$25 Cable Package Available Starting Today
Prince George, B.C. – A big CRTC cable package mandated change kicked in today.
The change means cable and satellite providers must provide a ‘skinny package,’ or $25 cap on the most basic television service.
At Shaw, it means the launch of a new entry-level TV package they’re calling ‘Limited TV.’ It offers 40 channels and can be augmented with new small theme packs.
Previously Shaw’s cheapest package was ‘Personal TV’ which offers 65 channels and costs $29.90 a month.
Over at Telus, they’ve also launched a new skinny basic package entitled ‘Lite.’ It offers on average 35 channels with the additional option of choosing from a variety of ‘add-on’ packs.
Its price drops to $20 a month if bundled with another service such as internet, mobility or home phone.
By comparison, their previous most basic package called ‘Essentials’ is $33 in a bundle.
Comments
These “lite” packages are an insult to consumers. All this tv is available online for free by streaming.
This only puts them further into extinction. Won’t be long until there’s just Internet providers as online streaming is gaining grounds. I haven’t had cable in 4 years.
Real choice would be allowing the customer to assemble a basic package adding up to at least 25 dollars in total from all the channels the provider is listing in all packages. There is still no real consumer choice because the provider still chooses the content of even the most basic package! One still gets channels which one did not choose and most likely will never watch! The CRTC failed miserably, in my opinion.
German language livestream TV is available at no cost for around 50 channels with most from Germany and several from Austria as well as switzerland, all from one portal.
The neat thing is that 2 weeks of the broadcasting is stored. Access is through a neat sliding timescale menu. Click on any show, anywhere in th show . A very nice PVC function .
Again, no cost. Ads are included so advertisers get more visibility and likely get much better stats than standard cable.
I think we are seeing the end of the cable version of TV distribution. Hook up to the internet and watch what you want at no extra cost the same as it used to be over the air.
PVR obviously
Just to try it, I also watched Global livestream tonight at no cost for the show when it is live. If you want to see past shows you have to be subscribed to a cable or sat service. I am sure that sign in will eventually disappear as well.
Specialty stations without ads will,of course, have to be subscribed to.
We did the math. To replace our current package with the new ‘lite’ package combination would cost us $2 a month more. Just like ‘lite’ beverages, less costs the same or more. I have no remaining empathy for the service providers complaining about Internet streamers. So much for helping the consumer.
This whole thing was Stevie’s baby . So it must be good for people , right ? It couldn’t possibly be good for big cable and satilite , right ? Cable and satilite are having their Kodak moment .
Out of the big cable and satellite companies Shaw has the best overall lan available with Bell having the worst all are required to offer mandatory Canadian and specialty shows at the $25 basic package however they are allowed to set their own individual and theme pack pricing with Bell having the highest overall pricing followed by Rogers
In the end your still not saving any real money and in many cases you will be spending considerably more money to get the channels you want depending on the provider
I moved last year and stayed with Shaw, but they changed the Internet to a new system of pay for the speed level of connection. The new service cost more than I paid before but is as slow as dial up now. It’s horrible I literally spend as much time to download a news article as it takes to read it.
My plan is to switch to an ADSL type service provider and drop cable all together. Shaw is just an unreliable rip off now as it is currently constituted.
Like ABC charges by Speed for the Wireless Internet ,Plus usage.
Just checked into what Bell is offering, with them you can get ‘basic’ for $25/mo. BUT to get basic you have to have their HD receivers, $7/mo.each which to rent, which is $3/month each more than the ‘standard’ receivers we have now which work just fine. We would like to reduce the monthly bill but may find that difficult because with Bell, the new ‘basic’ is only available to NEW subscribers.
Well I guess we WILL be new subscribers, to Shaw/Direct.
Our rural location precludes enjoying streaming television.
I don’t suppose Shaw/Direct are much better, but I have to say, in general, Bell TV is synonymous with what vacuum cleaners do best.
metalman.
I have dabbled a bit into streaming. Can those of you streaming maybe give us neophytes some tips. My main question is finding new programing. Is there any websites that keep track of programing?
This might help. Put this into a search… “What’s new on Netflix Canada, Shomi, CraveTV in March” You’ll get a bunch of sites with the list of what’s coming up. The Vancouver Sun and Province both have this posting each month.
Yup, streaming is fine, but then you have to worry about going over your Data cap. If everybody streams, your Internet costs for Data will just go up, and up.
Shaw and Telus are not non profit companies,,,,,hard to beat them??
Yep! I pay over 80 bucks a month for Internet and I’m capped at 400GB which really doesn’t take much to reach when you start streaming video.
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