Silly Little Country

Economising

A couple of months ago I started noticing that the schedule of TMN was becoming quite dluted. I had been subscribing to it on my local cable provider because it brought fairly prompt exposure to all recently released movies.
But somehow this had stopped happening and it took me a while to find out. Its monopolistic position had been undermined by our fabulous CRTC so the license to show newly released movies was now being shared out, no doubt at higher cost because of competition, among many cable stations.
So in the last couple of weeks I gave up my subscription. One option would have been to add further movie channels, but the whole process was too complicated, and for lots of good reasons, as you might imagine, I preferred to cut costs.
What I have learned, since abandoning that channel, is how rich even basic cable is in good movie resources, a point Rondi has frequently made citing films she watches on TCM.
About an hour ago I tuned in to "Grand Prix" as a lark on TCM, remembering its sweaty palm effect on me back in the days, and figured I would have a good laugh. Well, what a surprise - it stands up pretty well if you remember when being a Formula 1 driver was dangerous. And wow - the leads, all great except for poor Brian Bedford who shortly later found himself exiled to the Stratford Festival. But having Eva Marie Saint and Jessica Walter, James Garner and Yves Montand! Woo hoo. Too bad I have to switch to curling soon.
I am starting to think I can reduce myself to the Food Channel, the Women's Channel, and TSN. I wish Rogers would price that in a way I thought fair.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 5:46 PM