From John Doyle of The Globe and Mail:
Canadian TV, as we know it, is screwed. For now
The old advertising model has been shattered and nobody knows what the looming pick-and-pay change is going to do to the specialty channel menu. Nothing will ever be the same. Profits can be achieved but nothing like the vast, vast amounts that have been made in the past.
Fact is, the Canadian TV business has been smug about its business operations for years and that smugness has meant that the viewer shift toward digital and streaming services is far more of a calamity than it should be. It’s a truism that complacency sets in when a business is making a lot of money with little effort. It’s just that Canadian TV is a particularly startling example of that truism. Continue reading.
All the Canadian based broadcasters should be shot for spending $ 700 MILLION a year of our money to buy 98 percent American shows. They were mandated to do a lot more Canadian than they ever did. They should have been doing 700 five star episodes of 53 Canadian shows per year.
It’s because the entire industry in Canada is owned, controlled, and run by Americans, for American profiteering.
But, we let it happen.
Steve
Some would say that with so many so called American shows now filmed in Canada they should count as Canadian content.