U.S. TV networks may abandon unbundled Canadian cable for online

Good.

I'd rather have just the channels I want. I barely watch anything outside of Hockey these days anyway.

Look in the mirror for who deserves the blame, network assholes, and quit blaming the viewer who are no longer interested in your damn product. If the big three US networks wanted more viewers then they should have thought up a better plan than turning most of their evening programming into a solid wall of reality-show dreck over the last fifteen years. Aside from TBBT I can't think of a single network show I'm bothering to follow anymore.

BFD. Losing channels like A&E, TLC, Spike, BET, YTV, MTV, Tele Latino, CMT and of course the grand daddy of them all, the "pawn shops and garbage pickers" channel, also known as the "History" channel will just mean less crap to search through when trying to find something worth watching.

Of course the whole thing is bullshit anyway. There are LOTS of US cable channels that are not available in Canada. I hardly doubt they're losing money because of it.

But think about it for a second. Imagine going to the grocery store to pick up a roast for dinner and when you get to the checkout they tell you that you also have to buy a whole bunch of other groceries so they can remain profitable, or they won't sell you the roast.

Or car dealerships that won't sell base model vehicles. You can only buy vehicles that are fully loaded with all the options.

Apparently the free market system doesn't apply to cable channels. If a cable channel can't survive on its own merits, simply bundle it with a popular channel and "force" the consumer to pay for something he doesn't want just so he can get what he actually wants.

When I hear these cable and media companies talking it always reminds me of this.

The internet has politisied everything into left and right and the more contrary information made available the more entrenched people become in their views. News for example is rarely reported without some bias and the messenger is generally scrutinised more than the message itself.

Doing the same for TV will not likely be a positive experience.

I must be missing something - how is the tiny Canadian market critical to whether or not The Walking Dead (or any other show on AMC) gets made? Is Viacom (which owns Comedy Central in the US) really going to stop making the Daily Show if Rogers can't bundle Comedy Network with a bunch of other crappy channels up here?

Is our market of 35 million people that influential when compared to the US market of 300+ million?

I doubt it - there are lots of shows that get cancelled that are popular in Canada but not south of the border.

Sounds like total BS to me...

SOunds like a losing long-term business strategy to me. Cable is on the way out due to the choice and convenience offered by online delivery. The cable company response is to make cable even more inconvenient?

Edited for accuracy.

Edited for accuracy.

Which, in a thread about cable TV, is just ironic.

I don't give a shit what US networks think. I can get whatever I want off the internet which, in Canada is perfectly legal as long as it's for personal consumption.

There are MANY Canadians that have dropped most cable services other than the internet entirely. I am close to following suit with that idea, I am tired of big TV telling us what WE should watch.

Let it all die, programming that is GOOD will be kept by popular demand and all the other shit can die. I am no longer willing to pay more because it has a maple leaf on it, and for those who have been RAPING us with massive profits over the years I feel NO grief that your day at the trough is over!
PS who said that the US would ever stop producing it's stuff just because Canada won't bundle it? sounds like the giant is VERY afraid of un-bundling and what it will mean in the long term. Too Fn bad!

WELL SAID..point and match!

Wish I could figure out how to do that. Get the stuff that PBS or Knowledge puts out, say. I tried Netflix, but in Canada they've got shit. The only good thing was I got to catch up on any of the episodes of The Shield I missed on TV.

change your DNS server to a US one and your netflix instantly becomes the US edition.