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.
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For me it was a reason to not choose Shaw/Star Choice when looking for a new cable provider. I assume it will influence others as well.
There is a word for this. Several, in fact. I fear, however, that I’m stymied as to which of them would be both polite and honest to use here.
Gee I have an idea CBC - change swap the signals on Anik F1R C Band transponder 2 with those on Ku band tr 23. Then make transponder 23 Open Keyed DCII 8PSK instead of DVB 8PSK.
That way all of us taxpayers - who pay the freight and wages of CBC bureaufatcats will be able see what we are paying for with any DCII receiver at no extra cost.
But that makes too much sense - it’s the Canadian way - the worst of the old Soviet system + the worst of US Capitalism - let’s have 2 sets of redundant signals on the same satellite - WHAT STUPIDITY!!!!!!!!
“let’s have 2 sets of redundant signals on the same satellite”
You hit the nail on head - crazy.
But if the CBC did that, all Shaw’s competitors would claim the J.R. was getting an unfair benefit.
So my solution is for Shaw to use the 2 freed up transponders to deliver 6 CBC HD feeds - 1 from each timezone - at no charge to every Digicipher receiver owner/cable/satellite company in Canada.
End result: No cash out of Shaw’s pockets + CBC gets HD feeds distributed at no cost (except for links to Shaw’s uplink facilities)
+++ consumers get access to all CBC SD and HD feeds at no extra cost.
What a revolutionary idea. Never will happen in Canada though as it requires a little common sense.
the public canadian television broadcasting frequencies are supposed to be used primarily to keep canadians informed which means news broadcasting local news in both official languages. although entertainment is the deciding factor for any canadian in choosing a cable provider, i think it’s important that the local taxpayer-funded cbc stations (english and french) should be mandatory. canadians pay the cable companies so, in my humble opinion, the cable companies should be able to pay for the transponders. and, frankly, based on their recent profits, they should be able to pay for these transponders out of petty cash.
to “d. doright”…unfortunately i have no idea what you wrote…i’m not a technical specialist…can you explain what dcii receivers are? is my digital cable box a “dcii” equivalent?
[...] UPDATE: Star Choice responds to the CBC Saskatchewan issue with the usual “technical limitations” excuses, and adds that it’s somehow the CBC’s responsibility to provide local TV service to satellite customers. (via Inside the CBC) [...]
Oh great, Jim Shaw’s found the comment form.