Digital television in Canada

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has adopted the same digital television standard for stations in Canada as the United States. The CRTC initially decided not to enforce a single date for transitioning to digital broadcasts, opting to let the economy decide when the switchover will occur. However, a later decision settled on the date of August 31, 2011, approximately 2.5 years later than the American transition date of February 17, 2009.

History

Several broadcasters, including the CBC, have argued that there is no viable business case for a comprehensive digital conversion strategy in Canada. At CRTC hearings in 2007 on the future direction of regulatory policy for television, broadcasters proposed a number of strategies, including funding digital conversion by eliminating restrictions on the amount of advertising that television broadcasters are permitted to air, allowing terrestrial broadcasters to charge cable viewers a subscription fee similar to that already charged by cable specialty channels, permitting license fees similar to those which fund the BBC in the United Kingdom, or eliminating terrestrial television broadcasting entirely and moving to an exclusively cable-based distribution model.

The CRTC ultimately decided to relax restrictions on advertising as the funding mechanism. However, a CRTC statement issued in June 2008 indicated that as of that date, only 22 digital transmitters had been fully installed across the entire country, and expressed the regulator's concern that Canada's television broadcasters were not adequately preparing for the shift to digital broadcasting.

Deployment

CITY-TV was the first Canadian station to provide digital terrestrial service. As of 2007, other digital stations on-air include the CBC and Radio-Canada stations in Toronto and Montreal, as well as CTV's CFTO and CIVT, and CKXT (SUN TV). This list is not necessarily exhaustive and other station launches are completed or pending, although most are in the largest markets of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. Also, this does not include digital or high definition versions of specialty services, or digital signals from border city stations, such as Detroit, Michigan or Buffalo, New York.

Although to date digital television broadcasts have only commenced in Canada's largest markets, most — although not all — Canadian cities have their digital channel assignments already in place.

Nationwide network terrestrial deployments

On November 22 2003, CBC had their first broadcast in HD, in the form of the Heritage Classic outdoor NHL game between the Edmonton Oilers and the Montreal Canadiens. Bell TV, a Canadian satellite company, Rogers Cable and Vidéotron provide somewhat more than 21 HDTV channels to their subscribers including TSN HD, SportsNet HD, Discovery HD, The Movie Network HD, and several U.S. stations plus some PBS feeds and a couple of pay-TV movie channels.

• CTV Toronto broadcast in HD along with its western counterpart, BC CTV.
• The CTV network was also the first to broadcast a terrestrial HD digital ATSC signal in Canada. Global joined the crowd in late 2004.

Regional terrestrial deployments

CHUM Limited's Citytv in Toronto was the first HDTV broadcaster in Canada; however, now most cable and satellite subscribers across Canada can access multiple channels in HDTV with major American and Canadian affiliate stations broadcasting HDTV signals with no CANCON overlay for advertising.

• Typically these channels are NBC HD, ABC HD, CBS HD, FOX HD, TSN HD, Sportsnet HD, CBC HD, ...

As of Summer 2006 CBC HD officially launched their HDTV programming on March 5 2005.

• CBC HD broadcasts the first game of their Hockey Night In Canada Saturday double header in HDTV. The 2006 NHL Playoff games have seen an increased amount of HDTV coverage as well.

TVRO and DTH avalablity

Star Choice, another Canadian satellite provider, currently offers its subscribers 14 HDTV channels at no extra cost.

Cable system deployments

Shaw Cable has found limited success with HDTV implementation since the cost of an HD PVR is near the $750 CAD mark. Monthly rentals for this equipment are not available; however, they do offer financing on 36-month terms through a third-party credit company.

Notes