TW want to buy AT&T

[Psycho Fox]

Originally posted by The Mad Hatter
Here we go again.

Brainatra isn't denying that such services are cheaper for whichever amalgamated company will result from combining this service. What he is doubting, rightly so, is whether these companies will pass on the profits to the average consumer. Remember, these companies don't exist to serve the public... they exist to make as much money for themselves as possible through their services. And since cable deregulations, which supposedly have reduced costs for the cable companies, yet cable consumers haven't seen lower prices. Thinking that reduced company costs will automatically result in reduced consumer costs, based on history, is a bit naiive.

Well yhea you have a point but at first when they are competing with the phone company they probably would probably provide a cheap service till the phone company kicks the bucket or does not hold very much of a market share.

 

[Anthonynotes]

>>>Well yhea you have a point but at first when they are competing with the phone company they probably would probably provide a cheap service till the phone company kicks the bucket or does not hold very much of a market share.

Maybe, but that doesn't make it any better...it'd just be following the same principle as all those "no payment for one year"/"0% credit card interest for 6 months" sort of deals: you're still paying through the nose, only later instead of now...

Plus, if I understand modem technology correctly, the quality degrades with more and more users (see: trying to dial up to an ISP and getting a busy signal), something that I think holds true even for cable modems (the more people using it, the more it declines, though cable modems would still be faster than regular ones). Rather different than standard phone technology (where service usually doesn't decline no matter how many people are using the phone lines, save for the occasional "all circuits are busy" message when they *are* loaded to capacity). A possible drawback to the notion of promoting cable phones/cable-based videophones, unless technology vastly improves (or cable modems that don't have this drawback become commonplace/replace standard 56k modems)...

-B.

-B.

 

[Psycho Fox]

Originally posted by Brainatra
Maybe, but that doesn't make it any better...it'd just be following the same principle as all those "no payment for one year"/"0% credit card interest for 6 months" sort of deals: you're still paying through the nose, only later instead of now...

Yes but it would be hard to jack up the price once people are use to the lower one, people could simple switch to another cable company or a satellite service see I have seen the phones and there is one bug that the cable compaines don't want people to know and that is you could hook it up to a satellite if they had a simular system hell it even would work on digital Antenna services thus it would not be wise for them to raise the price to high since the phone could be switch to a new service in a snap

Plus, if I understand modem technology correctly, the quality degrades with more and more users (see: trying to dial up to an ISP and getting a busy signal), something that I think holds true even for cable modems (the more people using it, the more it declines, though cable modems would still be faster than regular ones). Rather different than standard phone technology (where service usually doesn't decline no matter how many people are using the phone lines, save for the occasional "all circuits are busy" message when they *are* loaded to capacity). A possible drawback to the notion of promoting cable phones/cable-based videophones, unless technology vastly improves (or cable modems that don't have this drawback become commonplace/replace standard 56k modems)...

we are not talking about data here we are talking about a digital voice channel that takes up a small fraction of the band width hell you could put it in a 3K band

 

[Anthonynotes]

>>Yes but it would be hard to jack up the price once people are use to the lower one, people could simple switch to another cable company or a satellite service see I have seen the phones and there is one bug that the cable compaines don't want people to know and that is you could hook it up to a satellite if they had a simular system hell it even would work on digital Antenna services thus it would not be wise for them to raise the price to high since the phone could be switch to a new service in a snap

I dunno about Canada, but here in the U.S., almost every city/town only has one cable company, and attempts to deregulate said industry to "foster competition" has only resulted in the one company being more entrenced *and* raising their rates. As for not jacking up rates once people are using an item, if there's money to be made, they'll jack it up all they want (see: ATMs and ATM fees). It's about profit, and the companies don't find anything "hard" about raising prices of an item. And since most places only have one cable company, the only alternative is either minidishes (which while becoming more widespread most people find too expensive in terms of startup costs/monthly fees even compared to cable---along with the fact that some places won't allow you to put up a dish [apartment buildings for one]) or going back to "rabbit ears". And most people don't have the technological skills *or* the gumption to do something illegal-sounding like mucking with phone wiring/connections to bypass Ma Bell....

-B.

