NOTE: Read these blog entries for the setup and background to this:
• Conservative Party of Canada being led by effete blowhards? Cancel your membership.
• Shaw Direct (formerly Star Choice) Satellite appeases leftists in anti-Fox News Channel gambit
• Followup #1 on Shaw Direct satellite service’s left-wing-appeasing, anti-Fox-News Channel option
• (Only somewhat related) Defense Department allegedly screws military out of desperately-needed $300 MILLION last year
This is what that conservative motivator and advocate (and, apparently, minister in charge of what’s good for us, TV-wise), Conservative Defense Minister Peter MacKay ([email protected]), and his wily cohort, the ingenious Conservative “strategist” Geoff Norquay, are largely responsible for.
Note that according to CTV News reports, the Conservative “Strategist” Norquay in particular actually suggested Canadians cancel their Fox News Channel subscriptions, and hoped “that Canadian advertisers will cancel their business with the network.” CBC’s fine. Al-Jazeera’s fine. It’s Fox News Channel — the only channel that is reliably and overtly pro-troops, pro-military, and pro-mission in Afghanistan — and the only one which reliably tolerates conservative thought — that ticks that “conservative” off.
Emboldened by the apparently not very busy “conservative” advocate and motivator and “strategist”, and of course the Defence and TV Minister, the left clearly jumped on the rare opportunity that they’ve been waiting for, and orchestrated a li’l campaign to complain to the cable and satellite companies about Fox News Channel, and that ever so egregious sentence some comedian on that channel made one might in the middle of the night in a stupid joke which nobody heard. About our troops. Which the left so “support”, dontchaknow. (After which the joker apologized). And Shaw Cable’s Star Choice (recently renamed “Shaw Direct”) jumped on the yummy chance to justify making Fox News Channel even more difficult for folks to see. Profits be damned. There’s liberalism to boost, here, and all that comes with that.
Shaw is now telling customers who are complaining to them about their asinine, leftist-appeasing, politics-based decision to make Fox News Channel even more difficult to obtain, that we should just chill. Take a pill. There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation, which only we are having such difficulty comprehending, perhaps on the basis that as Fox News Channel viewers, we are so very stupid.
Shaw had to take this action, after all, because upon the helpful prodding by MacKay and Norquay and other liberals, people complained about Fox News Channel. So they had to do this. Had to make Fox News Channel “opt-in” even for those who already subscribe to it. Had to. This is the only way they could possibly have responded to the customer complaints.
And see the thing is, as they’ve told us, nobody has complained about CBC or CBC Newsworld before. NOBODY. That’s what they say. Otherwise, to my way of thinking, it logically follows, they would have to similarly remove CBC and CBC Newsworld from its various bundles unless (as is now the case with Fox News Channel), customers specifically, physically, make an effort to “opt-in” by way of a inane, minutes-long phone call to their busy customer service department (press two for English!), or by registering for an account online at their web site and then after positively responding to the email that follows for verification (you know the drill), and returning to fill in all manner of online forms. All this, even if you already had CBC and CBC Newsworld to start with, which you did.
We are in no way taking any type of political stance on this issue. We may receive complaints about other channels, but it is more focused on the amount of CBC channels we carry and not regarding their political views.
As for MSNBC, we have not received complaints regarding this channel and their political views. This is not to say there are people who do not agree with your views. What we are saying is we simply have not heard this view until your e-mail.
—Part of an actual email response to Frank, who complained about Shaw’s Fox News Channel decision
Of course I’m a Fox News Channel viewer, so I’m likely incapable about forming logical threads, and could be wrong. (Actually, I watch CBC more hours per day, so I can document their insulting arrogance toward all conservatives, their bias, their perfidy, and their horrible, tendentious reporting, all day long. But whatever. It’s my Fox News Channel subscription which makes me dumb.)
But moreover, I find this contention that nobody has complained about CBC and CBC Newsworld utterly amazing, inasmuch as I have complained myself, as documented here; and so has at least one other PTBC reader whose email complaining about the CBC I’ve documented here, and her mother’s complaint which I didn’t document, and similarly, other people’s complaints which have been relayed to me via email. And like the complaint by Frank (the Shaw reply to him included the above quote), who just wrote to me today to tell me that he’s complained, only to be told by Shaw that… nobody has complained before his complaint arrived.
When on the CBC’s associated web site, CBC.ca, their commenters post comments about Canadian soldiers being killed, that “THIS IS WHAT YOU DESERVE”, and their moderators approved it, nobody complained?
We don’t complain when we switch on our Shaw or its Star Choice satellite service and see CBC reporters and anchors literally insulting everything we stand for?
If that’s true, I’m quitting this web site.
I suggest you complain about the CBC and CBC Newsworld here:
http://www.starchoice.com/english/contactus/default.asp
Complain about Shaw’s asinine Fox News Channel decision here:
http://www.starchoice.com/english/contactus/default.asp
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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