Issues w/ Canadian Satellite-Cable Networks

The promise of having several satellite-cable networks, called "narrowcasting" is that we would be never far away from the genre of programming that we love. However, the promise has failed to deliver. This blog entry and the next one attempt to review the current status of Canadian, American and International television networks available today.

The CRTC licensed these channels. So they are partly to blame for not keeping the channel owners on their toes when it comes to making sure they have interesting content on most of the time. But it's also a failure of the Canadian Television Fund which helps pay for that Canadian content over all these multitude of channels.

My answer to the problem is to combine some of these channels. For example, do we really need 5 music stations, licensed to play music videos and none of them do, but intead feature reality television crap? Maybe instead of MuchMusic, MuchMoreMusic, MuchVibe, and MuchLOUD, they should consolidate into one MuchMusic station like originally. Also MTV Canada should be allowed to air music videos. In the end we subscribers would pay less for our television service and there would be fewer channels into which better programming could be produced or purchased. Everybody wins.

BNN

BPM:tv - The only music station that still plays music videos, although most of them can be classified in the "soft erotica" category. I find I have to turn off the tv because I find the "tits n ass" in the videos offensive. There is no need for most of it.

Bravo!

Canadian Learning Television - this channel isn't educational at all. It shows too much general interest entertainment programming like Monk, The West Wing, which are not the kind of educational type programming that CLT is licensed for in the first place.

CBC Newsworld - consists of three programs "Morning", "Today", and "The National". The network needs to develop more programs like in the old days of Newsworld.

CMT Canada - I'm not a Country music fan, so this channel is useless to me.

Comedy Channel - don't like 99% of the shows

Country Canada - should combine with The Documentary Channel to create CBC-2.

CP24 - This channel I like.

CPAC

CTV NewsNet - mostly better than CBC Newsworld

Dejaview - sometimes

Discovery Channel Canada - not as good as it was in the 90s. Don't watch anymore.

DriveIn - Watch very rarely.

Encore Avenue - OK. No complaints

G4 TechTv - Call for Help I watch, but the videogame shows are junk to me.

History Television - Nothing on here is interesting to me. It's mostly about various Wars.

iChannel - was good when it first started, but is not interesting anymore. I dumped the channel last year.

IFC Canada - Watch very rarely.

Lonestar - Don't watch.

Movie Central - OK. No complaints

Movieola - has too many 1920s/1930s Mickey Mouse cartoon shows.

MTV Canada - This service cannot play music videos because of the conditions of their current license. So if I want to watch music videos there's YouTube.

MuchMusic - Doesn't play music videos any more. Useless channel that used to be very good in the 1980s.

MuchMoreMusic - Was very good when it first started in October 1998, but also no longer plays music videos. Have to go to YouTube to watch a music video.

Mystery - Useless channel to me.

OLN - Good for the one month in the year that they carry the Tour De France bike race. Otherwise a useless channel. Maybe this channel could fold and TSN could pick up the annual bike race.

ROGERS SportsNet - I watch is sometimes when I'm interested in sports. They have good baseball and basketball coverage.

Showcase Television -

Showcase Action -

Showcase Diva -

Score - Don't watch this channel. I used to watch when it was HeadlineSports in the late 90s.

Scream - Rarely watch.

Space - Rarely watch. I probably need a rest from all those Star Trek series that were on during the 90s, and the other programming doesn't interest me much because it's poorly done.

Telelatino -- would watch more often if they had musical variety programming in Italian & Spanish, but most of the time it features English language American sitcoms. You can't really call this an ethnic station I guess.

The Documentary Channel -- Too many documentaries that focus on the drug trade and prostitution. And when they do have other documentaries, they rerun them too often in the day, so if you saw one doc there is no others to watch.

The Shopping Channel -- Longtime complaint I have is that there are very few items of interest to guys like electronics, gadgets, etc... Too many items for women.

TSN The Sports Network -- Sometimes I'll watch.

The Weather Network -- Way too many frequent interruptions for advertising. And the advertising is for hair care products or cars.

Treehouse -- Nothing of interest to me. Although it looks like Treehouse has lots of Canadian content, most of it is so cheaply produced that it doesn't warrant my time to view.

Tv Land Canada -- Has some interesting programming.

Tropolis -- Nothing of interest to me. This service used to be called Prime, and it had some
magazine programs that were viewable.

YTV Youth Television -- I used to watch alot of YTV in the first 4 or 5 years, then they started to change the programming and it's been downhill since then. I'm not into anime or violent programs like that.