FLYNN DAUNT
Excalibur (York University)

TORONTO (CUP) — For the first time, Canadians are spending more time online than watching television. Online entertainment options are part of the reason.

After all, consumers can watch what they want, when they want to. Television watching can coincide with chatting with friends and the number of commercials is significantly reduced, if not eliminated all together.

An Ipsos-Reid study, released in March 2010, found that people between the ages of 18 and 34 spend an average of 20 hours per week online compared to only 13 hours spent watching television.

“The data indicates that not only are people of all ages spending more and more time online but it also points to a shift in how online Canadians are consuming media and where they are spending their free time,” study author Mark Laver said in a press release.

Companies are beginning to take notice of this trend. Google, who just announced plans to launch Google TV in 2011, is trying to combine the best of both worlds by including a web browser for online viewing with the channel-surfing flexibility of a television, making it a completely customizable experience.

But, John McCullough, a film studies professor at Toronto’s York University, doesn’t think cable TV is done just yet.

“There’s still an audience for television,” he said.

He explained that although the statistics confirm the number of people watching and downloading television videos on the Internet has increased, so too have the statistics for television audiences.

McCullough believes that this trend won’t completely overtake the old technology.

“New technologies, rather than replacing old ones, tend to be incorporated into old technologies,” said McCullough. “Computers nowadays tend to look a lot like… television programming. The Internet has channels but an unlimited number of them.”

While these technologies are growing and improving in the United States, Canada is a different story.

The Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission and their strict rules on how Canadians view outside media are largely blocking these advancements.

McCullough said the CRTC has policies designed to prevent American networks from overtaking the Canadian television industry. These policies also allow Canadian programming to flourish.

Sites like ComedyCentral.com or MTV.com will either redirect viewers to the Canadian website or block them from watching a video because the IP address is not located in the United States.

Hulu, a popular U.S. website that streams shows previously broadcast on American networks, is also blocked in Canada.

McCullough said that cable and satellite companies, like Rogers and Bell, also do whatever they can to ensure these new companies have a hard time getting into Canada. He explained that cable and satellite companies in Canada are so powerful that they can lobby Canadian regulators by saying how much American television will flood the market.

“[Canadian cable and satellite companies] own so much that if they go under, then a lot of folks would be screwed,” said McCullough.

McCullough adds that these cable and satellite companies also own Canada’s connection to the Internet.

“Rogers charges me for my cable but they also tell me how much I can download now.”

– –
image: Flickr