Leslie Parrish is a self-employed contractor in Moores Mills, N.B., and, after a day spent painting houses or landscaping gardens, she likes to tune into the CBC for the local news and Coronation Street. Her budget doesn’t run to a satellite subscription; she gets her TV through the antenna on her roof and she’s worried that when the CBC shuts down a transmitter in Saint John, about 100 kilometres east of her, at the end of the summer, she will lose access to the public broadcaster – as will thousands of other Canadians.
“What is being delivered to me for free over the air should still be free,” she said. “I shouldn’t have to go through a middleman to get local news.”
On Aug. 31, Canada makes the move to the digital transmission of television, changing the way broadcasters send TV signals into homes and freeing up valuable space on the airwaves that the federal government is expected to sell to wireless providers for billions of dollars. Cable and satellite subscribers won’t notice any difference, but people who watch television over the air will need a recent TV set or a digital converter box on older sets to keep getting the signal – if there is a signal.
Critics of the plan are complaining that everyone from hockey fans in Quebec to students in London, Ont., not to mention many New Brunswickers, are about to lose their access to the CBC, which says it can’t afford to replace all its transmitters with the new technology.
While most Canadians will not be affected, the ones who will – those who can’t afford cable or satellite – tend to be seniors, students, the unemployed and recent immigrants, raising questions about who the public broadcaster is supposed to serve.
CBC-Radio Canada is spending $60-million to replace 27 analog transmitters with digital ones, 14 English and 13 French, that will deliver pristine high-definition television for free in most cities between Vancouver and St. John’s. But for the many haves, there are also some have-nots – another 16 communities including Saskatoon, London, Ont., and Saint John – which will lose over-the-air service.
The CBC estimates that less than 1 per cent of Canadians will be affected, but critics point out that the public broadcaster has a mandate to reach all Canadians.
“It was news to me: I am in the same situation as many Londoners; we just assume that if you turn on your TV, you’ll find the CBC,” said Matt Brown, a London city councillor who estimates 30,000 permanent residents in that city, not including students, will lose the CBC. “It creates a divide between those who can afford satellite and cable and those who can’t. It’s people living on the margins, and people living on the margins can’t always advocate for themselves.”
All broadcasters are required by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission to go digital in 30 mandatory markets, including all provincial capitals and cities with a population over 300,000. The CRTC is letting broadcasters keep analog signals going only in rural locations outside the mandatory markets.
However, the bilingual CBC-Radio Canada, which has hundreds of transmitters scattered across a vast country, says it cannot afford to invest in digital even in all the mandatory markets – and in a mandatory market where there is no new digital transmitter, the broadcaster will still be forced to shut off the analog service.
