Mar 12
2009

Canada’s cable and satellite television companies are currently running a campaign against what they call signal theft. It includes a number of television commercials, including one in which a small boy in a store puts a chocolate bar in his pocket without paying only to be confronted by the store owner after he leaves.

The boy was obviously shoplifting. Later he is confronted by a parent figure, who asks where he learnt to steal, saying that it could not of been at home.

The boy replies that he learnt to steal from his father who in the boy’s words, steals satellite signals. Theft we are told is theft.

Perhaps. Canada is the only democracy which, like the dictatorships of North Korea and China makes watching unauthorized television a crime.

The dictatorships do so to suppress revolutionary ideas that may infiltrate their oppressed populations. We do so ostensibly to protect ourselves from undue American influence on our culture and to protect our fragile broadcasting industry and our endangered artists.

This despite the fact that the real mark of artistic success in Canada is to be recognized south of the border and to be paid accordingly.

The standard of broadcasting success here is to clone of popular U.S. television channel or program and to persuade the government regulator to ban the original from Canadian airwaves.

We license Canadian broadcaster to obtain approved U.S. programs and to air them not only on their own channels, but to have their signals (and their advertisements) simultaneously substituted on U.S. stations. We have a rather silly situation where a Winnipeg television viewer can dial up ABC, NBC, or CBS for an entire evening and find himself watching CTV, Global and A channel without touching his own TV dial.

Back to the shoplifting kid. Why with all these controls, are cable companies worried about what they call satellite theft? Because, to their concern, three quarters of a million Canadians are fed up with their government dictating what television they are allowed to watch and are fighting back by accessing U.S. satellites. They would rather

Watch the originals rather than the clones. Some even want the other half of the Super Bowl games- the commercials that pull in as many viewers as the game itself, but which are deleted from the Canadian broadcasts.

Our cable companies, operating under an organization called the Coalition against Satellite Theft, or something similar want us to feel like criminals for watching television.

The comparison to shoplifting is inaccurate. The thieving boy is in a store when the lifts the chocolate bar. The TV viewer is in his home where the signals, not to put too fine a point on it, are trespassing on his property. He simply has equipment that enables him to watch the signals that are already there.

It would be fairer to depict the boy in his home, with the chocolate bar on the kitchen table in some sort of container which he can obtain a key. The fact that the government says it is illegal for him to have that key doesn’t take the chocolate bar out of his home where he thinks, quite rightly, that he should have it.

Canadians who watch TV they want to watch are not shoplifters, or thieves. They are victims of an attempt at control that is unworthy of a democratic government.

We see this control in many places. Our own Royal bank of Canada has recently begun using the name RBC Financial Group. Is it doing so because it is in the process of expanding its U.S. operations and doesn’t think that the combination of Royal and Canada in its name will do it any good there?

Strange, isn’t it, that we applaud the efforts of Canadian organization, such as the Royal Bank and Rogers to expand their U.S. operations but close the door firmly to any U.S. competition here, be it Direct TV which might better suit some of our viewing habits, or a major U.S. bank that might provide some real competition to the benefit of consumers in Canada.

The cable companies, who are stuck with expensive digital programming that no one is watching, want to boost their viewership. How do they propose to do so? By adding U.S. programming, everything from HBO to sports networks.

They should be allowed to do so. Canadian satellite companies should do the same. We however, should be allowed to choose between the clones and the original without being called thieves.

Canada’s cable and satellite television companies are currently running a campaign against what they call signal theft. It includes a number of television commercials, including one in which a small boy in a store puts a chocolate bar in his pocket without paying only to be confronted by the store owner after he leaves.

The boy was obviously shoplifting. Later he is confronted by a parent figure, who asks where he learnt to steal, saying that it could not of been at home.

The boy replies that he learnt to steal from his father who in the boy’s words, steals satellite signals. Theft we are told is theft.

Perhaps. Canada is the only democracy which, like the dictatorships of North Korea and China makes watching unauthorized television a crime.

The dictatorships do so to suppress revolutionary ideas that may infiltrate their oppressed populations. We do so ostensibly to protect ourselves from undue American influence on our culture and to protect our fragile broadcasting industry and our endangered artists.

This despite the fact that the real mark of artistic success in Canada is to be recognized south of the border and to be paid accordingly.

The standard of broadcasting success here is to clone of popular U.S. television channel or program and to persuade the government regulator to ban the original from Canadian airwaves.

We license Canadian broadcaster to obtain approved U.S. programs and to air them not only on their own channels, but to have their signals (and their advertisements) simultaneously substituted on U.S. stations. We have a rather silly situation where a Winnipeg television viewer can dial up ABC, NBC, or CBS for an entire evening and find himself watching CTV, Global and A channel without touching his own TV dial.

Back to the shoplifting kid. Why with all these controls, are cable companies worried about what they call satellite theft? Because, to their concern, three quarters of a million Canadians are fed up with their government dictating what television they are allowed to watch and are fighting back by accessing U.S. satellites. They would rather

Watch the originals rather than the clones. Some even want the other half of the Super Bowl games- the commercials that pull in as many viewers as the game itself, but which are deleted from the Canadian broadcasts.

Our cable companies, operating under an organization called the Coalition against Satellite Theft, or something similar want us to feel like criminals for watching television.

The comparison to shoplifting is inaccurate. The thieving boy is in a store when the lifts the chocolate bar. The TV viewer is in his home where the signals, not to put too fine a point on it, are trespassing on his property. He simply has equipment that enables him to watch the signals that are already there.

It would be more fair to depict the boy in his home, with the chocolate bar on the kitchen table in some sort of container which he can obtain a key. The fact that the government says it is illegal for him to have that key doesn’t take the chocolate bar out of his home where he thinks, quite rightly, that he should have it.

Canadians who watch TV they want to watch are not shoplifters, or thieves. They are victims of an attempt at control that is unworthy of a democratic government.

We see this control in many places. Our own Royal bank of Canada has recently begun using the name RBC Financial Group. Is it doing so because it is in the process of expanding its U.S. operations and doesn’t think that the combination of Royal and Canada in its name will do it any good there?

Strange, isn’t it, that we applaud the efforts of Canadian organization, such as the Royal Bank and Rogers to expand their U.S. operations but close the door firmly to any U.S. competition here, be it Direct TV which might better suit some of our viewing habits, or a major U.S. bank that might provide some real competition to the benefit of consumers in Canada.

The cable companies, who are stuck with expensive digital programming that no one is watching, want to boost their viewership. How do they propose to do so? By adding U.S. programming, everything from HBO to sports networks.

They should be allowed to do so. Canadian satellite companies should do the same. We however, should be allowed to choose between the clones and the original without being called thieves.

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