The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has acceded to long-standing demands by viewers for greater control over their television services. TV providers must offer a “skinny basic” package at $25 per month offering a minimal package of services, which can be augmented by viewers choosing additional signals on a “pick-and-pay” basis. In addition to the broadcasters organizing their services in packages – until now, a take-‘em-or-leave-‘em proposition – there will be choice on a service-by-service basis.
The question is, who is going on the diet: the broadcasters, the distributors, or the viewers?
The intuitive appeal of this decision is obvious. But there is a reason why packaging has been a standard business practice in the film and television business for many years. Without a lengthy excursus into the economics of audiovisual production and distribution, one can observe that that much production which turns out to be commercially unviable is carried by a handful of large successes. The rub is that predicting which category any given production will end up in has broken many a career.
Richard French – Globe and Mail – March 20, 2015
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