I read Maclean’s regularly, but I don’t often agree with it. I find it a little conservative for my tastes, especially the way it continually conflates Marxism with Communism and Socialism (a disingenuity particularly unforgivable in a magazine about politics). But every now and then, it strokes the libertarian in me. Case in point: Andrew Coyne’s opinion piece on page 11 of this week’s issue (dated May 12th, 2008), also available online here. In a nutshell, Coyne pokes holes in the arguments made by Rogers and Shaw to the CRTC, arguments that consumers will suffer if the Commission alters the protections currently in place – protections which essentially create monopolies for given television channels, and allow for simulcasting. In Coyne’s view, and in mine, the protection of monopolies in our telecommunications industry has gone on far too long, and benefits everyone but the consumer.

By eliminating competition, the CRTC assures two things: one, market forces never really enter into the success or failure of a show. Something that nobody watches can get picked up for 10 seasons, and something that people would, perhaps, clamour to watch never gets picked up at all because it doesn’t fill a niche market or air on a protected channel. This is great for people who like steady employment making crap, but bad for the people sitting in front of their televisions, flicking through channel after channel of programming that would surely get yanked if viewers had real choice. And two, we the consumers are doubly shafted, forced to pay for programming we have no interest in. Not only does the system prevent a survival-of-the-fittest model that would improve programming overall – it actually prohibits viewers from being selecting about the programming they receive and pay for.

Check out the full article – Coyne elaborates much more effectively than I could, which is why he has a column in Maclean’s and I have a blog that nobody reads.