Quote:
|
Originally Posted by inhalo
3rd Question.
O.K. it is friday so the question will be lite today. How much American TV plagues/entertains you. I assume that you have cable and satelite TV access. Is MTV, DISCOVERY, COMEDY CENTRAL, CNN, HBO, AND SUCH EXPORTED TO YOU? Are they the same as in the states? Any similarities or differences between American and Canadian TV would be appreciated.
|
FREE TV
Like most nations around the world we get a lot of American programming on our TVs... In Toronto, for example, you can, with a TV and an antenna, receive all of the US Networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, Fox) from the Buffalo affiliates.
On Cable TV you can recieve the same Networks, BUT, if a Canadian channel is simulcasting the same program the US feed will be pre-empted with the Canadian feed (i.e. CTV is broadcasting CSI at the same time as CBS, if you have cable you will see the CTV feed and all the CTV ads on BOTH channels). This will switch back when there is no simulcast.
Canadian Television has an obligation, as part of their license, to broadcast a certain percentage of Canadian content every year. I can go into detail in this if you want but suffice it to say that while US programming makes up a large part of our primetime schedule (it rates well and cost less than producing our own programs) the secondary and tertiary programming is largely Canadian content.
CABLE CHANNELS
We have a wide range of cable channels.
On the premium pay channel tier we have The Movie Network in the east and Movie Central in the west. These serve much the same role as your HBO and Showtime. They are pay tv movie channels that also show premium series. While they have acquired the rights to series from HBO and Showtime they have also started producing their own premium series (ReGenesis, Slings and Arrow, etc.). Both of these channels are multiplexed (i.e. they have several channels with different themes or their time shifted variants). They also have pay-per-view and VOD feeds as well.
On the basic cable tier we have a wide variety of so called specialty channels. Every thing from Much Music and YTV (youth channel) to Discovery and HGTV. What you should know is that unlike just about everywhere else in the world channels in Canada must be majority owned by a Canadian company. As a result, our Discovery, History, Food, HGTV, etc. while sharing the same names and even some of the same content are owned by Canadian companies and must have a certain percentage of Canadian Content as per their license.
Same channel different flavour.
There are a few channels that come over directly from the US without being filtered by a Canadian owner: Spike, TBS, A&E are a couple of these... some of their ads are prempted by the cable company but for the most part they are untampered.
DIGITAL SPECIALTY
There are two sorts of digital specialty channels and to receive any of them you must have either satellite or digital cable. Tier One channels must be carried by all the cable prviders and Tier Two must convince the cable provider to carry them.
It is at this level that we have some 100 extra channels, most of which are local but some, like MTV Canada and MTV2 are organized like the basic cable US channels above (Canadian owned but carrying some US shows).
In the end we are subject to a lot of US programming... Canadian netoworks like CTV and Global make a lot of money broadcasting US programs. There is a lot more to this but... it would take me for ever to type...
ask more specific questions and I can answer them (by the way... I work in film and television in Canada)