The myth of the 'Skinny Cable' bundle

One of the biggest questions we get as of late from all our customers revolves around the recent announcement by the CRTC of the ‘skinny cable bundle’.

In case you missed it, the CRTC recently announced that starting in March of 2016 cable companies must offer a basic cable package for no more than $25 per month.

What channels will be included in the ‘skinny cable bundle’ has yet to be determined. Most likely it will include most of the major local Canadian channels and possibly all the Canadian speciality news channels. 

Will it include the basic US cable channels? It has been suggested that this will be left up to the cable companies to determine, so our guess is don’t bet on it.

The other part of the decision by the CRTC is that by Dec 2016 cable companies must offer pick and pay of additional channels.

While we like what the CRTC is trying to do here, it’s still a case of to little too late.

Will the 'skinny cable bundle' actually save customers money?

Here’s what you have to remember. 

A skinny package of $25 is still going to include channels that most consumers don’t want. On top of that this decision doesn’t address the cost that most customers have to pay for hardware. One of the bigger cable companies currently charges you $25 a month to rent one HD PVR.

When it comes to pick and pay, the CRTC is allowing the cable companies to set the prices of the individual channels. That doesn’t seem like a great idea to us.

You won’t be able to just pick say 3 or 4 channels without also signing up for the skinny package. So in essence some customers are still being forced to take a bundle that they may not want.

Lastly all of this doesn’t take effect until end of 2016.

We understand change takes time, but the cable companies knew this was coming. The CRTC hearings started in early 2014, so why is it taking so long to roll things out?

Your telling Canadian cable customers that you heard them loud and clear. Customers are sick of paying through the nose for services they don’t want and yet the CRTC is telling them that they have to continue to do so for another year and a half.

So while we like that the CRTC is trying to change things, it’s our belief that none of these changes will result in any real change for customers in the end. In fact we expect that customers will actually end up paying more.

If you are waiting for the ‘skinny cable bundle’ to take effect then you may want to cut the cord sooner.

Forget skinny cable bundles and pick and pay. Cutting the cord is already true ‘skin-and-bones’ and you can get it today and we can help show you the way.