A significant percentage of Canadians would not be willing to pay more to receive CTV, Canwest or CBC signals, according to research from M2 Universal. Of the 1,000 Canadians surveyed by the media planning firm, 42% said they would cancel their conventional channels rather than pay more for them. Another 26% would cancel other channels to pay for conventionals, while only 16% would pay a premium to keep them. Of those who would be willing to pay more, 83% would be willing to pay up to $2 per channel, more for CBC/Radio-Canada.

French-Canadians were more willing than English to pay for continued access to conventional channels, especially for CBC/SRC – 23% said they would pay for the pubcaster, compared to 13% of English-Canadians.

The CRTC estimates that such fees would be worth some $352 million to the television industry, generating about $56 million for CTV, $72 million for Canwest and $56 million for Rogers.

From Media in Canada