Star Choice has responded to the CBC’s complaint that it took the CBC Saskatchewan channel out of its compulsory package for subscribers.

The company, owned by Shaw Communications, claims that CBC News is still on the air — broadcast by the SCN, the Saskatchewan Storyteller channel. SCN itself is not a CBC property.

In a news release headlined “CBC Misleading Public About Star Choice Carriage,” Shaw president Jim Shaw said that if CBC wants its entire channel of CBC Saskatchewan broadcast, it should get its own transponders.

Shaw doesn’t stop there. He blames the move to drop CBC Saskatchewan on the CRTC, saying since the regulator insisted they carry Super Channel, which takes up 10 channels of their bandwidth through 4 standard and 2 HD channels, they had no choice but to bump the local-programming.

The yanking of Radio-Canada’s French language service doesn’t even merit a sentence in the Shaw/Star choice release.

	7 Comments »	See also: Saskatchewan, The CRTC, The Media Landscape
	Email this	Posted at 9:16 am (20 May 2008)

Star Choice has decided to drop yet another channel in its lineup in addition to CBC Saskatchewan — it has now dropped RDI, the CBC French news channel, in all Anglophone markets.

The CBC launched another formal complaint with the CRTC this week. RDI is on a very small list of channels that all providers are required to carry with their basic package, and the CBC argues that Star Choice is now in violation of its broadcast licence.

Earlier this week, five local news channels, including CBC Saskatchewan, were replaced by specialty channels like MuchMusic and Teletoon Retro by Star Choice.

Perhaps they got rid of RDI because they needed room for the Golf Channel?

	1 Comment »	See also: Radio-Canada, Saskatchewan, The CRTC
	Email this	Posted at 11:06 am (16 May 2008)

Turns out Living in Toronto isn’t the only show that will launch soon (see previous post). The total list is:

• Living Vancouver

• Living Calgary
• Living Saskatchewan
• Living Winnipeg
• Living in Ottawa
• Living in Toronto
• Living Montreal
• Living East (based in Halifax with content from Nova Scotia, PEI, & N.B.)
• Living Newfoundland & Labrador

	4 Comments »	See also: B.C. Interior, Living In, Maritimes & Nwfld., Montreal, Ottawa, Saskatchewan, Vancouver, Winnipeg
	Email this	Posted at 2:27 pm (05 Jan 2007)