The State of Cancon: What began as a Band-Aid for broadcasters, now a harmful regulation for Cancom

By Doris Montanera

THE YEAR 1972 saw the beginning of the Watergate scandal and the M.A.S.H. television series. It was also the year that the balm of simultaneous substitution (simsub) was handed to Canadian broadcasters.Simsub, where the Canadian feed including ads is substituted over the American channel's signal, was designed to soothe broadcasters’ fears over bruised bank accounts caused by advertisers defecting to the U.S. with the advent of cable. Instead, this Band-Aid solution healed one hurt but caused another. Peel it back and there’s a sore festering over Canadian content. (Ed note: An earlier version of this story contained an inaccurate description of simsub. ...