Dude, where’s my TV? – a Documentary

Jeff Green | Aug 03, 2022

Dude, where’s my TV? – a Documentary

Steven May is a Denbigh based researcher who has been looking at the question of how the digital transformation of television delivery has left an entire segment of the population behind.

“Seven per cent of people who watch television still receive their tv services for free, using rabbit ears or aerials, but that is no longer possible in many rural areas because the tv towers are being disabled,” he said.

May was one of the few people to raise concerns about the abandoned plan to disable the TVO tower, north of Cloyne, and about the pending cease of operations for the Vennachar based Global TV tower.

“In 20, there were plans to do a digital conversion of the Global tower. If that had happened it would be possible to receive those signals through the air, and use a converter to continue to access tv in homes across the region,” he said, “but that did not happen and the tower is closing at the end of August.”

In order to explore the impact of these kinds of changes in areas where cell and internet coverage is still a work in progress, as well as other topics around cell, internet and television delivery, May has been making a series of videos, called “Dude, where’s my tv?.”

The first video in the series is up, and accessible to Kingston Frontenac Public Library users for free on the Hoopla platform.

It is called Ben v. Bell, and is a classic David vs. Goliath story. Ben Klass was a graduate student, based in Manitoba, who petitioned the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) about a Bell Mobility promotion that was starting up at the time.

Since Bell owns the largest cell network in Canada, and also is a major producer of content through CTV, it began to offer CTV and other programming over mobile networks without charging Bell Mobility customers a fee for downloading the data.

Ben Klass argued to the CRTC that Bell was using its market position as a television provider to privilege its own content over other content that is available to mobile customers. His claim was that this ran counter to the concept of net neutrality, the idea that Internet and mobile providers should not make it easier, or cheaper, to access specific programming over other programming.

The case was very straightforward because that is exactly what Bell was doing, and the CRTC ruled quickly and easily in favour of Ben Klass.

Then, Bell appealed, and Ben Klass was facing legal bills, since the legal proceedings brought the prospect of Bell seeking damages from Ben Klass for lost revenue due to the CRTC ruling.

The video chronicles the fear that this brought to Ben, and to his parents.

Luckily for Ben, the judge ruled that Bell had not made the case well enough to overturn the CRTC decision. After that, Bell accepted the ruling.

This was good news for Ben and advocates for net neutrality.

The next video in the series, which Steven May is working on now, is about the towers and the loss of analogue service.