I was still pretty young when all this was going on, but – as an antenna user - I remember being absolutely outraged at what the Canadian government was doing even back then. I agreed with the Buffalo station manager who called it “piracy” and I still do. You can’t take someone’s property (in this case their signal) and do whatever you want with it.
 
Just like you couldn’t buy a book, tear a few pages out, substitute them with some other text of your own, then slap your name on it and resell it. It was and still is, in my mind, an unconscionable use of someone else’s work and property and the Canadian government was wrong to implement it.
 
There’s also the question of freedom of choice. Who is the federal government to tell you, me or anyone else which channel they can watch something on? Or where you can advertise your wares? They used to censor outside media in the Soviet Union, but I never thought I’d be living there when it came to TV in Canada. It's one of the reasons I hate simsub so much. 
 
And then there’s this, something many of us who lived in that era may have long forgotten about. It’s not quite as bad anymore, because I believe the rule for the number of ads allowed in an hour has changed. But back in the 70s, Canadian stations would take a U.S. show, then about 52 minutes in length without commercials, and butcher it in ways that I can’t even begin to describe.
 
I remember as a kid watching an episode of The Waltons on Channel 9 and having it build up to this incredibly emotional ending. As it neared the crescendo, CTV cut the thing off, aired a “YOU HAVE TO COME TO SEARS THIS WEEK!” blaring spot, cut out key parts of the show, then went back to play a section of the last two minutes, completely destroying the impact. All these years later and it still bugs me.
 
It’s why when I moved into my house many years ago, one of the first things I did was put up a tower with a rotor on it. Never been sorry about it and I watch all the U.S. shows from their network of origin.
 
Finally, as for the Buffalo threat to scramble, I still wonder – would it have even been technically possible? One of the posted articles describes how they were planning to do it, but I simply can’t believe it wouldn’t have interfered with the signal into the U.S. as well.
 
I’d be curious to know if anyone who’s a lot more tech savvy than yours truly thinks it could have worked. Fortunately, we'll never know.    

mace wrote:

RA. I believe in primetime, broadcasting laws in the U.S. allow only eight minutes per hour of commercial time. in Canada twelve minutes are permitted. This would help to explain why Canadian viewers never see "scenes from next week's episode"

Yep, and another reason I always watch the show via the U.S. signal. Plus you have to wonder what - if anything - they're cutting out. I can't speak for others, but if I'm going to give my time to a show, I want to see the whole thing, and not what some Canadian editor decides isn't important so they can squeeze in more spots. Although with most hour long shows now down to about 42 minutes sans spots, it's not as big an issue as it once was.  

I know I seem overly over-wrought about this and I probably am. In the grand scheme of things, it's not that important. But it's been bugging me for decades that we are penalized for living and watching TV in Canada. 

fybush wrote:

There is no limit on the number of commercial minutes per hour in the US. 

I'm not sure what the rules are these days, but back in the 70s, there was a delineated commercial quota in Canada and they always allowed more spots on our TV shows. That's why they had to edit out parts of programs and I often wondered as a kid if the person or people doing it even bothered to watch the show they were destroying.

[Sample: "And that's how I know the murderer is..." THIS WEEK, THERE'S A SALE ON ALL FRIDGES AT EATON'S... And I'm not kidding when I tell you that, at times, it was that bad.]

I know you didn't grow up in Canada Scott, so you might not know. But they absolutely used to destroy the shows with their barbaric editing that didn't seem to take into account plot points, emotional build-up or catharsis of a given episode. It was just cut for the sake of cutting - sometimes in the middle of a scene - because I've got to jam in three more spots here. And it was awful. 

I agree it's not so much of an issue today,with shorter shows, but it was such an insult to the viewer that to this day, I still don't trust Canadian stations. And besides, I like those "next week" previews we never see here. 

In the end, everyone has one of those "it's just not that important issues" that drives them crazy. This one was mine and as you can see, it goes back a long way.