WPBS Reception Problem Solved?

It may be true that we cannot detect occasions of illusion and error at a glance. That is what makes them illusions.
Simon Blackburn, Think,  Knowledge, p. 23-24

One of the best viewing choices offered in the basic cable television packages by Rogers Communications to the viewers in Ottawa, Ontario is WPBS from upstate New York. Those of us of the "Lefty" bent really enjoy our Masterpiece Theater, Frontline and especially Charlie Rose. But for some reason, the Oracle of Ottawa just can't comprehend, it seems that Rogers has a real "thing" against WPBS. They tried desperately to remove WPBS from the package under the subterfuge that the over the air signal was not of the quality that Rogers had randomly set. Then there was that big public uprising that raised the money to get WPBS the required dedicated fibre optic cable so that Rogers had to relent again and allow WPBS to be seen in the Ottawa area.

"All The Gold"

With the fibre optic feed you would think that the problem of poor reception would be a thing of the analog past. Wrong again. And for the poor tech guys on the American side you can give up the search, the problem is not on your side! About a year or two ago the Oracle of Ottawa had a similar problem with Rogers and the reception of my beloved BBC. The audio track of the feed was delayed just long enough to make the station totally unwatchable. This caused a "service" call by the Oracle of Ottawa to customer service. The Oracle of Ottawa is very ugly when he is pissed! It is never pretty, and for the poor putzen at the receiving end; life changing and un-forgettable.Many things were mentioned. My federal member of Parliament, who was at the time a cabinet minister, my buddy at the CRTC and friends at the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council were lightly mentioned. Result? Lo! And behold! The reception was corrected as I hung up the phone!

The Oracle of Ottawa will let you in on the secret. It is not a technical problem, it is a greed and money problem. It is all about the advertising, and how Rogers can maximize the revenue from said advertising. Shocking isn't it! It all dawned on me recently, well, last night as a matter of fact. I was trying to watch Charlie Rose and there was that break up of the picture and that intermittent lose of the audio feed, that made it just impossible to watch. Then at 12:00 a.m. at the start of Tavis Smiley just before the Walmart commercial, the whole situation rapidly came back to normal! Total coincidence of course! Geez and there are a ton of skanky Walmart stores in Canada, most of them in Ontario, the parts of Ontario that Rogers serves. I mean, how weird is that? Upon reflection, all the shows that I was dying to watch did not have the "right" advertisers! It is just a coincidence, one must not jump to conclusions. The militant right wing is not trying to remove every thing that speaks against it. That of course is just crazy talk. Isn't it?

In closing a few questions for "management" to ponder....