How Canadians Get Their TV

Michael sent me this comment about a month ago and I thought the topic was interesting enough to coax an article out of. It concerns the mechanics of how TV is delivered in Canada.

I am curious about how the Canadians get their TV. Cable, satellite, downloading (such as NetFlix, iTunes, and Amazon) or DVDs.

How many channels are available to view? How much of the country's area is reached by TV in any form? What percentage of Canadians watch TV? Is it based on the free commercial model, the pay-tv model (cable for example), or license fees of the British?

To answer part of the last question first, Television in Canada is largely based on the free commercial model, although certain premium stations – HBO Canada, Sportsnet World, The Movie Network (in Ontario and east), Movie Central (Manitoba and west), and Superchannel – are commercial free but operate on a pay-TV model by charging significantly higher subscription prices than other channels. Apparently there was, in the early 1950s, a short-lived attempt to intrdoduce a licensing system such as the British use to help fund the CBC but that effort apparently died because Canada and the United States use the same technical standards and equipment and it was nearly impossible to stop people from buying (unlicensed) sets in the US and bringing them into Canada.

According to the CRTC, virtually all Canadians have access to over the air broadcast (OTA) signals but about 92% Canadians get their TV with cable and satellite. There are two major cable companies (Rogers and Shaw), three smaller regional companies (EastLink, Cogeco and Videotron) and a number of small independent companies, some of them community or cooperatively owned. There are two satellite companies Bell ExpressVu and Shaw Direct. Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) offered by several of the telephone companies including Telus in BC and Alberta, Sasktel Max in Saskatchewan, MTS in Manitoba, BellTV in Ontario and Quebec, and Aliant in Atlantic Canada has a far smaller penetration in Canada than in the United States. Shaw, which is the primary cable TV provider in Western Canada and Northern Ontario is both the largest service provider in Canada and the largest Digital Cable provider. Part of this is because of their ownership of the Shaw Direct Satellite service which is significantly smaller than the Bell ExpressVu service.

Downloading is an available option although penetration is relatively low. According to a 2010 CRTC report in a typical week less than 25% of Anglophones and 20% of Francophones watched TV programming – defined as including “a TV program, newscast or clip from a TV program available on the Internet” – as opposed to over 40% of Anglophones and 35% of Francophones who watched amateur videos online. Sources appear to be somewhat restricted. Hulu is not legally available in Canada although there are people who try to avoid these restrictions. Apple has a Canadian service that appears (to a non-user like me) to be fairly extensive. In most cases you order from Canadian service providers such as CBC, CTV, Global, and CityTV and the cable service providers. NetFlix introduced a Canadian service in 2010. Again I’m not a subscriber so I can’t speak to the selection. Amazon Instant Video isn’t available in Canada. A potentially major problem for downloading may be the ownership issue. Shaw, Bell, and Rogers are among the largest Internet service providers in the country and the principal suppliers of broadband Internet services as well as the major cable/satellite Television providers. They also own the four largest broadcast stations – CTV (Bell), Global (Shaw), CityTV and Omni (Rogers) – as well as a high percentage of the Canadian cable channels. There is a benefit to them in restricting the penetration of downloading commercially made videos online.

The number of stations available to Canadians gets very complicated. Let’s start with broadcast. There are three English language networks – CBC, CTV, and Global – and two major English language systems – CTV Two, and CityTV. Systems are defined by the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission as groups of stations that don’t have outlets throughout the country. There are two French Language networks – Radio Canada (which has stations in all provinces) and TVA (stations in Quebec, cable deals in the rest of the country) – and one French language system – V (formerly TQS or Quatre Saisson). There is one multilingual network – APTN or Aboriginal Peoples Television Network with broadcast stations in all three territories and cable coverage in the rest of Canada which broadcasts in English French and several Aboriginal languages – and one multilingual system – Omni, which has five stations and broadcasts in no less than twenty different languages including Mandarin, Cantonese, Punjabi, Portuguese and Italian. People in border regions can also receive broadcast stations from nearby American cities.

Turning to cable/satellite, most Canadians have access to at least five American network stations as part of the most basic cable package, with others available depending on what sort of cable package they subscribe to. Four US “superstations” (WSBK, WGN, Peachtree and KTLA) are available depending on service provider – some require a subscription to premium movie services to get these stations. Canadians also have access to 110 Canadian owned English language, 33 French language, and 54 multilingual analogue and digital services. There are 67 English language, 26 French language and five multilingual High Definition services but most of these duplicate existing analogue, and to a lesser extent digital TV services. This is in addition to a number of American and Foreign broadcast and cable stations carried in Canada. Most Canadian cable subscribers also have access to more American and international specialty channels than I choose to count. Needless to say, no cable or satellite system carries everything, either because of limited bandwidth or because of rivalries between the various cable companies which are also cable channel owners.

I hope this gives you some answers about Canadian TV. It’s not the whole story – I haven’t even touched on simsubs and why Canadian stations schedule shows the way they do – but it’s a start.