 

[The Mad Hatter]

I'll have to agree... I've lived in four different cities in the past two and a half years, and all of them were served by a single cable company. Hardly thriving competition.

In central Arkansas, Alltel tried to muscle into Southwestern Bell's territory and offer local phone service... and even though there were two large, viable competing companies, their fight somehow didn't result in lower prices for the consumer.

 

[Psycho Fox]

Originally posted by Brainatra
>>Yes but it would be hard to jack up the price once people are use to the lower one, people could simple switch to another cable company or a satellite service see I have seen the phones and there is one bug that the cable compaines don't want people to know and that is you could hook it up to a satellite if they had a simular system hell it even would work on digital Antenna services thus it would not be wise for them to raise the price to high since the phone could be switch to a new service in a snap

I dunno about Canada, but here in the U.S., almost every city/town only has one cable company, and attempts to deregulate said industry to "foster competition" has only resulted in the one company being more entrenced *and* raising their rates. As for not jacking up rates once people are using an item, if there's money to be made, they'll jack it up all they want (see: ATMs and ATM fees). It's about profit, and the companies don't find anything "hard" about raising prices of an item. And since most places only have one cable company, the only alternative is either minidishes (which while becoming more widespread most people find too expensive in terms of startup costs/monthly fees even compared to cable---along with the fact that some places won't allow you to put up a dish [apartment buildings for one]) or going back to "rabbit ears". And most people don't have the technological skills *or* the gumption to do something illegal-sounding like mucking with phone wiring/connections to bypass Ma Bell....

-B.

What about Digital antenna which is a bit misleading since it is basicly a land based microwave system. LOOK isn't that bad once you get the converter.

 

[Narfpinky]

Where I live, we actually have a choice of two cable companies; AT&T and Ameritech(SBC). They pretty much offer the same channels, both offer high speed internet, and roughly have similar rates and packages, etc.

We have AT&T; their system doesn't require a converter box to subscribe to HBO, Showtime, and Encore, thanks to predecessor TCI. All the TVs are hooked up, poit.

 

[Anthonynotes]

Originally posted by Psycho Fox
What about Digital antenna which is a bit misleading since it is basicly a land based microwave system. LOOK isn't that bad once you get the converter.

I've never even heard of "digital antenna"...which might mean it's either really new and/or hasn't caught on much) and/or doesn't exist in the U.S. (minidishes are the main non-cable source of programming and very popular). I suspect the "hasn't caught on" factor is likely (and thus it isnt' offered in most places)...and still wouldn't change the fact that if it required an antenna/dish of some sort, it'd be of no use to me and millions of other apartment dwellers (who might not be allowed to mount external antennas/dishes)...

ARound here, Time-Warner Cable serves Indianapolis "proper" (the city itself) and a few outside areas/towns, while "Comcast Cable" serves the suburbs/edges of town. In the rest of central Indiana, there's various cable companies, but all have a monopoly in whatever town(s) they're in. And since central Indiana is one of those parts of the country where one *needs* cable for its original purpose (TV reception), these people don't have much choice...

-B>

 

[Psycho Fox]

Originally posted by Brainatra


I've never even heard of "digital antenna"...which might mean it's either really new and/or hasn't caught on much) and/or doesn't exist in the U.S. (minidishes are the main non-cable source of programming and very popular). I suspect the "hasn't caught on" factor is likely (and thus it isnt' offered in most places)...and still wouldn't change the fact that if it required an antenna/dish of some sort, it'd be of no use to me and millions of other apartment dwellers (who might not be allowed to mount external antennas/dishes)...

ARound here, Time-Warner Cable serves Indianapolis "proper" (the city itself) and a few outside areas/towns, while "Comcast Cable" serves the suburbs/edges of town. In the rest of central Indiana, there's various cable companies, but all have a monopoly in whatever town(s) they're in. And since central Indiana is one of those parts of the country where one *needs* cable for its original purpose (TV reception), these people don't have much choice...

