Thanks to Keaster 2000 for making me aware of the Canadian government suggesting that Canadian TV stations can shut down their transmitters. Our regulator in Canada, the CRTC, seems to think that allowing TV stations to turn off their transmitters would help Canadian TV production. We have until September 19th to let them know.

Here's what I posted on the CRTC website:
OVER THE AIR BROADCASTING
Why would you want to reduce Over The Air -- antenna TV --Canadian broadcasting? Broadcast TV is a major component of what the CRTC is legally mandated to run.

New technologies mean that over the air TV may outlive Cable.
Digital TV has made it possible to receive many channels with a high quality HD picture. The picture I get is often better than fibre optic TV and much, much better than cable. A $100 antenna makes it possible for people within 100 miles of the US border to receive a host of TV stations. Here in Toronto, I can get 40 stations, many of them in HD. My favourites dial has 23 channels: 11 are Canadian and 12 are American. So....the CRTC is saying they want Canadians with antennas to only receive AMERICAN CHANNELS? You want to change things so that I can only get American channels?

Are you nuts?

I'm not making this up. This is what you propose: "Local stations would be permitted to shut down transmitters". ([Link: crtc.gc.ca], Item #16) Canadians have to buy cable to watch Canadian TV?

Cable peaked a few years ago. Rogers is laying people off by the hundreds.

Many are using the internet for TV and Apple TV and other technologies are making it easier and easier. Almost all of the people I know who bought an antenna did so because Rogers really beaned them off with poor service or poor quality HD TV. Those who wanted one special station had to buy packages filled with dozens of channels they never watched. I got rid of cable, phone and high speed internet when Rogers started charging me for a free PVR. In those 11 years, I have saved thousands by using an antenna and a Canadian internet company. There are antenna PVRs too.

Why don't you help Canadian broadcasters to improve measurement of their REAL audiences -- including the internet TV and Over-the Air broadcasting fans. There are thousands of Canadians with antennas. Nobody knows what they watch. More accurate ratings, or 'eyeballs', for Canadian programs on internet AND antenna TV would help broadcasters earn revenue from ads.
Please ensure that I can continue to watch Canadian TV.


Here's the link [Link: finance.yahoo.com]

Here is the document for discussion. You can register to post comments; the deadline is September 17, 2014. Please do. I would also love Americans to let them know what Canadian stations you watch.
[Link: crtc.gc.ca]

I'm not sure saying "Are you nuts?" is a good strategy.

Trust me, in the comments section on this topic there have been a lot worse said to them.

The CRTC seldom listens to ordinary folks, just look at the cell issue, it was to reduce monthly costs, actually went up, amortize phone cost over 2 years instead of 3, monthly rate up with or without phone. So my best guess is that Bell & Rogers will win in some way. Once on internet tv, there goes the data costs!

It's October. What happened with this?

I don't think there will be any solid decisions on the recommendations for a while now. I DO know that the decisions, whatever they are, won't be implemented until December 2015.

Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2014-190-3

[Link: crtc.gc.ca]

"The document was intended only to provide parties with a possible model and to stimulate discussion and debate. We can expect a decision in regards to the various topics of the proceeding during 2015." 

The regulatory framework set out would come into force on 15 December 2015; not the actual shutting down of transmitters, if permitted.  The CRTC would give viewers at least a year to make the transition to cable, satellite or wireless.

TVO has informed me that they have no intention of ending their terrestrial broadcasting, unlike CBC/SRC, Bell and Rogers.































 

Have the CBC specifically said they would?
As I said in my MDP-130 user group over at the AV Science forums,
this move here and on the other side of the border by the FCC would affect my purchase of any other tuners. Like the HDHomerun line.
What would be the point, I'd end up with a unusable paperweight.
Like when Rogers switched from the old black wireless modem to the faster but more expensive[monthly] Rocket wireless.
Might as well stick with legacy cards in a 32-bit OS rather than buy new.

[Link: bnn.ca]

Yes, the public broadcaster is an advocate for ending terrestrial television broadcasting. Ironically or hypocritically the CBC is spending a lot of money on new transmitters and antennas (or the height adjustment of the old ones) in Eastern and Western Canada to improve (alter) their Englsih and French radio one and radio two stations' signals. Lastest examples CBF-FM-10 Sherbrooke and CBFX-FM-2 Sherbrooke .
[Link: crtc.gc.ca]
[Link: crtc.gc.ca] (I threw in the technical brief here; it's interesting if you can read French.)

