Canada Satlite
Canada's cable companies are currently engaged in a full-court press in Ottawa, where legislators are reviewing the various provisions of the federal Broadcasting Act. On the list of cable grievances and/or demands are the dangers posed by the "grey market" in U.S. satellite dishes, and the need to set cable firms free of foreign ownership rules. As usual, the industry is desperately trying to have its cake and eat it too.
Although the cable guys and the telephone companies are supposed to be bitter enemies, the Canadian Cable Television Association fell all over itself earlier this week to jump on a study of the grey market satellite business that was paid for by Bell ExpressVu (a sister company to Bell Globemedia, which owns globeandmail.com). According to the survey, the fact that hundreds of thousands of people subscribe to U.S. satellite services is apparently a scourge on the venerable cable television industry.
The study reported that between 600,000 and 800,000 Canadians — about the same number of subscribers as Star Choice has — prefer to pay a U.S. satellite provider such as DirecTV rather than paying Rogers or Shaw for their cable, or getting their satellite service from Bell ExpressVu or Star Choice (which is owned by Shaw). The study says that this takes $400-million in revenues from the indigenous cable television business.