-B>

It uses the same technology as Satellite but the transmitter is on the ground thus it can carry local stations and sells it service cheaper then Cable it even allow you to customize the channels you want no tier crap. You do need a special ball antenna (it is really small, slighty bigger then a tennis ball) plus a converter. As for the monopoly thing mabe US should do what Canada did to CP and become there competitor since no one else will. Tax payer money can be used for set it up then just run it only to survive not profit and keep prices relatively low thus you are not forcing them to lower you are just giving them competiton that they can't get rid off since they can't buy it out since it is part of the goverment.

 

[Anthonynotes]

>>>It uses the same technology as Satellite but the transmitter is on the ground thus it can carry local stations and sells it service cheaper then Cable it even allow you to customize the channels you want no tier crap. You do need a special ball antenna (it is really small, slighty bigger then a tennis ball) plus a converter. <<<


Very well, then...sounds like something that either isn't popular or hasn't caught on (at least in the U.S.)...

>>>As for the monopoly thing mabe US should do what Canada did to CP and become there competitor since no one else will. Tax payer money can be used for set it up then just run it only to survive not profit and keep prices relatively low thus you are not forcing them to lower you are just giving them competiton that they can't get rid off since they can't buy it out since it is part of the goverment. <<

What's "CP"? A Canadian cable co.?

That also wouldn't be an option...the U.S. being extremely capitalistic, would never have a government-run cable company---if the U.S. doesn't even consider some sort of minimal health insurance as a universal right (unless one's extremely poor [Medicaid] or elderly [Medicare]), it'd be extremely improbable for it to have some sort of govt.-run cable co. Plus, unlike other countries (like the CBC in Canada), the U.S. also doesn't have a govt.-run TV network (PBS, while noncommercial, only gets a very small fraction of its funds from the govt.---the rest comes from those "viewer pledge drive" things and corporate donations)...

-B.

 

[Psycho Fox]

Originally posted by Brainatra
Very well, then...sounds like something that either isn't popular or hasn't caught on (at least in the U.S.)...

It is popular here since Rogers is tring for a complete monopoly (I still remeber their idea of negitive billing were you pay for the channels you don't get as well as they ones you do get of course they stoped doing it couse customers got pissed and started to switch over to other systems.

What's "CP"? A Canadian cable co.?

That also wouldn't be an option...the U.S. being extremely capitalistic, would never have a government-run cable company---if the U.S. doesn't even consider some sort of minimal health insurance as a universal right (unless one's extremely poor [Medicaid] or elderly [Medicare]), it'd be extremely improbable for it to have some sort of govt.-run cable co. Plus, unlike other countries (like the CBC in Canada), the U.S. also doesn't have a govt.-run TV network (PBS, while noncommercial, only gets a very small fraction of its funds from the govt.---the rest comes from those "viewer pledge drive" things and corporate donations)...

-B.

CP was the first trans Canadian Railway company they were subsidized at first and didn't pay any taxes this gave them a monopoly and they grew into other things like Radio. The Canadain Goverment tried to support the competition but they fell through so the goverment bought all them up and created CN to compete. Now the reason they did it was at the time Canada was exreamly capiltlisic and people thought regulations would be too imperilistic and this was a way they thought be perfect to keep big companies under control since your playing by their rules and not adding new ones, the industry leaders could for example compete with the goverment by giving better services or lower prices since the goverment is just providing strong compediton same with CBC they orginally was created not for art, education or a service to the public but to provide competition for the old Rogers that wanted to own it all. Thus your statment is the other way the US is not capitalistic enough to try it.

 

[Anthonynotes]

>>It is popular here since Rogers is tring for a complete monopoly (I still remeber their idea of negitive billing were you pay for the channels you don't get as well as they ones you do get of course they stoped doing it couse customers got pissed and started to switch over to other systems.
<<<

I see...

>>> CP was the first trans Canadian Railway company they were subsidized at first and didn't pay any taxes this gave them a monopoly and they grew into other things like Radio. The Canadain Goverment tried to support the competition but they fell through so the goverment bought all them up and created CN to compete. Now the reason they did it was at the time Canada was exreamly capiltlisic and people thought regulations would be too imperilistic and this was a way they thought be perfect to keep big companies under control since your playing by their rules and not adding new ones, the industry leaders could for example compete with the goverment by giving better services or lower prices since the goverment is just providing strong compediton same with CBC they orginally was created not for art, education or a service to the public but to provide competition for the old Rogers that wanted to own it all. Thus your statment is the other way the US is not capitalistic enough to try it. <<<

Saying that the US isn't "capitalistic enough" is like saying that Homer Simpson's "needs to pack some meat on his bones"...

