Fellow Canadian,

Canada's TV networks are out to create a second class of Canadians: the 11 million people in smaller cities and towns who will soon lose the ability to watch FREE TV.

If you live in a smaller community, your only option will be to pay for cable or satellite while Canadians in major cities will continue to have free TV.

Take action! Tell them you don't agree.

This is bad policy at a time when people are looking to lower their monthly costs and connect to what is going on in their community, their country and the world. Television -- local, regional and national -- is one thing that knits the country together and should be accessible in all parts of the country, regardless of whether viewers can afford or choose to pay a monthly fee.

Stations in the smaller cities and towns could use new digital technology to improve over-the-air TV service with more channels and a better picture.

But TV networks like Global, CTV and CBC simply want to cut their own costs and force you to pay ever-increasing cable or satellite bills.

Right now, these networks are fighting with the cable and satellite companies in a major advertising campaign involving hundreds of millions of dollars. The networks are telling you to support local television by asking cable and satellite providers to hand over some profits. In the other corner, cable and satellite providers are trying to convince you that the networks are just trying to charge you a TV tax.

But who is in your corner? No matter the outcome of the clash of the TV titans, they don't tell you that 11 million Canadians are set to lose access to free, local, over-the-air television -- forcing them to cable, satellite or darkness.

Take action now!

Subject: Cutting off small-town Canada's free TV is wrong

Dear [decision maker name automatically inserted here],

You need to tell the CRTC to rethink its approval of a plan that would cut 11 million Canadians out of access to free, over-the-air TV signals.

This is a big country with a diversity of regions and population. Canadians have always made an effort to carve out an accessible space on the TV dial where we can find stories and information by and about ourselves.

But now, because Canadian broadcasters want to cut costs, the Commission is proposing that only 29 cities continue to get free, over-the-air TV service after the transition to digital in 2011.

To leave 11 million Canadians who live in smaller cities, towns and rural areas with no other option but to pay for cable or satellite to watch even their local or regional TV stations undermines the purpose of the Canadian broadcasting system that we have built over 50 years.

This is not necessary. There are other options, including helping broadcasters to use the new digital technology to improve TV service in smaller cities and towns. This also stands to help local broadcasting: if improved service encouraged more of us to watch the local and regional stations over the air, stations in those smaller communities would be more viable. Instead, your plans virtually deliver people into the 500-channel universe where the small local stations get lost in the shuffle.

Please ask the CRTC to rethink its model for the digital transition and to find ways to use the new technology to make sure all parts of Canada are served by our public airwaves.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

cc:
Hubert T. Lacroix, President of CBC/Radio-Canada
Ivan Fecan, CEO of CTVglobemedia
Leonard Asper, CEO of Canwest (Global TV)