Come on... What is with the CRTC???
First they pull the license of a Quebec radio station CHOI for comments made by a trash mouth shock jock on air, then they deny a license for Italian broadcaster RAI to broadcast in Canada and at the same time they give a license to Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera... [img]tongue.gif[/img]
How can they deem what one radio station host says on the air in a Quebec market area to be offensive on one hand while allowing a TV station which regularly shows tapes of Al Qaeda preaching death to westerners (along with the beheadings) to broadcast nationally on the other.
Have I missed something or has the CRTC just come down with collective insanity.....
I am not one to say that the Canadian government should censor ar restrict what we as Canadians can watch or listen to, hell I even do the "Grey Market" thing in order to get Sci-Fi and TechTV..
The problem is that with today’s pervasive electronic providers, it is possible for ANY Canadian household to receive the signal of ANY satellite broadcast from almost any country that they want. Then there are those stations, both Radio and TV that are rebroadcast over the Internet. This in and of itself makes the CRTC and the regulations that they hold on to obsolete.
The CRTC was originally put in place to help to protect Canadian fledgling broadcasters from larger American broadcasters close to the Canada/US border. Regulations brought in by the CRTC included the Canadian Content rule that said you had to have a certain percentage of Canadian content aired between 6am and midnight, with a smaller percentage after midnight. This let us to shows like "The Beachcombers" and "The Trouble With Tracey".
The CTRC also put in place the regulation that for every US network a Cable provider offered, they had to offer TWO Canadian channels to their subscribers... This is why we got channels like "The Woman’s Channel", "Bravo", "Showcase" and why the CBC is still on the air...
The issue with Al Jazeera is not that it was allowed access to the Canadian market, it is how it was allowed to be broadcast, as well as who was not allowed to broadcast at the same time and why.
Al Jazeera was allowed to be broadcast only if the cable companies agreed to use the 7 second time delay censor button on them. This means that Censorship of Al Jazeera rests with Rogers and Shaw ...et al... and not with the CRT or the Canadian Government. This is a dangerous president to set and one that the cable companies may not be willing to comply with. The cable companies MUSThave someone (who speaks Arabic) on the button 24hours a day 365days a year ready to use it. They must also tape Al Jazeera 24hours a day 365days a year so that if ANYONE complains, the CRTC can review what happened (like the guy falling asleep at or on the button).
All this for a station that reportedly is aimed at a demographic of about 500,000 people in Canada. (apparently according to statistics, about 700,000 people in Canada have access to "Grey Market" Satellite and Fox News, but they were denied by the CRTC, more on that later)
Ok, it is now later.... At the same time as the CRTC allowed Al Jazeera broadcasting rights, they denied RAI those same rights. WHY?
Well, it appears that Corus (who owns Telelatino, is planning a 24hour all Italian channel for Cable later this year and RAI would interfere with these plans. Remember one of those CRTC regulations is "Overlapping of Programming". This means that if there are two channels with dedicated programming, only one of them will get a CRTC license, the other... well ...
This flies in the face of the Italian community across Canada and has even riled the feathers of some Liberal MP's, who have said that they will try to pressure the CRTC into allowing RAI broadcasting rights in Canada. Now I do not like the Grits (in fact I hate them), but this is one thing that I am rooting for them to do...
Then there is the Fox News issue.... The CRTC will not allow them a license to broadcast in Canada, we should be glad that we get CNN and be done with it... The CRTC has to protect Canada from the Conservative views expressed by those Radical Fox journalists....
OK, enough of this, that is why I got "Grey Market", I don't want to be beholden to an antiquated white elephant clutching on to the abyss and trying to prevent its own demise. I can vote for what I want to watch with my own THUMB
And another thing...
I wonder if Al-Jazeera will be forced to conform to the CRTC’s Canadian content regulations when broadcasting in Canada. If they do, does this mean that they will have to show a certain percentage of Canadian beheadings per hour between 6am and midnight, with a higher percentage of American beheadings after midnight?
MrVermin
Linear Mode
