Greed and the phonies

Over the last few weeks, Canadians got exposed to two spurious sides of a debate. The television networks want cable companies to provide funds for local television.

In Canada, Cable TV companies swipe local broadcasts and programs out of the air. It has been going on for years. They do not pay for the signals. But they are totally willing to force their cussytomers to pay for cable, everything on cable.

Now at first glance this is all very simple. Yes the larger television stations broadcasting locally should get funding from cable. However most of their broadcast purchases are from the USA. Not much of their program broadcasts are homegrown.

And the cable companies have a legitimate argument. Why should they pay for free air broadcasts for programming that already exists, and they pay for on competing cable and USA television channels.

It should be noted that the CRTC has turned the broadcasters down twice already. This is the third strike. Broadcasters are threatening to close down the smaller local stations. For the cable companies this is idle threat because their revenue derives from distant sources in the beginning.

The CRTC commission doesn't want to be the bad guy and impose an additional fee. And everyone else is blaming the other participants. The CRTC wishes the two sides to negotiate and play nice. The buck stops at station greed.