The TV Detective Returns

Got an email a short while ago that revived the TV Detective side of me, and not a moment too soon. I confess I am getting increasingly tired/bored with constantly writing about the PTC and I pretty much assume you are getting bored with me writing about it. Anyway, Christine Cowan writes:

I have been searching online for a while now for a show that none of my friends/family seem to remember. What I do recall: the opening of the tv show had a (small) covered waggon and actors dressed as peasants or gypsies following behind walking through the countryside. The show itself took place indoors on a modern-day studio/stage. They were still dressed in old garb and acted out fables or cautionary tales (no props or backgrounds). 2 stories I do remember are the Fisherman and his Wife (has a wish granting fish in it); and a Grimm Fairytale about a (beautiful) girl drowned by her jealous sister – her bones & hair found by a miller who makes them into a singing harp which later reveals her murderer to her family. The show closed with the troupe silhouetted outside a dusk. PLEASE say it sounds familiar! If it helps, I suspect it was either a late 70's or early 80's show (given I was born in '74) and I lived in rural Ontario and only got a handful of stations on the aerial – Global and TVOntario came in the clearest.

This rang a bell for me because I had a similar question just at the end of last year which unfortunately I blew off, or at least didn't answer at the time. It came from Meleita Dart, who wrote,

I have been thinking about a Saturday morning TV show that I used to watch in the early 70's. I believe it was call "Sunshine Theatre" but I can't seem to find any information on it.

Can you recall this show? It was namely upcoming actors who would act out fairtale such as "Jack and the Bean Stalk" etc.

I've been thinking about this quite a bit – okay, I haven't been losing sleep over it but I have been thinking of it since Meleita first wrote me, and I'm pretty sure that the series you are both thinking of is Story Theatre. Christine's description of the opening titles is exactly what I remember about the series; a group of wandering players sort of skipping, dancing along behind a sort of gypsy style wagon; I think tambourines were played, although the opening credits were shot silent and a soundtrack put on over them.

The show was based off of Paul Sill's Broadway hit Story Theatre – in fact one of the stories told in the play was The Fisherman and his Wife – but the TV show was shot at the BCTV studios in Vancouver and aired during the 1971-72 season (which was the first season that we had CTV in Saskatoon). The show had an amazing cast, many of them drawn from Second City in Chicago. Hamilton Camp, Paul Sand, Richard Schaal and his then wife Valerie Harper, Richard Libertini and his then wife Melinda Dillon, and Peter Bonerz had all appeared in the original Broadway cast of the show. Most had ties with Chicago's Second City troupe (and many would end up working for Mary Tyler Moore). They were supplemented by a number of actors including Avery Schreiber, Severn Darden, and Alan Alda. The series first ran on CTV on Sunday evenings during the 1971-72 season. There was only one season made and it didn't generate big ratings or international sales (and as was usual in this period CTV needed sales into the United States to keep shows on the air...or so they claimed). According to the listing of CTV shows done by The Canadian Communications Foundation, the series apparently was repeated by the network in 1972-73 and again in 1974-75 in a Saturday morning time slot.

This leaves me with a bit of a problem as Christine mentions that she was born in 1974 and the only available rerun dates I have for the show are for the CTV reruns, which are just a little too early for her dates. But she does mention that TVOntario was one of the small number of stations that were available to her growing up, which makes me wonder if maybe CTV sold reruns of Story Theatre to them during the late '70s and early '80s. I think it is possible; indeed I think I may have seen episodes of the show during the early years of the Saskatchewan Communications Network, the educational channel here in Saskatchewan. It's no longer available here

I have been looking online for either a video of the opening credits (preferable) or even a photo from the show to go with this article. Maddeningly nothing is available online. You'll just have to take my word for it.

A Tale Of Two Continents

A few days ago I mentioned that there was something that the CBC was doing in their Winter Olympic coverage that I wasn't entirely comfortable or happy with. It was something I thought I needed to think about and having thought about it I'm still neither comfortable nor happy about it but at least I have some small modicum of understanding about why they did it.

So what did the "Mother Corporation" do to spark such ambivalence in me? They've propagated a fraud. Well not really, it's more like an open secret but they've haven' exactly been bursting down any doors to tell anyone about it. Of the three main hosts of CBC's Olympic coverage - the people who toss it to the various event locations - only one is actually in Italy. Ron MacLean is anchoring the afternoon coverage (evening in Turin or Torino) from the network's base camp at Palasport Olimpico, the main Ice Hockey venue for the games (the Olympics calls the game Ice Hockey to differentiate it from the game that the rest of the world calls Hockey and North Americans and other northern peoples call Field Hockey - there are a lot more of them than us). Morning host Terry Leibel and primetime host Brian Williams are working out of the Canadian Broadcasting Centre at 250 Front Street Toronto. (Williams was in Torino for the Opening Ceremonies along with Peter Mansbridge, anchor of The National but returned to Toronto from Torino in time to host his primetime show the next day.)