According to a Google search on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), it was founded as a radio company in the 1920's by the Canadian govt. and expanded to TV in the 50's, with its purpose of being to provide a public broadcasting service to the Canadian viewing public (much like the U.S.'s PBS, only purely govt. owned). This is more or less the same reason that the BBC/other nations' govt.-owned TV and radio networks exist: to provide a broadcasting service that's presumably free of certain aspects that befall commercial radio/TV (not having to be as heavily driven by ratings/advertisers' whims, etc., like PBS in the U.S.). Since it was founded decades ago,it's doubtful that the CBC is operating to drive some latter-day media conglomerate (Rogers) or anyone else out of business....

(The link I found detailing the early history of the CBC's here:
http://radio.cbc.ca/facilities/cbc-history.html )

Compared to Canada/other nations' broadcasting development (with govt.-run broadcasting often being the forerunner to commercial development), in the U.S., radio broadcasting was left in the hands of private enterprise, with govt.-funded, "public service"-type programming apparently more or less an afterthought or left in the hands of universities/etc. that had their own radio (and later TV) stations, apparently the case until the 1960's when PBS was founded (and National Public Radio (NPR) founded in the early 70's).

Cable TV sprung up here in the fifties as private enterprise as well (to provide better reception to isolated areas), and the idea of sticking pay channels on it didn't come en masse until the late 70's/early 80's. The govt.'s main role is in regulating, but doesn't own any cable companies/channels (C-SPAN, which covers Congress sessions, is IIRC privately owned). GOvernment's biggest role has been in regulating cable, rather than owning a company outright.

There's also the fact that in our country, our main conservative political party (the Republican party) is very against the notion of government running such services as cable TV (and a host of other things, for that matter...) under the principle that private enterprise can run things better than the govt. can (and preferably with as little/no regulation as possible). The more liberal political party, the Democrats, doesn't share this same general perspective, but would likely agree with their REpublican counterparts on something like cable TV. Hence, the odds of the govt. running a cable company is quite slim (esp. since such a company would have to service 280 million Americans spread out over 3,000+ miles). Besides, I can't even imagine what a cable company run by the federal government would be like, and I'd be thinking that there was more important things to spend such money on (AIDS research, fighting poverty, financial aid, health care,space travel, etc. etc.).

Vaguely on-topic for this forum:
<Pointless Trivia> Growing up in Detroit, our favorite foul-mouthed policeman Axel Foley might've listened in the sixties/70's to radio station CKLW, an AM radio station across the border from Detroit in Windsor, Ontario. Said station was apparently a dominant force of top 40 music in the Detroit area (its station ID jingle noted it served "the Motor City", vs. Windsor itself), and (thanks to its 50,000 watt AM signal travelling over quite a long distance) across a good chunk of the midwest as well. NPR did a story last year on CKLW's rise and fall as a big modern-top 40-music-format pioneer (it played some amount of Motown music IIRC, which since Motown was located in Detroit in the sixties might've made some sense). Apparently, like other AM stations, FM rising in the late sixties/seventies killed it off as a music powerhouse (today, it's apparently a talk radio station from the information I looked at)...</Pointless trivia>

Maybe this tidbit of data would've been worth using in that "Motown Mice" story I co-wrote (as part of some pointless Canadian humor tidbit

-B.

 

[Psycho Fox]

Originally posted by Brainatra
Saying that the US isn't "capitalistic enough" is like saying that Homer Simpson's "needs to pack some meat on his bones"...

According to a Google search on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), it was founded as a radio company in the 1920's by the Canadian govt. and expanded to TV in the 50's, with its purpose of being to provide a public broadcasting service to the Canadian viewing public (much like the U.S.'s PBS, only purely govt. owned). This is more or less the same reason that the BBC/other nations' govt.-owned TV and radio networks exist: to provide a broadcasting service that's presumably free of certain aspects that befall commercial radio/TV (not having to be as heavily driven by ratings/advertisers' whims, etc., like PBS in the U.S.). Since it was founded decades ago,it's doubtful that the CBC is operating to drive some latter-day media conglomerate (Rogers) or anyone else out of business....

