QUISPAMSIS – The Canadian Cable Systems Alliance (CCSA) has added its voice to those speaking out against the proposed merger of Bell and Astral.
Describing the matter as “profoundly a consumer issue”, CCSA president Alyson Townsend said that should the deal be approved, Canadian TV viewers will continue to be denied the ability to buy and pay for only the channels they really want. In addition, small cable and telephone TV distributors presently serving rural and remote communities in Canada would most likely be put out of business or gobbled up by Bell.
Citing her organization’s experience as a member of the the Canadian Independent Distributors Group, which recently lost a final offer arbitration dispute against Bell Media, she added that Bell’s growing dominance as a distributor and content owner means that “more consumers will be forced to pay more money for the same services they get today".
"The contract that eventually resulted from that difficult negotiation is completely different from anything we have seen before”, she said Wednesday in a statement. “It combines major price increases, especially on the marquee, 'must have' channels like TSN and RDS, with packaging restrictions that effectively prevent the smaller distributors from creating any new digital packages to respond to their customers. That means that the Bell services will, for the most part, remain packaged as they are today but with increased prices.”
CCSA represents more than 110 small, independent cable, telco and IPTV companies that serve over 750,000 Canadians in communities in all provinces and territories, including many isolated communities across the North.
As for Bell, it is responding to the PR campaign against it with its own push, highlighted by Wednesday's advertisement in in the Montreal Gazette, pictured below.
