TCM In Canada - A Few Thoughts

As I mentioned earlier, Shaw Cable has added Turner Classic Movies to their cable lineup. It's an analog channel, largely because the original license approval by the CRTC required that the network be on the same tier of services as The Family Channel. As a side effect, it's probably available to a larger audience than it would be if it were on digital cable. The station was activated in Saskatoon today and I have to say that for the most part I was highly impressed. There were a couple of minor things I wasn't entirely happy with, the biggest being that the promos were for the American service but a couple of movies weren't cleared for the station to air in Canada. Thus, instead of seeing Joel McCrea in These Three (with Miriam Hopkins and Merle Oberon) and Dead End (with McCrea, Sylvia Sidney and Humphrey Bogart) the Canadian feed showed McCrea in Stars In My Crown followed by Primrose Path. At least they stuck with the theme of the night. An extensive comparison of the US and Canadian schedules shows that on most days between two and four movies are substituted, most for rights issues but some for unknown reasons but ones which I'm not crazy about. The Friday night foreign films like Kameradschaft and Yojimbo won't be seen for unknown reasons. Nor will silent films (an interest of mine) on most nights other than Sunday - I won't be able to tape the 1923 Hunchback Of Notre Dame or The Adventures of Prince Achmed. Fortunately all of the Harold Lloyd festival on November 20 will be shown here. Making matters worse is that the only way I learned of any of this is by checking the TCM schedule on their website, which has a separate Canadian listing. They also don't seem to be airing some of the TCM documentaries. On the whole, I'm satisfied.

As far as my friends who use Rogers and Bell ExpressVu, it appears as if their providers won't be following suit. According to a poster in the Digital Home Canada forums, "The third level customer support manager indicated to me that Bell had no interest in TCM or (Turner Movies Classic he referred to it). He said that not enough or any customers had requested the channel and that as of right now BELL is not negotiating the addition of TCM. Bell had no interest in TCM or (Turner Movies Classic he referred to it). He said that not enough or any customers had requested the channel and that as of right now BELL is not negotiating the addition of TCM." Presumably the same is true of Rogers Cable, but certainly the Bell Expressvu attitude must be annoying to people who enjoy old movies and are being served by inferior channels - like Silver Screen Classics, which apparently shows only Public Domain material - when other Canadians are seeing a channel with a huge film library and a sterling reputation for using it.