Weird non-commercials on Canadian broadcasts of US TV stations

Factual Questions
1

OK, as anyone who has ever watched any amount of American channels on Canadian TV knows, there are occasionally these “non-commercials” inserted where commercial normally go. No talking, no mention of anything, just shots of geese drifting lazily down a river, lovely scenic mountain vistas, golden wheat fields waving in the breeze, well, you get the idea. (Anything that would be a subject for motel art gets filmed on cheap video and made into these things) My question is - why?

Often the show will go to a commercial, the commercial will play for, oh, 2 or 3 seconds, then they’ll cut to this weird montage of wildlife accompanied by cheezy music, then return to the show when it returns.

Sometimes, instead of one of these, it’ll be several ads for charities, PSAs, that sort of thing. It doesn’t happen all the time, we usually get US commercials along with the shows. This has occurred as long as I can remember, but it only struck me weird tonight as I watched [sub] Married by America[/sub]. Every single commercial break was one of these, except for spots promoting Fox’s own shows, and one mysterious commercial that slipped through for something called Shoe Pavillion. Weird.

And on a semi-related cross border TV vein, how are US stations matched up with Canadian markets? In Calgary, for example, for the longest time we had Spokane, WA affiliates as our American channels, but now I get local channels form New York (WB11), Boston (I think the UPN affiliate), Rochester, NY (Fox), Chicago (UPN again, I think), all of Detroit’s main networks except Fox, Los Angeles (KTLA) and 4, count 'em four channels from Spokane. What on earth is the rationale for this mix and match of networks on my TV? (I must say, though that it’s remarkably convienient having TV from 4 time zones - watch whatever, when ever you feel like it! And I do so love watching local news from far away cities. Yeah, I’m a little odd)

Actually, it just occured to me that I’ve only seen these on Calgary TV. Are there any Canadians out there who don’t have these on their local channels?

2

The variation in local reception of American TV affiliates is much greater than you think - it varies from city to city even!

In my hometown, we get our set of AA’s. But just travelling to other cities in the same province (Ontario), I usually discover they have their own, different set of AA’s.
As for your original question, I believe it has to do with payments: Normally a station is paid by the company to air their commercial. When watching an American broadcast, you’re not watching the original network airing - you’re watching a “copy” of sorts. Since your local network airing the show has received no payment for the commercial, the commercial does not get aired.

3

The non payment thing sounds pretty reasonable. Is there a rule against a Canadian cable provider from selling commercial time to Canadian advertisers in those otherwise unpaid for slots?

4

Canadian calbe companies know that their customers want US channels, so they try to oblige. This caused problems about a decade or so ago when the major Canadian broadcast channels began to carry more and more American prime-time shows licensed from NBC, ABC, etc. When a Canadian channel was rebroadcasting an American show at the exact same time, he ratings were split between the two. So the broadcaster lobbied the regulators, and now when a Canadian channel is showing and American show simultaniously, the Canadian channel takes over their cable feed. For example: I get Global on channel 3 and CBS on channel 15. When Survivor is on, channel 15 shows the same Canadian commericals as channel 3, and even says “Global” down in the right corner. Sometimes when the stations aren’t properly synced up, you’ll be watching the American channel and halfway through the opening credits they’ll start over again, this time with a slightly different colour balance. This is the Canadian feed cutting in. This way Canada misses out on the super-cool/expensive superbowl ads, and has to instead watch the same 5 ads over and over again.

Maybe the OP’s situation is just local to Calgary; for whatever reason the local canadian channel hasn’t been able to sell enough commericals to fill in all of the breaks during their American shows, and has to run some stock footage instead. I get all the Toronto channels, and have never seen the nature footage. They run real commercials. The Gobal channel is especially prone to repeat the same set of commercials ever single break, and if the break goes long, they’ll start over at the beginning.

I also feel your pain when it comes to wierd choices for which American network affiliate to pick up. I get the Boston UPN as well as KTLA, along with some Rochester stations and some Detroit stations. I right across the lake from Rochester, so that I understand. Toronto gets all of the Buffalo channels on their cable, but they could pick them up in decent weather with rabbit ears, so that makes sense.

This dicussion could quickly lead into a diatribe on CanCon, so I’ll stop here. Canadian t.v. rules reflect the national consciousness: we thing America is cool but are terribly afraid of it destroying our “culture.” What that has with forcing me to watch he same damn Pizza Pizza commercial 72 times during the Super Bowl, or Miss Gratchen being forcing to watch stock nature footage, I have no clue.

5

And a question for Miss Gretchen: Do you just get these weird commercials during the prime time shows? Can you tell if the channel has been taken over by a Canadian one for the duration of the show (a Canadian broadcaster’s logo in the bottom corner instead of the American one)?

