INDUSTRY MINISTER JAMES MOORE likely caused a number of folks in the Canadian subscription TV business to choke on their turkey this Thanksgiving weekend.
In a few media interviews, Moore dropped a preview bomb of this Wednesday’s Throne Speech by saying the federal Conservative government will make it its business to micromanage sectors of the economy, beginning with dismantling the TV channel packaging practices of Canadian broadcasters and broadcast distribution undertakings. “We don’t think it’s right for Canadians to have to pay for bundled television channels that they don’t watch,” he told CTV’s Question Period in an interview broadcast Sunday morning.
It’s a familiar refrain the industry knows well and we’re certain it will be the number one complaint made to the CRTC in its upcoming review of TV policies in Canada., set to launch October 24.
“We want to unbundle television channels and allow Canadians to pick and pay the specific television channels that they want,” he continued. “That’s a cost that is imposed onto consumers that is unfair – where they have to pay for services they’re not interested in. We think it’s time to modernize that, to move forward and allow people to pick the channels that they want.”
Minister Moore also said the federal government is again going to go after the wireless industry, this time on domestic roaming rates (the CRTC has dealt with international roaming bills with the new Consumer Code of Conduct which will take effect December 2), the airline business and credit card fees.
Now, neither hosts of the shows we saw (Global’s The West Block also had Moore on) asked the Minister how the federal government plans to do any of this, so that is still up in the air. Will there be new edicts to the CRTC? An overhaul of the Broadcasting and Telecom Acts? Brand new consumer laws? New rate regulation? Will it force private contacts to be torn up and rewritten? We don’t know.
However, still breathing the vapours of a massive summer public relations explosion on the wireless – over the rumour of the possible entry of Verizon into Canada – the Canadian media and telecom industry should know there is no way to win this fight in the public forum. No matter what stories or series of explanations or newspaper ads Canadian broadcasters or BDUs might come up with, there is no way to win this.
Reams of economic data can be brought forth showing how costly great content has become and how smaller channels won’t survive without being attached to larger bundles. Broadcasters can, and have, come up with cogent arguments on how preserving the status quo is great, collectively, for all involved because with more subscribers paying a little, it saves us all from paying a lot and gives us greater mutual choice (it’s an argument we at Cartt.ca have made in the past).
None of it will matter, though. It won’t make any difference. In the face of the feds easy “more choice” mantra this summer, the big three wireless companies attempted to make arguments that were logically correct, but Canadians just didn’t care what Bell, Rogers and Telus had to say.
The federal Conservatives have also shown they will not be budged when their minds are set. They will not be thinking about what’s good for the industry or the tens of thousands of people employed by it, or about the fate of smaller broadcasters or even the incongruity of attempting to “fix” markets that so-called conservatives normally say should be left alone. The federal government will have a simple message geared towards political goals. Choice is good. Paying less is good.
Nothing anyone can come up with will resonate better than that because choice IS good. Paying less IS good. Consumers know this and that’s why most will likely stay with their larger packages of more channels. Bigger packages of channels with good content will be more affordable than buying them one at a time. This is common practice in all retail.
So, the Canadian TV industry must not fight this one. They must provide the choice Canadians say they want to have. It’s something we have often called for. EastLink’s Lee Bragg has already said his company favours more pick and pay options and the Halifax-based cableco is making it happen for its customers. Videotron has offered choice like that for a while. Rogers Communications’ Ken Engelhart was quoted this weekend saying the industry has to accept this, adjust, and move on. There has been no official comment from Bell Canada, Shaw Communications or other broadcasters and BDUs (while we can likely say the independent BDUs are behind more a-la-carte) but in order to reclaim this issue and calm customers, the Canadian vertically integrated companies must now say “yes, we’ll do this” and not launch a messy fight it can’t win.
