We haven’t had a television in our house for a very long time.
One day I got fed-up trying to place the family room furniture in a conversation-friendly layout that also permitted television viewing. So I called up a friend who drove over and drove away with our set, bound for a Community Living group home. Problem solved. I can’t recall exactly when I gave the television the boot, but the last image I remember was of planes flying into the Twin Towers.
The kids barely remarked on the change. Long gone were the days when television was the ‘It’ form of in-home entertainment. For a few months we streamed the tv signal through our computers, wasting money on something we rarely used. Then we cancelled it altogether.
I’m not against the medium of television, but considering what we’ve achieved in technology, it seems so daftly last century for two reasons: Television remains schedule- and turf-bound. There’s no way that I would ever plan my day (or writing) around a scheduled show or fiddle with a PVR. And every day I sit down to research on the internet, I am foiled by a lack of access to excellent content by the stranglehold of Canadian regulation and the current television distribution agreements. I can see little US programming, including all the nuggets out of the Public Broadcasting System.
Canadian television stations are not losing out on my business when I go online for content. I have no physical tv or tv signal; I’m not subscribing to them in the first place, and I never will. So, it’s a dilemma. Either I pay a monthly bill for services I mostly don’t want, delivered in a way I don’t want, or I’m blocked. Canadian TV subscription or no, I’m still prevented from streaming current or past US shows. Foolishness, especially with so-called free-trade partners.
Canadian television regulation isn’t the only stumbling block in accessing streamed content. While I’m pleased with the overall growth in online archival materials, the CBC, NFB and other publicly-owned treasure troves have miles to go and remain somewhat to mostly inaccessible. Access to these resources online is critical to telling our Canadian stories to ourselves and the rest of the world.
And I’m not even scrounging for freebies. I’m willing to pay, through subscription or pay-per-use, for access to excellent content on demand. Not channels, crummy bundles or low-cost/low-value filler, but stand-alone content. I’m even open to watching adverts if that makes the difference between treasure and junk. I don’t care what country produces it, I just care that it meets my criteria.
While I wait for the stars to align over the delivery of streamed content in Canada, I will continue to spend a small fortune on books, where content, form, choice and quality are always at my beck and call.