6

I don’t know what you’re talking about. All the commercials I’ve seen sync up perfectly with the shows in question - perhaps you’re getting extra Canadian commercials to what I see. FWIW, I’m in Edmonton, and use Shaw for cable.

7

Miss Gretchen, I work for a Canadian TV network, and I’ve never heard of what you’re talking about-- so it must be a Calgary thing…

mcbiggins is largely correct about simulcasting, and Trigonal Planar is dead wrong-- Sorry!. When you’re watching a US-based station that’s airing something airing at the same time as a Canadian station, the Canadian station takes over on cable. But if you’re watching a US station playing its own stuff, there’s no reason for the ads to be replaced.

Since you were watching Fox, and seeing Fox promos, it must be something that your local cable provider is doing with the feed as it arrives. I have no idea why they would do this.

US regulators allow more advertising per hour of TV than the CRTC does, but even so, that would only affect Canadian simulcasts, and not direct broadcasts (or cable transmission) of US stations.

8

Miss Gretchen. I am originally from Calgary and also share your experiences. I now live in Ottawa and can’t say I’ve seen the breaks over here. Didn’t really notice until you brought it up. I’ll have to pay closer attention to see if they’re here and nobody has really noticed them.

I think I have noticed a similar phenomenon during American sporting events, especially NFL football. Coming out of commercial breaks there will often be a shot of the stands or a jumbotron with a pizza pizza or Canadian Tire logo superimposed. I think this is just something they throw in while the American commercial break winds up.

9

Hmmm, the plot thickens. This is indeed getting weird. So is Calgary possibly the only market that does this? It seems odd that the situation in Edmonton is different, as we get Shaw cable as well.

I’ve noticed the Canadian feed switching over - the opening of the Simpsons usually stops when Marge is at the grocery store and restarts from the beginning, so you always get to see Bart’s blackboard seqeunce twice.

And as for the little logo that goes in the corner, sometimes both network’s logos are there, the Canadian one superimposed.

But we seem to get the stock footage ones during primetime, and “charity” ads and PSAs later at night - The Red Cross, Kidney Foundation, stuff like that.

10

I live in Grande Prairie and watch Calgary/Edmonton feeds via Satellite all the time. I have never seen those “dead spaces” that you mention.

Although, the Newfoundland TV station likes to throw the odd Rock Video in the mix.

11

From the CRTC’s mouth. Why your cable company is so slow at the switch-switch, lord knows.

12

Ah, that’d be because the satellite feed coming to your local station has the American network ‘bug’ already stamped on it, so your local station will stick their transparent bug on top-- or come up with an opaque bug that covers the American one.

13

I’ve seen worse than commercial spots being filled in with nature shots. On at least one occasion, the entire commercial break was replaced with a black screen with text along the lines of “THIS SIGNAL HAS BEEN BLOCKED BY REGULATION” or some such.

14

bernse - you get Newfoundland TV in GP? Wow. Is that a special thing because of the high number of Newfoundlanders there? Or am I think of Fort McMurray?

15

Isn’t the same thing done with television news; that is, they block it out with a placard citing FCC regulations?

16

Well, we do have a lot of Newfies out here, but I don’t think that has anything to do with it :slight_smile:

AFAIK, anyone will Express Vu gets the channel, regardless of where you live.

17

That Canada had some rule about there must be two minutes of Canada related material every hour. I remember it as minute long nature commercials. "The beaver (pause) builds dams in streams (20 second pause, shots of beavers building dams). The beaver slaps his tail to signal danger–etc.

I also recall the SCTV skit “Great White North” was a spoof of this two minute rule.

18

I’ve lived in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

THe breaks you talk aboot are pretty infrequent in all of these provinces. Usually, American commercials, on American channels, are just replaced by similar Canadian ones. This is a source of frustration during the (American) Superbowl, even on “American” channels we miss the “special” commercials.

19

Never having seen Canadian TV, I can only offer the thought that the American commercials are being blocked at the request, nay, demand of the American Screen Actors Guild.

Internet radio has a similar phenomenon - the commercials can not be “broadcast” over the internet as the AFTRA unionized “talent” is not getting paid for the additional ears that commercial would be reaching. This led to a lot of radio stations simply pulling the plug on their netcasts, and others to be very happy that they recently invested a buttload of money into digital or otherwise computerized consoles that can swap in a generic audio feed to replace the ads heading out to the netcast. More info on how one station handles this.

20

AFAIK, it’s because of different laws about commercials. In the US, broadcasters are prohibited from showing more than 8 minutes of commercials per 30 minutes of programming. That’s why TV shows are written in 22 or 44 minute increments.

But in Canada, that limit is lower–I think it’s 6 but I could be wrong. So how do you fill the gaps? By inserting PSAs or other such “Yay, Canada!” footage.