TORONTO – A two-tier approach to television service is unfair, says the Canadian Media Guild (CMG), and they have released a poll that shows that the “overwhelming majority” of Canadians agree.
84% of residents of Kamloops, BC – one of the Canadian cities that could lose over-the-air television after the upcoming digital TV transition – said it is unfair that they could lose access to free TV signals.
Broadcasters will be required to provide over-the-air signals in only 29 major cities after the transition to digital TV, potentially impacting 11 million Canadians who live outside of Canada’s biggest cities.
"How can we simply accept a plan that hands free TV service to big-city Canadians and cuts off everyone else?", asked Lise Lareau, CMG’s national president, in a press release.
The poll, conducted by Vector Research + Development in mid-July, also found the residents reluctant to start paying for TV services. None of the residents who currently watch the three available free channels in Kamloops exclusively using rabbit ears or an antenna said that they would pay for cable or satellite if those free signals disappeared. Nearly half of this group says they would simply live without TV, while 42% say they’d watch TV shows on the Internet.
More than three-quarters of people in Kamloops know only a little (50%) or nothing (26%) about the transition to digital TV scheduled for 2011, the release continued.
"The shut-down of free, over-the-air TV in hundreds of communities is being treated like a state secret," Lareau continued. "Very few people in the industry want to talk about over-the-air TV and the government has been silent."
