The Sad State of TV Shows in the Canadian iTunes Store
If you’re using the Canadian iTunes store or, more likely, using any non-U.S. iTunes store, you are painfully aware of the differences between what the U.S. gets and what you get. For music, for which I use the iTunes store sparingly, I would say the Canadian store is pretty good. For movies it’s not bad, as I mentioned in a previous post, the catalog seems about 60% of what the U.S. store has. I should mention at this point that movies in the Canuck store are typically $14.99 and $19.99 CDN, which given the current exchange rates makes the our iTunes store about 20-25% more expensive (plus we have 13% tax on that in Ontario). Movie rentals are $4.99 for SD and $5.99 for HD for new releases.
Now to the point, the selection of TV shows is paltry compared to the U.S. store. The following networks are available on the iTunes in Canada:
- CBC
- CTV
- Comedy Network
- Fashion Television
- MGM
- Military Channel
- MTV
- NHL
- Nickelodeon
- Spike
- TLC
- Treehouse
- YTV
There are certainly some decent shows in this mix but some of the high runners such as Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, Dexter, etc. are not available. Canadians get these shows through our own networks or through cable and satellite so they are available via “regular” channels (no pun intended 
). Now I’m sure this is all because of distribution deals and our equivalent to the FCC – the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunication Council (CRTC). I’m sure Apple would be more than happy to provide this content to the whole world but the archaic TV business models and the various bureaucracies are preventing distribution of “legitimate” content. You can be sure Canadians are getting these TV shows digitally by other means.
Written by Bill G. on October 3, 2008
