TerranceAndPhilip
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Blame the U.S.: HDTV threatening Canadian culture?
In a reverse Terrance & Philip situation, a couple of Canadian professors are warning of the threat the conversion to digital TV poses to "Canada's cultural sovereignty". In their book Canadian Television Today they address what they see as a problem for broadcasters forced to keep pace with the U.S.'s scheduled switch. Canada has not yet set a date to change exclusively to digital broadcasting, and the two University of Calgary professors don't seem to see why its necessary anytime soon given the great expense such a move puts on smaller local stations. An opposing viewpoint says the country can't wait to switch to digital, so that production companies can easily work with U.S. broadcasters to sell their content. We hadn't really considered the impact the digital broadcasting switch might have on our neighbors to the north, mostly because we hadn't considered their cultural sovereignty beyond hockey and an oddly misspelled version of SportsCenter. Still, with the number of U.S. shows filmed in Canada that are already formatted for HD -- and their contributions to the Discovery Channel -- whenever they do switch to digital there will be plenty of programming available.
