Viewers' satellite, cable cost going up

[bornonaug9]

Will you cancel you cable or satellite package? Is it time to dump bundle and pay for individual channel?

http://www.thestar.com/business/article/679158

Cable and satellite bills are set to rise this fall as those TV service providers begin collecting a mandatory new fee to subsidize local television stations in small markets across Canada.

Cable giant Rogers Communications Inc. is sending a strongly worded letter to customers warning them to expect a new charge worth 1.5 per cent of their recurring TV monthly service fee, starting in September. The cost relates to the Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF), created by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, to subsidize stations in markets of less than one million people.

Rogers will dub it the "CRTC LPIF fee" on its invoices. That not-so-subtle political tactic comes as the industry prepares for upcoming CRTC hearings on the contentious fee-for-carriage issue, which could inflate bills further by about $6.50 a month in the Toronto market.

 

[Mia.Colpa]

What else is new, there are 3 things in life you can always count on,

1. Death
2. Taxes
3. Bills



Why would you cancel, look at the options, not much.

 

[Brill]

Owning a TV station or a newspaper used to be a license to print money.

No longer the case!

It will get worse for them when more people are able to skip the ads.

 

[Sammy the Bull]

Fuck cable TV, I simply hook up my PC to TV and watch here for free: www.justin.tv

Or here: http://www.ustream.tv/

 

[Riley.Royal]

ninjavideo.net for me and vip.tv-video.net

 

[needinit]

Fuck cable TV, I simply hook up my PC to TV and watch here for free: www.justin.tv

Or here: http://www.ustream.tv/

I don't think of these as TV, they are online braodcasting. What's the difference? TV is the one where you see real shows, not stuff put online by whoever feels like it...www.hulu.com is much more like real TV (and you can see it form canada if you mask your IP address to become a US one).

 

[Sammy the Bull]

I don't think of these as TV, they are online braodcasting. What's the difference? TV is the one where you see real shows, not stuff put online by whoever feels like it...www.hulu.com is much more like real TV (and you can see it form canada if you mask your IP address to become a US one).

Try this site, its pretty good: http://www.channelsurfing.net/

 

[oldnwrinkled]

I don't think of these as TV, they are online braodcasting. What's the difference? TV is the one where you see real shows, not stuff put online by whoever feels like it...www.hulu.com is much more like real TV (and you can see it form canada if you mask your IP address to become a US one).

is there a site I can learn how to mask my IP to become a US 1?

thanks

 

[Mia.Colpa]

Time to pull out my old trusty pop up story books

You still have those? How old are you?

 

[my2cents]

So the broadcasters want fees for "local" programming sorry but all they did locally was the news in most cases and the news used to be a requirement of having a license. Broadcasters pushed to have that requirement removed so they didn't have to do local news. So they now want a fund for local programming, wonder who will oversee that every dollar is spent on local programming and not buying american programs. Ya right....
Also cable allows broadcasters to cover an area without having to put up a transmitter. Now with digital signals the clarity of over the air signals is better than cable so if they want the fee make them have to put up transmitters to cover their area so people have a choice. Frankly I get all my HD programming over the air free with a simple UHF antenna and an ATSC tuner. Better picture than cable.

 

[Sammy the Bull]

Here's another good site: http://tvweb360.com/

 

[Riley.Royal]

It looks like we all have our sites we enjoy to watch our shows on.

 

[tboy]

Yup, I soooo hate having to watch commericals on stations that I have to pay extra for (tlc, history, discovery etc) so if the rates go up?

I'm cancelling my cable and go FTA.

Anything else I want I'll download it for free.......

Frankly I don't think we should subsidize shit.....now I know BET APTN and Punjabi TV are important to some, so THEY should pay for it not me......

 

[Brookstone]

These type of hikes are the reason why people are switching over to FTAs. Just look out any street, in the backyards, or even in the front and count how many dishes are out there for FTA use in one street alone. Hard to say no when there are constantly increases

 

[wetnose]

These type of hikes are the reason why people are switching over to FTAs. Just look out any street, in the backyards, or even in the front and count how many dishes are out there for FTA use in one street alone. Hard to say no when there are constantly increases

Isn't FTA down though?

 

[svtcobra]

ninjavideo.net for me and vip.tv-video.net

Fuck cable TV, I simply hook up my PC to TV and watch here for free: www.justin.tv

Or here: http://www.ustream.tv/

I hate to say burst your bubble.

Technically it is not free for you both to either view those site and shows, you still have to download the media stream = data usage. So in fact you are using your internet bandwidth to view the site and it all depends on how much t.v you are watching online, your data usage plan on your internet package get eaten up pretty quickly. So you are still paying a fee no matter which way you look at it. Rogers is also set to raise their rates for internet users also.

 

[elmufdvr]

who to contact..and which sat system to buy??/ pm info please ...

 

[Liber Pater]

Frankly I don't think we should subsidize shit.....now I know BET APTN and Punjabi TV are important to some, so THEY should pay for it not me......

That is exactly the reason I cancelled my cable 8 years ago....

 

[Brookstone]

Isn't FTA down though?

Nope, theres a couple receivers that works. Been working for a while now

 

[BoringBob]

Rogers is fast to mark a "tax" as a tax, but they should be so quick to mark the "Rogers needs to make 30% profit on this" line somewhere on the bill.

I would LOVE to see a bill where Rogers had to detail the actual breakdown of costs on the bill. There would be a huge drop in prices when they figured out they can't charge $8 for a package that only costs them $1.40 to acquire.