Canadian Government to Push TV Providers Toward Pick & Pay Pricing

One of the promises in the Canadian government's speech from the throne last Wednesday involved unbundling TV channels to give consumers more say in which channels they pay for. The actual wording was this:

"Our Government believes Canadian families should be able to choose the combination of television channels they want. It will require channels to be unbundled, while protecting Canadian jobs."

The text is understandably short on specifics, but most people take this to mean that the government, through the CRTC, will push TV distributors and channel owners to move to a "pick and pay" system where customers can choose individual channels rather than have bundles where it's impossible to avoid paying for channels they don't want. For the TV-viewing public this is a good move, but don't get too excited... it's going to take some time to get there, and it's extremely unlikely that you'll be able to subscribe to the 10-15 channels you watch and nothing else.

Read on for my thoughts on what has to happen and where I think we'll eventually end up.

Zazeen IPTV Begins Commercial Service

In January I wrote about Zazeen's plans for a TV service that uses your Internet connection to deliver the signal - see Zazeen - shaking up the Canadian TV landscape. Since then they've been busy working to clear technical and business-related hurdles, and after 10 long months, they've finally launched.

The service became commercially available on October 1st for Quebec customers, and October 15th for those in Ontario.