Received this in email from OpenMedia.ca today. Here's one of the videos that goes with the pitch. Below is the petion mentioned - embedded here for your convenience.
As many of you know, large vertically integrated telecom companies dominate many different types of media markets. To name a few: Bell owns CTV, Shaw owns Global, Rogers owns Maclean’s, and Quebecor Media owns both big ISP Videotron and the Sun Media Corporation. The list goes on...As a member of the pro-Internet community, you know all about Big Telecom’s efforts to make the Internet more closed and expensive. They’re now lobbying politicians so they can protect their other businesses, from phone services to TV to media content. Big telecom companies want full spectrum dominance so they can price-gouge us at will and control our media choices.
The most immediate threat to media choice right now is to the only national TV network that is independent of Big Telecom: the CBC. Big Telecom lobbyists are trying to de-fund the CBC, so that they can limit media choice [1] and further dominate the media market [2]. We shouldn't let this sleazy policy manipulation succeed.
From your responses on the Pro-Internet Survey last year, we know that you care about the threat of media concentration, and about making sure Canadians have alternatives to big media corporations. Because of this, we want to let you know about a Friends of Canadian Broadcasting petition to defend the CBC from the potentially catastrophic budget cuts Big Telecom is pushing for.We don’t want Big Telecom to tighten its control of our media system.
Click here to sign the petition to keep CBC in the game.CBC plays a crucial role by providing Canadians with a media outlet that is independent of Big Telecom giants. Please join us in standing up against the command-and-control media model.Visit http://www.friends.ca/smackdown/OpenMedia/ to check out satirical campaign videos, and to sign the petition to save the CBC.
For an open media system,Reilly, Steve, and Shea, on behalf of the OpenMedia.ca TeamP.S. Occasionally we’ll invite you to help out other organizations like Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, which tackle issues that relate to Internet openness and affordability. We haven’t shared any of your information with this group.
SOURCES:[1] War of words heats up between CBC, Quebecor | Toronto Starhttp://www.thestar.com/news/article/1076574[2] Kai Nagata: Warnings from Québec | The Tyeehttp://thetyee.ca/Opinion/ 2011/09/12/Nagata_Quebec_ Warning/
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