Writer’s Guild video attempts to explain TV fight

 Posted by on 15 November 2009  Modern Life
Nov 152009
 

If you’re Canadian (as I’m sure most of our readers are) and have watched TV in the last few months, than you’ve seen the fight going on between broadcasters and cable/satellite.

In the attack ads,  the broadcasters are claiming they want their fare share from cable to “Save Local TV” and the cable companies are accusing the broadcasters of imposing a “TV Tax”.

The ads are aimed at us, the Canadian public, and either side wants us to choose. And it’s a little confusing who to believe. When I watch the commercials, all I know for sure is that both sides claim to be looking out for my best interest, but are ultimately looking out for themselves.

So I was glad to come across this video by the Writer’s Guild of Canada, which tries to sort out and explain what’s going on, and my assumptions were right: both sides are looking out for themselves, and not really caring about the consumer in any real capacity.

Amy Breen

  • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

    Ha! I was going to post this but you beat me to it. I even had a post all written. I was going to say:

    The Writer’s Guild of Canada — a group that I like and like the more I learn about it — have weighed in on the most confounding moral issues of our times: should I support a TV tax or should I support local TV?

    Obviously, this is one of those occasions where each opposing side is trying to present their case in the most flattering light possible. It’s a language war — if you can define the terms, you’ll win. (Think also of the battle between “anti-abortion” and “pro-choice” camps.)

    This current dilemma is confusing, even in the plainest language. Essentially, Canadian broadcast TV thinks it needs more money, and it wants to get paid by the Canadian cable companies. They say that this will help support local broadcast stations, and will force the cable companies to pay their fair share for programming that benefits them and for which they currently get kind of a free ride.

    Canadian cable companies, on the other hand, say that it’s unfair to suddenly slap them with an extra charge, out of nowhere, for doing what they’ve always done, and are calling it a “TV tax.”

    I also found it on BoingBoing, where Cory Doctorow says that neither side comes off looking all that good:

    “Both groups receive enormous subsidies to promote Canadian television (broadcasters get a “local programming fee” and cable/sat operators get a state-backed monopoly that keeps foreigners out). Both want more money, and both want the other guy to collect the fee, so they other guy looks like a jerk.”

    But the best comment there calls it “a dinosaur fight. Let them squabble amongst themselves while the internet asteroid approaches.”

  • http://www.absurdintellectual.com Amy Breen

    I scooped you! Sorry!

    I forgot to say in my post that I got this from BoingBoing, specifically ex-pat Cory Doctorow, who was just kind of confused about it.

  • http://www.atomicrobotdesign.com Mikatron

    Wait a second…big corporations want even more money from me??

    This must be Harper’s fault!

    • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

      I’m sure what you meant to say was “HARRRR-PERRRRR!” with a *fist-shake*

  • http://patrickjohanneson.com/ Pat J

    I sent an email to “Local TV Matters”, asking them — if local TV matters so much to them — why their member entity CTV withdrew from a deal to purchase CKX, and allowed the satation to go off the air.

    I’m still wating on a response. (Not that I’m surprised.)

  • http://patrickjohanneson.com/ Pat J

    Also, the orthographer in me finds it amusing that the Writers’ Guild of Canada would misspell “all together now” in a YouTube video.