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According to the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), up to 875,000 households in Canada currently do not subscribe to either cable or satellite TV service, and will thus be affected by the digital TV transition scheduled for August 31, 2011.
Only those who still watch TV using the "rabbit ear" antenna method may experience some change in the way they receive TV signals, reports the CRTC. These folks will have to purchase a digital converter box, which can cost up to $75 each. It does not appear as though the Canadian Government will be offering up coupons, as was done through the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the U.S. when the digital TV transition occurred there last year.
Some local stations may not decide to convert to digital, instead relying solely on cable and satellite companies to deliver their signal to viewers. In these such cases, the CRTC will be allowing TV distributors to provide a free alternative to affected viewers in these smaller markets, including a package of local and regional stations. However, in order to receive this, some consumers will have to fork over the dough for a satellite receiver and dish. The minimum cost for this is $300. At most, the CRTC estimates than 31,500 households could be in this such position.
"Consumer awareness and education is a key component of the digital transition," says the CRTC. "Members of the broadcasting industry are expected to actively participate in the creation and implementation of a national consumer education program. Such a program should start no later than March 2011 to ensure Canadians are well informed."
In the U.S., the DTV transition was delayed by a few months because it was believed that many consumers were not properly prepared for the switch. There, the transition occurred relatively smoothly in June of 2009.
The CRTC is already considering starting trial markets ahead of the official August 2011 date, thus allowing for assessing how well the transition goes on a smaller scale before rolling it out across the country.
For more information, see the CRTC's fact sheet on the digital transition.
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1 comments »
Mergatroid July 19, 2010, 21:04 pm
This is not a very smart way to go about this change. At least the U.S. government gave their citizens a coupon for the converter. Lets face it, this wouldn't be done unless someone somewhere was going to make money from it. These people or companies who will be profiting from the newly available bandwidth should be made to foot the bill for those people who will be effected by the transition. Another thing is that, if our satellite system goes down (hello Solar Max), in markets where the TV stations have decided to stop broadcasting, just how will people get emergency news? Back to the radio? The government should have mandated these companies must broadcast in digital, and again the profiting companies should be made to pay for it (you can include the government here since they will be collecting taxes and selling the bandwidth). Also, I try not to be a nasty guy on the 'net (there's too much of that) but who's the genius who thinks these people who cannot afford cable are going to go out and purchase $300 worth of satellite hardware? I will go out on a limb here and guess these people are going to have to go without TV at all. This is not the way this transition should have been handled.
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