The publicly stated reasons for handling the coverage in this manner is cost. According to an article in the Toronto Star the move will save approximately $1 Million. A significant portion of this saving is in the number of people who aren't in Torino. Under normal circumstances - that is to say the way the CBC has covered the Games since Albertville when they got the rights back - the Corporation would send a team of about 255 people to Torino for about three weeks. That means housing them in hotels in the Olympic city with its overinflated room prices, not to mention bringing equipment and building a broadcast facility for the event. Instead the network is running its coverage out of their own main facility where 150 technical staff handles the feed from Italy. That's staff who go home at nights and sleep in their own beds - at no cost to the CBC.

There are other advantages as well. When the coverage needs as special analyst - say Kurt Browning or Brian Stemmle - for the prime time portion of the broadcast when everything is on tape and has been seen before they're available as needed without having to fly them to Italy for the duration. Don Cherry can come in from Mississauga to spend ten minutes talking to Brian Williams about the hockey game and let's face it, anything that keeps Mr. Crankypants from causing an international incident is a bonus. That statement (about Cherry causing an international incident) was facetious but it brings up another point; what if there is a major breaking story - like the Atlanta bombing - at the Olympic site or in Turin? According to Executive Producer Terry Ludwick "In some ways, it will be easier to anchor and marshal all our resources there. We can have world reaction, local reaction, we can jump around and we'll be plugged into the Canadian angle, too."

As far as the actual coverage goes, it's hard to tell the difference between Toronto and Torino. Proof of that is that Terry Leibel's morning shift in Toronto runs directly into Ron MacLean's afternoon coverage from Palasport Olimpico. It doesn't hurt that both anchors are operating in front of a rather bland background that gives no hint as to where they actually are. This in itself is a change for the CBC. As late as the 2000 Olympics in Sydney (and possibly in Salt Lake City although I don't have any clear images of that) the CBC shunned the International Broadcast Centres for purpose built studios that they found on their own. In Sydney they built a studio on the roof of a school which overlooked Sydney Harbour and provided a great backdrop which gave visual cues as to the time of day. This didn't occur during the Athens Olympics and while it isn't stated I suspect that post September, 11 2001 security concerns have caused organizing committees to want to keep broadcasters either at the IBC or in a secure facility like Palasport Olimpico.

The decision to operate out of Toronto has curtailed to a great extent one CBC tradition - interviewing Canadian medal winners in studio during prime time coverage, but according to Ludwick this would have been a problem anyway. Many of the Olympic venues are up to two hours away so interviews on the day of the event would have to be conducted by satellite hookups anyway. In such a circumstance it doesn't matter if the show is being done out of Canada or Italy. Other broadcasters are taking notice. According to Dave Mazza, NBC's senior vice-president of engineering, "The CBC has done a great job with this. It's much more affordable. With rising rights fees, everybody's looking to cut costs without sacrificing the quality of coverage." For their part NBC is trying this in a small manner by having the commentary team for their curling coverage in the United States rather than Italy.

While cost is a factor, the fact is that these Olympics represent something of a financial windfall for the CBC. It's estimated that these will be the most profitable games for the CBC ever, thanks in part to the amount that CTV spent to get the coverage rights to the 2010 Winter Olympics (in Vancouver) and the 2012 Summer Olympics (in London). According to another Toronto Star report
"there's a theory that advertisers figure prices will be so high when CTV takes over in 2010 that this could be their last shot at the Olympic rings." The quote ad buyer Eli Paper: "They (the CTV-Rogers consortium) spent copious amounts of money getting those Olympics and I don't expect they'll want to pick up the bill." They'll expect the advertisers to pay the bill. People may be thinking this is the last Winter Olympics for some time I can reasonably get into." Even though viewership for the evening show are down by about 45% from the levels they were at for Salt Lake City, ratings for the afternoon coverage are up 36% from 2002 (and both are comparable with ratings for the 2004 Athens Olympics). The reasons for the difference should be obvious - finals for events in Salt Lake City occurred during prime time while the prime time show this year is made up entirely of highlights and recaps of the day's events.

I have a problem with all of this. I can see the cost savings after the CBC strike of last summer and at a time when the new Conservative government is bound to want to remake the CBC in an image more in line with its ideas about the public broadcaster (some of the more conservative elements of the Conservative Party would like to shut down the place or at least turn anything that makes money - like Hockey Night In Canada - over to private broadcasters). On the other hand I'm reminded of a commercial from a few years back. In it a widely travelled corporate executive was showing off pictures of his travels to someone who turns out to be the company's IT nerd. The nerd tells him that with installation of this new software (Lotus Notes I think it was) he'll never have to go on the road again. The problem I saw immediately in that commercial (and why I was convinced that the software would be a bust if sold on that basis) is that just because the technology works doesn't mean it will be effective. In the case of the software, clients like to work face to face with human beings. In the case of the Olympic coverage having the hosts on the ground in Italy gives the event a certain amount of importance while not detracting from the newsworthiness. I'm not saying that the coverage is bad - for the most part I rank it higher than the NBC coverage - but not having Leibel and Williams there in some hard to describe way lessens the event by not immersing them in the atmosphere of the thing. Somehow it just seems wrong.