Should Canadians have to pay for TV channels they don
Consumers have become accustomed to lots of choice for entertainment and information services. Music and movie services offer single downloads and a range of subscription models, while newspapers and magazines sell their content as individual issues or subscriptions on multiple platforms.
Yet Canadian cable and satellite providers remain a stubborn holdout. The broadcast community has long resisted a market-oriented approach that would allow consumers to exercise real choice in their cable and satellite packages, instead demanding a corporate welfare regulatory framework that guarantees big profits and mediocre programming. That could change if the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has the courage to push back against Bell Media in a major case involving the terms of broadcast distribution.
The case pits Canada