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Free Television Ride Coming to an End
By Susan Krashinsky
Attention all Canadians who still have rabbit ears on top of the TV: Do not adjust your set … at least, not yet.
With the digital transition for Canadian television looming, the head of the federal broadcast regulator said that the 857,000 households across the country who will be forced to ditch the rabbit ears and pay for equipment to pick up the new signals, can’t expect any help from the government.
Consumers who already pay for satellite or cable television service “won’t feel a thing” when the transition happens on Aug. 30, 2011, said Konrad von Finckenstein, chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.
But free, broadcast television stations will be affected. Roughly 8 per cent of Canadians pick up those stations over the air. After the transition, the signals will transmit only to newer TVs that are capable of picking up digital signals. Consumers with older sets will need to buy a converter box that costs about $75.
“I actually went on eBay this morning and checked, you can buy them for as low as $29,” Mr. von Finckenstein said Friday. “It’s a very limited amount. That’s what consumers can afford and should afford, and I doubt there will be any kind of [government financial] support.”
This is a departure from the approach taken south of the border. When the digital transition happened in the United States in June, 2009, a $650-million (U.S.) stimulus package was approved to subsidize the cost of those converter boxes – worth about $40 for every consumer who got hold of a government coupon.
Nothing stands in the way of the Canadian government doing something similar, but Mr. von Finckenstein said he didn’t think it would be necessary.
The CRTC is asking the broadcast industry to develop an awareness campaign to be sure consumers are prepared for the change.
“There’s a need for consumers to understand what’s going on. They’re really in the dark right now,” Mr. Von Finckenstein said.
The digital switch is important because it frees space on the airwaves for mobile phone connections and emergency services. Digital TV also allows for a clearer picture than analog transmissions did.
The transition is mandatory for broadcasters in larger areas. Broadcasters are not required to make the switch for their stations in areas outside those mandatory markets, though they may choose to do so anyway. If none of them choose to, as many as 31,500 households could be left with no stations aside from those on cable and satellite services.
“To make this as painless as possible, we will allow satellite and cable companies to offer a free local package. You can receive, at no charge, the local signal that you received over the air,” Mr. Von Finckenstein said.
Many rural areas are served by satellite services, so to access the free package, those consumers would have to buy a satellite dish and receiver, at a cost of $300 or more.
FreeHD Canada Inc., though not yet operational, is one service that has been approved to offer free channels by satellite. Other companies have also said they are willing to offer them, Mr. Von Finckenstein said.
“A lot of cable and satellite companies told us they are prepared to do that, because it’s an incentive to sign up new customers,” he said. Distributors could market to those customers by offering specialty channels along with the free local channels at first, hoping customers would pay extra to keep those channels once they got a taste of TV beyond the rabbit ears.
What remains to be seen is whether those over-the-air viewers will be prepared to invest in the equipment needed to follow their traditional TV channels into the digital world.
“That’s the million-dollar question. Nobody knows how the industry will develop, or whether they will say, forget it and I will just get my content over the Internet,” he said.
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