NOVEMBER 18, 2009

       We’re paying and that’s all that matters, right? Isn’t that the bottom like with this whole TV network versus cable company thing? Am I the only one thinking this whole mudslinging campaign is ridiculous?

       The networks have some guy strumming a guitar in a field and cows and glasses of milk (you’ve seen it, you know what I’m talking about) yet they complain they need money from the cable providers. If there’s no money, who paid for the commercial’s production?

       Also, this wasn’t an issue 40 years ago when the networks were making money and the economy wasn’t sucking. So now things are unfair because a network like CTV (that reportedly paid $90 million for broadcasting rights of next year’s Olympics, remember) has no money to buy all the flashy American programming you enjoy during primetime hours. (Again, those shows don’t come cheap to Canadian broadcasters.)

       Now, networks like CTV are threatening to blackout the signal during highly rated American programming as a way to punish viewers, assumingly not thinking it’s not much of a loss because we can turn to the originating American station. That’ll show us!

       And if they’re going to pull the plug, isn’t that the company just punishing its employees by putting them out of work? That’s exactly what CTV did at stations in a couple provinces by shutting down operations.

       I look at it as them saying, ‘we’re the best thing to happen to Canadian broadcasting but we don’t care about the Canadians we employ, so we’ll cut them loose if we don’t get our way.’ What a fine representation of corporate Canada!

       Both sides of the battle are getting the CRTC involved and if you’ve seen any of the hearings, you know the CRTC is very laid back throughout the whole thing and saying, “Can you just get along? Why so much bickering?”

       With big corporations acting like children, is it any wonder advertising is sucking? Who’d want to advertise on volatile stations that threaten to pull the plug at any minute?