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and othe self-serving lobby groups will wring their hands and call for more Canadian content regulation... but they are sadly out of touch with the real world and what consumers will pay for the program choices they want to watch. They will cry out that it is the end of the Canadian identity, etc, etc. But greed and avarice...should take an equal measure of blame. Comments?
Last edited by tvguy (November 16, 2025 9:13 am)
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Re: A Good CRTC Rule
There's a lot there to digest, but who can disagree that both Bell & Rogers never tire of pulling more and more and more money out of your wallet. It never ends and it never will. That's why I wish we had more competition in Canada. Then again, when Bell owns a wide majority of the channels, it may not make any difference. They will always be able to charge whatever they want.
But here's something that might interest you if you've given up on CP24. It's actually free on the web - and it's not pirated, it's from CTV itself. I use it every Sunday to watch their local Toronto newscast which is constantly interrupted on Channel 9 by the NFL. You can find it here.
As for the Roku Channel, I don't have a stick and I'm not sure I need one. If you have a VPN set to the U.S., almost all the stuff is free on the web at The Roku Channel.com. You can plug your computer into your TV via an HTML cable and watch it like you were well connected!
As usual with a cheapskate like me, free always beats fee. And if they put it up there, there's no reason not to take advantage of it.
- tvguy
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Re: A Good CRTC Rule
Got an error message and the spinning wheel of death on the CP24 site. My point is Bell management is so out of touch!!!! We have a 3-strikes and you're out rule in our household. If a company's badly designed app doesn't work, we move on. the hell with them. Watching a news channel should not require a kluge of computers, and other devices. Companies such as Roku and Amazon run by relatively smart people have figured out that you have to keep it simple, and it has to work all of the time. And did I mention that Bell removed streaming from my satellite receiver boxes without any notification? We have to use the "Bell Fibe" app, which "thinks" I'm not streaming from my home so some channels are locked out. I've contacted Bell, but no response.Bell also shut down one of their two Nimiq satellite feeds in late September without notifying satellite subscribers. Bell was the occupant of the Nimiq 82 Dgree satellite and did not renew its contract with Telesat. Several of my Bell satellite set top boxes froze up "looking" for the non-existent satellite, thus depriving me of reception of Blue Jays playoff games. Multiple rescans, resets etc did not work. Their website did not provide a work around. They did not bother to provide software updates - which should have been downloaded via sateillite. I suspect that the removal of Nimiq 82, stopped satellite software updates.... Bell is on a death march, with its Satellite TV product, to oblivion. Does anyone on this forum have an email address (or office address) for someone who is really "in charge" of decision making for Bell Fibe and Bell Satellite. writing to Bibic is a waste of time.
Last edited by tvguy (November 16, 2025 10:18 am)
- RadioActive
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Re: A Good CRTC Rule
Can't help you with the Bibic thing, but I'm very surprised to hear you couldn't get through to the CP24 live site. I've used it every week this year since the NFL started up, and have never had an issue. I wonder why I can get it and you can't. Are you using a VPN? Maybe try it with and without. Works for me, even if I'm set to the U.S.
Sorry it doesn't happen for you. Perhaps Bell is surreptitiously blocking you! 
But seriously, I'd be curious to know why you're shut out and I'm not.
- mace
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Re: A Good CRTC Rule
There's a lot there to digest, but who can disagree that both Bell & Rogers never tire of pulling more and more and more money out of your wallet. It never ends and it never will. That's why I wish we had more competition in Canada. Then again, when Bell owns a wide majority of the channels, it may not make any difference. They will always be able to charge whatever they want.
But here's something that might interest you if you've given up on CP24. It's actually free on the web - and it's not pirated, it's from CTV itself. I use it every Sunday to watch their local Toronto newscast which is constantly interrupted on Channel 9 by the NFL. You can find it here.
As for the Roku Channel, I don't have a stick and I'm not sure I need one. If you have a VPN set to the U.S., almost all the stuff is free on the web at The Roku Channel.com. You can plug your computer into your TV via an HTML cable and watch it like you were well connected!
As usual with a cheapskate like me, free always beats fee. And if they put it up there, there's no reason not to take advantage of it.
The CP24 link worked for me with my VPN set for Buffalo.
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