CAMPBELL RIVER and CALGARY – As of Wednesday afternoon, 10,000 Campbell River TV customers were still without most of their TV channels.
As reported by cartt.ca yesterday, Shaw Communications, which owns both networks that CRTV relies on for distant signals, had shut off the microwave system delivering U.S. over-the-air signals and had cut off access to most other Canadian TV signals delivered by Shaw satellite division Cancom.
The problem, says Shaw, is that CRTV is encouraging customers to go to the town of Courtenay – a Shaw Cable region about 45 kms south – purchase digital set top boxes there and bring them back for use in the Campbell River system. Since both companies run full Motorola systems, the boxes are easily compatible. Shaw took its complaints public on Monday.
Customers may be paying retail for the digital cable set tops, but from a corporate perspective, it’s theft, says Shaw.
Angered by what CRTV general manager Jim Forsyth and former board member Gary Griffin had to say in a cartt.ca story yesterday outlining how CRTV had been cut off – and how easy it was to buy a Motorola HD PVR in Courtenay and bring it to Campbell River to use – Shaw Communications president Peter Bissonnette said: “On the box is a huge picture of Shaw, our brand, a nice happy face. The box itself has Shaw stamped on it as do the remotes… It goes beyond logic for me to think that he can’t rationalize that he’s doing something fraudulent.”
Campbell River is basically getting digital decoders for free, with none of the risk or capital outlay that Shaw assumes when buying the boxes and stocking them at retail, added Bissonnette.
“You wouldn’t think that dealing with a company that’s in the same cable association you’d have to guard against them stealing from you,” added Bissonnette. “In terms of getting them back on, we have no intention of doing business with them again.
“This is a commercial arrangement we had with them and they breached it by acting fraudulently with us… they have alternatives to get signals and I just think it goes to the intensity that we feel when people are stealing from us.”
When asked if the CRTC had been in touch with him about the matter, since Forsyth told cartt.ca on Tuesday that he had complained to the Commission about Shaw’s actions, Bissonnette said no.
Contacted by cartt.ca Wednesday afternoon, a CRTC spokesperson said the Commission is looking into the matter but is just “fact-gathering” at this point and no decision on what it might do has been rendered.
However, added Bissonnette, cracking the door open just a little, Shaw is investigating just how many boxes made their way north to the Campbell River system in preparation for a lawsuit and, “we will resist anyone who tells us we have to put those signals back on… until we have some open clarity from them on how many Shaw boxes they have operating on their system and we’re compensated for those.”