I SAID OLD ROGERS ok here is the deal CBC was orginally CN Radio they got board of owning the radio network and put it up for sale a Montreal bussnissman and Rogers SR were intrested(Rogers JR currently runs Rogers Communications) he ran a company called Rogers and already owned a Radio Networks in Canada plus some scattered Radio stations and wanted that one bad too. The goverment bought the network to stop it from falling into Rogers SR hands and they were already playing with the idea of having a goverment owned one anyway. See being a tycoon seems to run in the Rogers family old Rogers ended with a total of 2 Radio Networds (one AM one FM) a shortwave station and tons of small radio stations plus a mass produced Radio set. Rogers JR started where his father left off. Plus CBC is a bussniess still, the Radio and the TV is heavy with commericals.

Compared to Canada/other nations' broadcasting development (with govt.-run broadcasting often being the forerunner to commercial development), in the U.S., radio broadcasting was left in the hands of private enterprise, with govt.-funded, "public service"-type programming apparently more or less an afterthought or left in the hands of universities/etc. that had their own radio (and later TV) stations, apparently the case until the 1960's when PBS was founded (and National Public Radio (NPR) founded in the early 70's).

See in Canada it was a mix. The goverment taking CN Radio which Roger SR raised a stink over since he wanted it allowed smaller networks to grow since Rogers lost momentum since the goverment learned its lessions with CP and was better at manipulating the market from the inside.

Cable TV sprung up here in the fifties as private enterprise as well (to provide better reception to isolated areas), and the idea of sticking pay channels on it didn't come en masse until the late 70's/early 80's. The govt.'s main role is in regulating, but doesn't own any cable companies/channels (C-SPAN, which covers Congress sessions, is IIRC privately owned). GOvernment's biggest role has been in regulating cable, rather than owning a company outright.

There's also the fact that in our country, our main conservative political party (the Republican party) is very against the notion of government running such services as cable TV (and a host of other things, for that matter...) under the principle that private enterprise can run things better than the govt. can (and preferably with as little/no regulation as possible). The more liberal political party, the Democrats, doesn't share this same general perspective, but would likely agree with their REpublican counterparts on something like cable TV. Hence, the odds of the govt. running a cable company is quite slim (esp. since such a company would have to service 280 million Americans spread out over 3,000+ miles). Besides, I can't even imagine what a cable company run by the federal government would be like, and I'd be thinking that there was more important things to spend such money on (AIDS research, fighting poverty, financial aid, health care,space travel, etc. etc.).

Put your self in Canada's shoes when they had the problem with CP they created a monopoly by mistake via not making them pay takes and hand outs. They wanted to control the price while still keeping a free market so CN was created the idea of the goverment using tax payer money to control the market from the inside instead of regulations since they wanted people to just go up and start a bussniess and not worry about red tape. CBC has worked take Educational content the FCC forced stations to have so much content the Canadain Goverment thought about it but desided that all they had to do was put it on CBC with a huge marketing budget and guess what the other networks followed they didn't have to but they didn't want to be left out of the market see the diffence there is no law in Canada saing you must have so many hours of educataion they did it out of competition they didn't want adversivers liking CBC more then them and you know what they beat the crap out of the forced educational shows. There is even talks in the goverment about disbanding the CRTC and just using the CBC to guide the industry.

 

[Anthonynotes]

GIven that all this is way off topic from Time Warner/AT&T and such, I think I'll make this my last words in this thread (esp. since I feel like I'm just repeating myself)...


>> I SAID OLD ROGERS ok here is the deal CBC was orginally CN Radio they got board of owning the radio network and put it up for sale a Montreal bussnissman and Rogers SR were intrested(Rogers JR currently runs Rogers Communications) he ran a company called Rogers and already owned a Radio Networks in Canada plus some scattered Radio stations and wanted that one bad too. The goverment bought the network to stop it from falling into Rogers SR hands and they were already playing with the idea of having a goverment owned one anyway. See being a tycoon seems to run in the Rogers family old Rogers ended with a total of 2 Radio Networds (one AM one FM) a shortwave station and tons of small radio stations plus a mass produced Radio set. Rogers JR started where his father left off. Plus CBC is a bussniess still, the Radio and the TV is heavy with commericals.
<<<

Well, thanks for informing me, esp. since I know nothing about this Rogers until you mentioned him (not much in the way of hearing about Canadian tycoons here in the U.S....).

