1 of 1- In Phase
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CITY-TV digital 20 years ago
Just noticed... twenty years ago, CITY began regular ATSC digital transmission on March 3, 2003, becoming the first station in Canada to operate a digital television signal.
(testing actually began on February 28, 2003)
- Forward Power
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Re: CITY-TV digital 20 years ago
And Rogers ruined it. Worst corporation in this country.
- ED1
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Re: CITY-TV digital 20 years ago
All the broadcasters (CBC included) and the CRTC ruined DTV in Canada. We could have OTA TV with 20+ channels varying from the big networks in HD to interesting diginets available for free via antenna like they do in the US. Instead we barely get the minimum number of local channels.
- RadioActive
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Re: CITY-TV digital 20 years ago
All you have to do is look at who owns most of the OTA stations to figure out why. Rogers & Bell would vastly prefer you to subscribe to their overpriced cable, fibre and satellite services in order to get those "extra" channels. They see no business case to give anything away for free. And once again, Canadians are poorer for having the same greedy corporations owning most of the broadcast outlets in the country.
- MJ Vancouver
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Re: CITY-TV digital 20 years ago
RadioActive wrote:
All you have to do is look at who owns most of the OTA stations to figure out why. Rogers & Bell would vastly prefer you to subscribe to their overpriced cable, fibre and satellite services in order to get those "extra" channels. They see no business case to give anything away for free. And once again, Canadians are poorer for having the same greedy corporations owning most of the broadcast outlets in the country.
Very true; however CBC had an opportunity to be a leader in digital OTA and they couldn’t be bothered to do more than the absolute bare minimum, and in the process abandoning free access to their television for a large part of Canada. (I don’t count CBC Gem because you need a paid Internet subscription to access it)
- RadioActive
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Re: CITY-TV digital 20 years ago
I agree - CBC could certainly have done more and in fact, set the example for others. But they didn't take advantage of it and seem completely uninterested in the extra channel space. They could have, for example, put their new digital Internet only all-news channel Explore on a subcarrier to make it more accessible to people who still watch over-the-air. But they didn't and there's no sign they plan to do any such thing.
- ED1
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Re: CITY-TV digital 20 years ago
All you have to do is look at who owns most of the OTA stations to figure out why. Rogers & Bell would vastly prefer you to subscribe to their overpriced cable, fibre and satellite services in order to get those "extra" channels. They see no business case to give anything away for free. And once again, Canadians are poorer for having the same greedy corporations owning most of the broadcast outlets in the country.
Very true; however CBC had an opportunity to be a leader in digital OTA and they couldn’t be bothered to do more than the absolute bare minimum, and in the process abandoning free access to their television for a large part of Canada. (I don’t count CBC Gem because you need a paid Internet subscription to access it)
I disagree with you on the notion that the internet (at least home internet) is a "nice to have" thing at home. It's pretty much considered a public utility in 2023, and if you think about it you also need to pay monthly for electricity for a TV to work. If streaming is the future, I will give CBC credit for their efforts into CBC Gem/Tou.tv and making all of their over their air stations available via streaming for free.
Back to DTV OTA, I will agree with you that all our TV broadcasters have done a disservice to the general public. Plus, the low hanging fruit for CBC was to at least have CBC-TV and Radio Canada TV channel share on the same DTV transmitter (like what Comcast is doing in some cities where they have an NBC and a Telemundo station in the same market).