Online!
There's a new sheriff in town with the end of JP Blais's tour as head of the CRTC and the appointment of former Telus exec Ian Scott.
So now Bell is trying again to ensure the infamous simsub cancellation that allowed Canadian cable/sat subscribers to see the U.S. commercials during the Super Bowl doesn't happen a second time. Bell's latest pitch in its application offers to make sure you know where to watch the American ads well in advance of the broadcast.
“We are asking the commission to rescind the order in exchange for a commitment to make the U.S. commercials available broadly as part of a curated program to air in advance of the game and to launch an awareness campaign around where to find the ads.”
All this comes despite the fact that the case is still before the courts. In the words of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, "Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends." The sequel, whatever they decide, comes by next February.
Bell presses CRTC to overturn Super Bowl ad policy
No.
Offline
What if it's an effort to keep Bell's clients reassured. Bell just lost the television broadcast rights to the Vancouver Canucks to Rogers. Rogers has the NHL locked in t.v.-wise for years nationally as well. Maybe Bell's angling for time. Isn't there something called the Hail Mary play in football?
Last edited by betaylored (August 2, 2017 1:22 am)
Online!
It's one thing when the public doesn't understand this story. It's another when a broadcaster totally doesn't get it. It's three times worse when that broadcaster works for a Bell Media station!
On Wednesday afternoon, CFRB's Jim Richards decided to make a statement about this controversy, insisting Bell was correct in its stance to complain to the CRTC. Except he got it totally and completely wrong. He definitively stated that the Commission had prevented CTV from airing any Canadian spots and forced them to show the U.S. ones instead. And it wasn't just a misstatement. He repeated it at least three times.
Except that's not what happened. CTV was able to sell as many Super Bowl commercials as it could manage. The ruling simply meant that cable companies couldn't substitute the American feed with the Canadian one, thus giving viewers here a choice of what channel to watch it on.
You might think a talk show host supposedly representing his ownership would at least get the facts right.
Fake news indeed.
Offline
RadioActive wrote:
You might think a talk show host supposedly representing his ownership would at least get the facts right
He wasn't the official Bell Media spokesperson, so he wasn't representing the owners. In terms of objective coverage of Bell by RB, well, that ain't happening.
Offline
Must be nice to protect Bell with a sim sub. Can we protect the grocery industry too? Make it illegal for Canadians to bring anything back into Canada unless they can prove it is not already available in grocery stores here?
How about the clothing industury...and so on...
Haircuts? Take a pic of the person entering the states. If their hair looks cut on the way back into Canada, throw in a tax to help pay the poor barber who did not get paid on the Canadian side.
ENOUGH ALREADY!! NO SIM SUB IN MY HOME!!! PERIOD!!!
Last edited by Radiowiz (August 2, 2017 6:48 pm)
Bell should win in court. It'll come down to 'rights.' They pay for them and should be able to make a profit or, at the very least, break even. The CRTC went too far when it opted for an exception to its simsub policy.
(OK, I've built a little fort and I'll be hiding out here in the loft for a couple of days...)
mike marshall wrote:
Bell should win in court. It'll come down to 'rights.' They pay for them and should be able to make a profit or, at the very least, break even. The CRTC went too far when it opted for an exception to its simsub policy.
(OK, I've built a little fort and I'll be hiding out here in the loft for a couple of days...)
Exactly.
It's the way rights work all over the world in every medium.
And it's either policy or not; an exception for one event makes no sense.
Offline
I have no doubt Bell et al have a legal right to argue against the opposite position posed by the content provider or the app creator.. However, the extreme and strong handed measures landed by the plaintiff (Bell et al) are beyond logic, and certainly destroy any public relations image Bell, Rogers, or Videotron may have left in a shrinking cable market.
Bully indeed
Offline
Don wrote:
mike marshall wrote:
Bell should win in court. It'll come down to 'rights.' They pay for them and should be able to make a profit or, at the very least, break even. The CRTC went too far when it opted for an exception to its simsub policy.
Exactly.
It's the way rights work all over the world in every medium.
And it's either policy or not; an exception for one event makes no sense.
A Grocery store in Niagara falls Canada paid for those groceries to be on the shelf with the expectation that they make a living selling the groceries...hopefully for more than what they paid for them but you don't see the grocery industry putting their version of a sim sub on cross border shopping, preventing anyone from Canada from buying groceries on the American side and bringing them back.
An out right ban of any Canadian visiting the states to do grocery shopping there is only fair if Bell can have a sim sub.
Let's put the sim sub everywhere on everything and anything. Not just TV.
The new Canadian express cards can even read "Don't leave home!".
A sim sub is not welcome in my home.