>> See in Canada it was a mix. The goverment taking CN Radio which Roger SR raised a stink over since he wanted it allowed smaller networks to grow since Rogers lost momentum since the goverment learned its lessions with CP and was better at manipulating the market from the inside.
Put your self in Canada's shoes when they had the problem with CP they created a monopoly by mistake via not making them pay takes and hand outs. They wanted to control the price while still keeping a free market so CN was created the idea of the goverment using tax payer money to control the market from the inside instead of regulations since they wanted people to just go up and start a bussniess and not worry about red tape. CBC has worked take Educational content the FCC forced stations to have so much content the Canadain Goverment thought about it but desided that all they had to do was put it on CBC with a huge marketing budget and guess what the other networks followed they didn't have to but they didn't want to be left out of the market <<<

As I stated before, a cable company owned by the govt. here in the U.S. would never fly, and PBS doesn't seem to get enough funding from the feds as-is. Like I also stated before, capitalism here in the U.S. is practically a religion, with any hint of things other countries take for granted (like Canada's health care system) being labelled by some as "socialistic"/"communistic" and the like (ignoring the fact that the govt. runs Medicare/Medicaid and nobody calls *those* such names, and technically, anything govt.-run (education, etc.) would fall under the definition of "socialism", but I digress....). Plus, the government has more important things to spend money on that cable TV (like, uh, arming us with enough firepower to blow Portugal off the map a zillion times over...). Not to mention how generally corrupt /easily bought off our government is (the cable companies and the National Association of Broadcasters are very powerful lobbies in Congress), and the fact that as far as Congress/the govt. is concerned, things are fine the way they are now with the current setup of cable TV in the U.S. (even if they are charging an arm and a leg, which congress as far as I can see doesn't really care about---"free enterprise at work" and such).

IIRC, in Canada CTV and the CBC are the primary over-the-air TV broadcasting networks there, thus I imagine it's easier for the govt. to exert influence on network programming there. Here, between multiple broadcast networks and no govt.-owned TV network, any programming rules must be enforced through the FCC (which is their job), like the educational broadcasting rule (which technicaly was done both to enforce "public service" rules that all broadcasters supposedly must abide by, and because leaving it up to the networks to air educational shows on their own will apparently wasn't working [as this was the "policy" for years, resulting in such stunts as TV stations trying to pass the "Jetsons", "He-Man" and such off as "educational"]). And since both the CBC and CRTC are govt.-related bodies, there probably wasn't much difference between the Canadian govt. wanting CBC to air educational shows and the CRTC forcing CBC (and anyone else possibly) to do so...

Basically, the only reason TV networks in the U.S. do anything is for profit, and don't care about public service or doing anything unless they're absolutely forced to by the FCC. Educational programs aren't as profitable as "Pokemon", hence they're given short-shrift unless they're forced to carry them by law (the only way a show like "Histeria" was even a glimmer in the WB execs' eyes---they'd much rather have used the time slot for another "Pokemon" episode, I'm quite sure).

All of this I guess represents fundamental differences between Canadian and American ways of thinking/doing things: Canada seems to be a bit more altruistic/socialistic/reserved/European in the way it does some things, and not as driven/ruled by profit-making as the U.S. is....hence the things you cited about Canadian media vs. my comments about American media...

>>>
see the diffence there is no law in Canada saing you must have so many hours of educataion they did it out of competition they didn't want adversivers liking CBC more then them and you know what they beat the crap out of the forced educational shows. There is even talks in the goverment about disbanding the CRTC and just using the CBC to guide the industry. >>>

Well, while looking up info on CKLW for that trivia tidbit, I discovered that the CRTC *did* (and still might, as far as I know, unless it's changed) require in the late sixties or so for Canadian radio/TV stations to air a certain amount of Canadian-centric/produced content, presumably to avoid being overrun by near-exclusively American-made programming...thus,
the govt. regulating certain programming aspects by law (vs. voluntary) is present on both sides of the border (since that's the job of such bodies as the FCC/CRTC---to make sure that broadcasters are serving what's supposed to be in the best interests of the public, along with frequency allocations/interference issues/other technical aspects [the other main reason for the FCC's/CRTC's existence, and a reason against their being dissolved]).

