If you can all indulge me an off topic rant for a moment on one of my favourite topics, Bermuda TV.
In a lot of way the local TV stations are much like Bermuda politics, we have been conditioned to accept an inferior product and performance.
On Feb. 8th I posted on twitter the following:
Completely fed up with local network and Cablevision signal quality. Thinking about some guerilla tactics. Anyone want to join in?
Shortly afterwards I got a phone call from Cablevision's Terry Robertson who saw my post and offered to help. We had a good conversation, with the thrust of my complaint being that the signal and picture quality on the Fox channels (10 and HD) were terrible and that the local channels (7 ABC, 9 CBS and 11 NBC) are terrible, channels 7 & 9 being the worst.
Terry conceded that Fox was an issue for Cablevision, but that it is now resolved (which it appears to be) and the pixelation at night on the Fox HD was caused by us being on the edge of the satellite footprint.
Then there's the local channels, which are not good, Bermuda Broadcasting's in particular. Channel 9 is pretty much unwatchable and the audio is low relative to the other channels. I've previously spoken with Rick Richardson at BBC about this and he conceded a problem which was connected to the out of sync audio and video late last year (fixing that involved lowering the audio levels).
Much of this is technically above me, but ultimately we've all witnessed both BBC and Cablevision pointing fingers at each other over signal quality.
All that I can say on that topic is that the over the air signal for channels 7 & 9 sucks and you can't pin that on Cablevision. And I've also been in ZBM's studios enough to know that it looks like some sort of a history of broadcasting exhibit. The equipment has to be 30 years old at least, and I'm not exaggerating. So the prospect of HD for the US networks (so I can get my sports in HD) is never going to happen at this rate - and the local channels should be providing that over the air as well as cable.
You might recall that BBC wants Cablevision to pay per channel for carrying the local channels, something alot of people think is an outrage when you consider the quality of the product. I would tend to agree.
I think there is a solution here, but it's going to require the applying of some pressure.
Firstly, the local channels should be given a timeframe to start providing HD for the US networks (ABC, CBS and NBC). I'm sure the networks would be appalled at how their product looks in Bermuda, but we're small enough that it's not enough to expend much energy on.
Secondly, on the topic of Cablevision paying a per station fee for the local stations (75 cents per station per month I hear). This will obviously get passed through to the customer, because no business is going to voluntarily take that hit.
I could take a $1.50 increase in my bill a month. But there's an if. A big if.
If the local stations can't or won't upgrade their equipment to offer HD, or even fix their below standard definition signal that they currently offer, the Telecommunications Minister should allow Cablevision to offer an HD option for each US network in their HD tier ion exchange for a $1.50 per channel compensation to the local affiliates.
This is obviously not so simple to get done due to legal issues and exclusivity agreements, but the economic model for 3 local TV stations all trying to sell ads and generate a local news broadcast is really being strained if not already broken.
I don't think Government has helped this situation with CITV. A better arrangement in my view than running a station (with great equipment I might add) would be to create or subsidize the creation of local programming which then runs on the private stations. That gets Government out of the TV business, although the PLP are unlikely to do that because they want to control the content of CITV to maximize exposure for themselves and their issues (ie. press conferences which don't broadcast the questions, only the MInisters' prepared remarks.)
I'd be interested in others thoughts on this topic. One other avenue to pursue is for people to start filing complaints with the Consumer Affairs department.
But all the broadcasters and carriers better get with the program fast, because in the past week I've testing a Slingbox feed from NY (great but a little hard to integrate in a living room), Boxee which is a surprisingly good little open source application that includes Netflix (if you use a US proxy or VPN) and there's a lot more out there on the horizon.
