Blame the U.S.: HDTV threatening Canadian culture?
by Richard Lawler 
posted Nov 27th 2006 at 11:10AM
In a reverse Terrance & Philip situation, a couple of Canadian professors are warning of the threat the conversion to digital TV poses to "Canada's cultural sovereignty". In their book Canadian Television Today they address what they see as a problem for broadcasters forced to keep pace with the U.S.'s scheduled switch. Canada has not yet set a date to change exclusively to digital broadcasting, and the two University of Calgary professors don't seem to see why its necessary anytime soon given the great expense such a move puts on smaller local stations. An opposing viewpoint says the country can't wait to switch to digital, so that production companies can easily work with U.S. broadcasters to sell their content. We hadn't really considered the impact the digital broadcasting switch might have on our neighbors to the north, mostly because we hadn't considered their cultural sovereignty beyond hockey and an oddly misspelled version of SportsCenter. Still, with the number of U.S. shows filmed in Canada that are already formatted for HD -- and their contributions to the Discovery Channel -- whenever they do switch to digital there will be plenty of programming available.
Filed under: Regulatory, OTA
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tom @ Nov 27th 2006 11:43AM
This is a joke, right? Short of Quebec, which is more like a European Country, Canada is essentially the same as most of our Northern states. This is just a couple liberal professors speaking out against the U.S. and nothing more. As such, the Canadian gov should simply igore them and move on.
Maff Mace @ Nov 27th 2006 12:12PM
what's wrong with "centre"?
it's an English word and it's spelled correctly, it's you, the Yanks, that can't spell properly.
schimmi @ Nov 27th 2006 6:38PM
haha you said yank. thats funny you lobsterback. And if you don't like the way we spell center then go rekill marriam Webster
Jon Gourd @ Nov 27th 2006 12:07PM
Does this mean that season 5 of "Corner Gas" will be in High Def?
JHCIV @ Nov 27th 2006 4:53PM
Yes Maff Mace, but we invented Sportcenter. We can spell our inventions any way we want.
Told.
kellykthompson @ Nov 27th 2006 9:38PM
I don't get it. Most of the Canadian majors have already made the switch. Ages ago.
isomer @ Dec 12th 2006 6:13PM
I am Canadian, and this is embarrassing. Were it not for stupid libs in universities and government Canada would have been another State a long time ago. Most of us go shopping in the States anyway since you guys get things faster and we also get your satellite signals as well. Reason being that our own suck.