BELL AXES POPULAR RFO! Time to switch!

After proclaiming in the year 2000 with much fanfare that Bell Expressvu was launching RFO on channel 147 (originally on ch.120) the channel was arbitrarily discontinued on July 10.

This is a slap in the face to the many loyal RFO viewers from coast to coast! People supported Bells application to carry RFO to the CRTC and loyal customers have stayed with the Bell service during many years of dreadful 'less than digital quality' signal as Bells SDRU service took an over the air signal in Newfoundland and uplinked a substandard image to clients!

It wasn't always this way! The signal was in excellent quality till a strike at RFOs St.Pierre transmission and studio facilities in 2002. When the signal did come back Bell had switched its source feed to the substandard over the air analogue source signal.

A strong storm a bit of snow and the signal would disappear, after lots of calls EVu would switch to the CANCOM direct feed in excellent quality then revert back to their own signal when it was deemed watchable by EVu!

Was EVu the only source for the signal to satellite viewers? Initially yes, that was its attraction Bell was the only coast-to-coast service offering RFO. Bells competition in Satellite services in Canada is the Shaw Cable subsidiary: StarChoice

StarChoice through a business relationship with SPM Cable is able to source RFO 'on the island' of St.Pierre and uplink it in digital quality direct to StarChoice customers on channel 751 as part of their ACTIF subscription package at $4,99 a month.

So when did Bell decide to cancel the service? Bell Expressvu has a history of cancelling French language services, over the past two years they cancelled their exclusive services: PLANETE and EuroNews without adding new francophone channels.

One accepts Bells' business reasons for their own services but their small print announcement which appeared on the bottom of the second page of their May 10th statements that they would discontinue the service went unnoticed by most people! In fact many loyal RFO viewers have been treated to a crystal clear image since June which was likely sourced by CANCOM/StarChoice! SO when the channel disappeared on July 10th to be replaced by the blue screen notice (see image above) a number of calls went in to Bell ExpressVus service centre.

Bells standard answer was that the channel was 'unpopular'...hmm who did they ask? Does Bell publish subscription numbers? Maybe RFO was not the problem maybe it was the other channels in that package that are bundled with RFO? One wonders if Deutsche Welle has more subscribers than RFO? Of course Bell won't say!

Of course RFO will not bring in as much revenue as the multitude of Porn channels Bell offers subscribers!!

So Bell sticks to their argument that the channel was unpopular. Well if it is unpopular then one would think StarChoice would also drop the channel (751)? Calls to StarChoice on July 10th were greeted with the assurance that RFO would not be dropped and that StarChoice was getting a number of calls for the channel and people asking to switch between the two services (who use different Satellite technology).

We have heard from some disgruntled Bell ExpressVu customers that called in to cancel EVu and were told that the client would have to give 30 days notice. When clients tried to cancel they were suddenly switched to the 'Customer Loyalty' (how ironic!) department and after long discussions would be offered a temporary discount for as much as $15/month to stay with ExpressVu! At one point one client was told that ExpressVu has had a number of calls and was working to acquire the signal directly from RFO and this could take a few months to establish.

So one one hand ExpressVu uses the 'unpopularity' argument to arbitrarily drop a long offered service and then a few minutes later concedes that many clients are cancelling and as such they try to bait the clients with a discount. Interesting business practices indeed!

In the meantime a petition has been started HERE

One can only hope that Bell reconsiders their ill-advised decision before August 10 and offers the clients the opportunity to come back to Bell without the $50 'reconnect' fee!

Oh and a letter to the CRTC may not be a bad idea.... www.crtc.gc.ca

PS: The decision to allow RFO in Canada was always supported by the CRTC but the French station TF1 protested (to the CSA.fr) the relaying of their content via RFO into the Canadian marketplace as they felt that cut down possibilities of selling their content to the many Quebec based francophone stations. The CRTCs view was redistribution of RFO was akin to redistribution of American channels from Buffalo or Seattle