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- Canadian Broadcasting Industry -
Digital Media is thriving in Canada,
with 2 seperate digital satellite providers,
in Canada , Star Choice and Expressvu. In some ways, Canadian technology
has advanced further than in other countries. For example,
over 70% of Canada's population is serviced by cable vision, a much higher percentage
than many other countries, including the United States. This has
allowed canadian digital cable to be adopted to most
small to large cities across Canada. Smaller towns or rural areas
that are not serviced by cable vision can still enjoy
digital television through one of Canada's two
digital satellite companies. Although the vast majority of Canada
is primarily English speaking, some areas of Eastern Canada,
particularly Quebec and bordering parts of Ontario are mostly
French speaking. Fortunately both of Canada's digital satellite
companies cater to both English and French speaking customers and
have an abundance of Canadian and French programming, as do most
of Canada's cable vision.
Canada's telecommunications regulatory body, the CRTC, sets
out a strict guideline of English and French channels for all
broadcasters. This ensures that both English and French speaking
people can access programming in either language across Canada.
Some French language channels are available across Canada, while
others are available only in Eastern Canada, where the majority
of French speaking Canadians live.
Canada has approximately the same land mass as the United
States, yet it has only 10% of its population. As such, there is
not as high a demand for some services as in other countries such
as the United States with far greater populations. Both digital
home satellite and digital cable vision were introduced here in Canada a couple
of years after first introduction in the United States. Digital
Cable still has not been fully adopted in Canada, which most
cable companies in Canada, offering a number of digital services,
while others are still in analog. This is primarily due to a
shortage in cable vision bandwidth, which in most cases prevents
a full digital cable programming offering in addition to a full
analog one using a single cable line. Additionally, the emergence
of Canadian high definition channels has added to the bandwidth crunch.
Only a small percentage of cable vision customers subscribe to digital cable, with the rest
using the same analog cable as they have for over 30 years.
Because of this, only a full conversion to all digital or major
upgrades by cable broadcasters will solve this problem. In the
meantime, Canadian cable vision companies charge a premium for
digital cable services, in addition to an extra fee for rental of
the digital decoder set top box, which is required. As digital
cable vision becomes more popular, we may see cable companies
slowly converting non-core channels to digital to encourage
people to switch. This would eventually allow an expanded digital home cable
programming, as digital channels can be compressed to allow many
times the channels that one single analog channel uses in
bandwidth.
We have an abundance of information on Canadian digital
television, digital cable and digital satellite on our web site.
Our digital discussion forums will also help to get any
questions you have answered in a timely fashion.
Additional Resources
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