Also note, that HD radio in Canada (DRB radio utilizing the Eureka 147 world-wide transmission standard) has not taken off as well as in the United States (IBiquity-NRSC-5/NRSC-5-C)

I do know that CHCH DOES NOT plan to go dark and this is the email in response to my question...

We have had our ups and downs in the past 60 years of serving the Golden Horseshoe area and with our New owners Channel Zero, since 2009 have tried to get back to our roots to better serve this area. Part of this was upgrading half of our over the air transmitters from analog to HD in 2011, which was a huge capital investment for us.
That being said we have no plans to change our OTA broadcasting services for CHCH in the Hamilton area.

This was from Wayne Rabishaw, the Director of Operations over at Channel 11.

Seems like a waste of money for any OTA outlet to go dark after spending all that money to go digital.

But again, if the CBC or CITYtv ends terrestrial broadcasting, taking all hockey coverage with it, most people with antennas will reluctantly buy cable or satellite or wireless just to watch hockey. Thus they would also receive all the other broadcast stations via their new means, lessening the need for those transmitters as well.

I'm not happy to see the conventional way of broadcasting go the way of analogue broadcasting, but maybe the frequencies can be put to better use.
The reason why Sinclair Broadcasting Group is apposed to the relinquishing of their frequencies in the upcoming reverse auction is because they are, in part, developing the next stage of the ATSC 3.0 Physical Layer. Here are 2 links to an interesting read on the future of wireless.

[Link: c2meworld.com]
[Link: atsc.org]

The CRTC approved two of Global's transmitters to change over from analoge to digital--YESTERDAY The transmitters are in B.C.: CHKM-TV-1 Pritchard and CITM-TV-2 Quesnel Transmitters must be operational by October 22, 2015.

So digital OTA may be around for a while.

Rogers seems to be in favour of keeping OTA
Shaw has made a huge investment in converting all of Global to digital as they promised they would - wouldn't make any sense that they'd be against it.
CBC and Bell are dead set against OTA.. In fact CBC's CRTC presentation was that not only would the end OTA, they wanted to maintain must carry status on cable, and get this, a surcharge on all cable bills that would go directly to them - good luck with that Hubert Lacroix!!

Many of the smaller/regional broadcasters like TVO and CHCH have too few transmitters to amount to any significant savings since the towers/ATSC transmitters are already in place.

OTOH, Bell has a network that resembles the old CBC analog network - transmitters in places in Wawa, ON, Flin Flon, MB, places that CBC has already abandoned and Shaw/Rogers (their networks' previous owners to be fair) never went. Makes sense in some of those places to level the playing field, but of course they ask for the whole enchilada.

In the end all this will do is create a big surge in people finding ways to steal the signals again. Or someone will start grey marketing the US sat systems again.

For the tech savvy, the internet will come up with even more ways to watch your favorite shows. Boxes like Apple TV and Roku will lead the way.

Netflix has an opportunity to grow even bigger.

No one said they don't want to pay anything (although it is nice) we just don't want to be forced to pay stupid money to receive a bunch of channels we never watch, just so we can get the couple we do.

Why do I need 6 different feeds of global TV? We don't need to time shift, we have PVR's to record shows.
How many different channels show Big Bang Theory at 8pm Thursday nights? I only need 1, the one that is relevant to my area.

Commercials are supposed to pay for the content they support, I should only be paying something for the cost to deliver the content (with a very small portion for profit)

The only things I should be required to pay premiums for would be commercial free channels like HBO etc.

Think Satellite radio, I pay a small monthly fee for access to 100's of stations, most are commercial free and I can choose to listen to any genre of music I like or to specialty stations with comedy or news etc.
Netflix, 1 low monthly fee and I can watch movies and TV shows (series) that I want, when I want.
Both Neflix and Sirius have costs to doing business, and they charge accordingly.
Satellite and Cable will probably have much higher costs per subscriber, but it sure feels like they charge excessively.

I've had grey-market US satellite TV since 1997 and I'll drop Bell (yes I subscribe to both) in a heartbeat if just one channel goes dark...if this passes--it might not even, we don't know yet. At least I can't find anything yet.

I'll just point my antenna towards Buffalo, like it is most of the time and DVR all my shows from there...like I do already.

But you're right sirroundsound; it will lead to more theft or the easy way: Netflix and all these boxes you can get with free online streaming services that are better than Netflix.

I'm sure you know which one I'm talking about...