 

[Psycho Fox]

Originally posted by Brainatra
IIRC, in Canada CTV and the CBC are the primary over-the-air TV broadcasting networks there, thus I imagine it's easier for the govt. to exert influence on network programming there. Here, between multiple broadcast networks and no govt.-owned TV network, any programming rules must be enforced through the FCC (which is their job), like the educational broadcasting rule (which technicaly was done both to enforce "public service" rules that all broadcasters supposedly must abide by, and because leaving it up to the networks to air educational shows on their own will apparently wasn't working [as this was the "policy" for years, resulting in such stunts as TV stations trying to pass the "Jetsons", "He-Man" and such off as "educational"]). And since both the CBC and CRTC are govt.-related bodies, there probably wasn't much difference between the Canadian govt. wanting CBC to air educational shows and the CRTC forcing CBC (and anyone else possibly) to do so...

In the goverment eyes there was since a force would mean they had no choice CBC would mean a percentage would try to compete and that is what happened

Basically, the only reason TV networks in the U.S. do anything is for profit, and don't care about public service or doing anything unless they're absolutely forced to by the FCC. Educational programs aren't as profitable as "Pokemon", hence they're given short-shrift unless they're forced to carry them by law (the only way a show like "Histeria" was even a glimmer in the WB execs' eyes---they'd much rather have used the time slot for another "Pokemon" episode, I'm quite sure).

Yes but they might change their mind if they did the stunt CBC did. They 1st ran they story on their news stanting they goverment was going to do this included in the story was clips and mentions of their best educational shows they were going to use. #2 they gave the ad space in those slots away for free for a month. Adversisers flocked to get free ad space since CBC put it in a time slot that had high rating before thus the private networks jumped abord the pretent educational fad when the month was over CBC started charding for the space again and some of private networks was fighting each other with educational in that time slot not too mention CBC got kick ass educational shows that could get high ratings on their own.

Well, while looking up info on CKLW for that trivia tidbit, I discovered that the CRTC *did* (and still might, as far as I know, unless it's changed) require in the late sixties or so for Canadian radio/TV stations to air a certain amount of Canadian-centric/produced content, presumably to avoid being overrun by near-exclusively American-made programming...thus,
the govt. regulating certain programming aspects by law (vs. voluntary) is present on both sides of the border (since that's the job of such bodies as the FCC/CRTC---to make sure that broadcasters are serving what's supposed to be in the best interests of the public, along with frequency allocations/interference issues/other technical aspects [the other main reason for the FCC's/CRTC's existence, and a reason against their being dissolved]).

Yhea they did that was becouse CBC made a deal with Disney to make them the only canadain network to air The wonderful world of Disney So begain the war bettwen CBC and CRTC. CRTC created rules, CBC broke them CRTC told of CBC. CBC did stories on it and made fun at CRTC is. CRTC cried to the goverment to punish CBC. The goverment stayed neutral. Thus we got to today where the CBC has broken every rule the CRTC has got and the goverment got to the idea that maybe CRTC's rules are stupid and the industry can police it self with help from the CBC. As for frequency allocations/interference issues/other technical aspects they are handled by Industry Canada

 

[The Mad Hatter]

Considering I know zilch about Canada-specific matters of broadcasting, there's nothing more I can say, eh?

Aside from: "Alas poor dead thread, I knew ye well. Except all that stuff about Canada."

 

[Maxie Zeus]

Back on topic, sorta

The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that AT&T is having preliminary discussions with Disney and also with Microsoft about a cable partnership. The idea would be for something less than a full-blown merger, but with one or another (or some combination) of companies taking a minority position in AT&T Broadband shortly before that unit is separated into another public company.

Conversations with AOL-TWX apparently are also continuing.