CRTC Makes Cable Companies Adopt “Pick & Pay” Option And Caps Basic Cable
The CRTC today did something groundbreaking today. Actually they did three things that are groundbreaking. They made the cable companies and anyone else who delivers TV in Canada do the following things:
- They made cable companies adopt a “pick and pay” option which means that you can pick only the channels that you want and pay for them. So you don’t have to pick a bundle full of channels you don’t want anymore.
- They made cable companies offer a “basic” cable option that can be no more than $25 a month and will consist of local stations and mandatory channels, such as APTN, TVO, CPAC, educational channels and accessibility channels, with the option to include up to four American “affiliate” channels (NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox), plus PBS.
- Consumers no longer have to give 30 days notice to dump their current cable company.
That’s all groundbreaking. I have to admit that. But I question if consumers will actually save money. I say that because bundles allow specialty channels to exist because of the fact that they’re force fed to you. Thus because a lot of people get them, you pay less for each channel which means that economy of scale kicks in and it allows them to stay afloat. Take that option away and you may end up paying the real cost what these channels cost. So you may only get the channels you want, but you may pay more. Or the channels that don’t do as well will disappear. Having said that, cable TV costs are insanely expensive in Canada. So you have to try something to see if it will lower costs for consumers. Seeing that cable companies will have until March 2016 to offer the $25 basic package, and December 2016 to offer up “pick and pay”, we’re a long way from getting an answer to that.
File this under “to be continued.”
March 19, 2015 at 10:06 pm
I’ve posted this elsewhere, but good to get the word around for those looking for a true “basic” cable option.
Rogers already offers something called Digital Lite but don’t really publicize it (it isn’t listed on their website). It is apparently supposed to be for new customers only, but I also got it for my parents when they were going to cancel their cable. It was $14.99/month but went up to $15.99 this year. It includes an SD box. No contract. It is basic. You get up to about channel 28, but not W or YTV as well as some others like E! and Toon and APTN along with the time shifting channels. We went without cable at our place for years and subscribed to this only because my husband wanted CP24…if it wasn’t for that, antenna and the internet would be enough. If this package is raised to $25, we’ll be cutting our cable. It is SD so if someone needs HD this isn’t the answer, but it is basic and cheap in comparison to the advertised “basic” package. We also have an antenna where we get HD channels (for free over the air) and watch everything else online.