On February 2, 2011, a brief speech was posted in this space instead of our usual commentary. It was a speech to the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). It was an intervention against the acquisition of CTV Television by Bell Canada. The intervention was a futile but feel-good fling.
The intervention was also backed by a lengthy and well researched rational that boiled down to the following point: Bell Canada is neither knowledgeable nor capable of managing an organization bringing unbiased news to Canadians.
The very fact that the Prime Minister’s Office had already indicated to the then chair of the CRTC that the sale should be approved raised many red flags. The Commission had been denied its regulatory authority and was acting only as an instrument of political advantage.
Rereading that speech today, it seems appropriate to apologize for the bitter tone. It was obvious what was going to happen. The CRTC approved the sale, a respected and competent CRTC chairman resigned, a civil servant was appointed as the new chair and Bell Canada was given control of what Canadians would be allowed to see on their country’s largest television conglomerate.
Yet surprisingly it took until early 2015 for Canadians to be made aware of this control. It had been carried too far. It was not until March of 2015 that the CTV news rooms revolted in response from an order from Bell Executive Kevin Crull to not allow CRTC Chair Jean Pierre Blais exposure on CTV stations. Blais had finally stood up to Bell and the other television providers and ordered them to offer lower cost and more flexible options on television viewing packages.
Blais was biting Bell in the pocket book and that was the last straw.
As a Bell Canada customer, we are still waiting for this new day in television pricing. As a very basic subscriber to Bell Fibe television, we are eager for the day we can watch a Blue Jays game without having to buy a package we might never otherwise watch at a cost of over $300 per year.
Mind you, if we still lived in Toronto, we would be watching off-air signals with a digital antenna. That could save us about $700 per year. That could pay for some nose-bleed tickets to a few Blue Jay’s games.
It has always been our impression that Bell Canada uses technology its board does not quite understand to squeeze money from Canadians. We should not be paying the price we are for incompetence. And we should never allow incompetent’s to tell us what we should know. We stopped watching CTV news five years ago.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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