The IT Nerd

The Canadian Government’s throne speech outlined the desire to make the cable companies allow Canadians to pick the channels they want rather than be forced into packages that may have channels that they don’t want. So I’m guessing that this is why Rogers has decided to be out front of this issue by posting this to RedBoard. Here’s an excerpt:

Two years ago, we piloted a “pick and pay” cable TV service for our customers in London, Ontario. What we learned is that there are very real structural barriers that prevent us from delivering what customers want on a broad scale.

We look forward to an open dialogue with Ottawa, and to participating in the CRTC’s consultation on the future of television, which will launch on October 24. It’s an opportunity to hear from Canadians and to support changes in broadcasting regulations that will give Canadians more flexible packaging options. We encourage you to make your views known.

This is an interesting strategy. Get consumers input so that they shape the agenda so that the Canadian Government doesn’t do what it feels like. Smart.

Now I’m on record at the time of the throne speech as being dubious at best about this despite the fact that something needs to be done about this whole bundling thing. I am not convinced that forcing cable companies to unbundle channels is the way to go. Either you’ll end up paying the same or more money, or channels like HBO would simply disappear from your cable lineup.

This should be an interesting discussion with customers.

This entry was posted on October 23, 2013 at 2:53 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Rogers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.