BDU and SPECIALTY PREVIEW #3: Do our genres still need protecting?

LEAVE IT TO SHAW to not only demand genre protection go away, but to use a lovely incendiary word that broadcasters have long used against cable: monopoly. When Shaw Communications’ submission to the CRTC on its upcoming policy review on broadcast distribution undertakings and specialty services addressed the Commission’s policy on genre protection (which means there’s only supposed to be one comedy specialty, one short film channel, one preschool channel, and so on), it refers to the protection as a genre monopoly. “I’m not going to be lectured to by Jim Shaw about being in the monopoly business,” said Paul...