Paramount+ Update

It appears that Paramount+ has listened to complaints and has added the Star Trek catalogue to their streaming service in Canada, which I just discovered when redeeming a free three month subscription through the Monopoly promotion at McDonalds.

They’ve also added quite a few classic television sitcoms like Cheers, Frasier, Family Ties, I Love Lucy and The Love Boat, as well as the more contemporary hit series like South Park, Beavis & Butthead and Red & Stimpy. And all of the Mission Impossible films are also on there.

To get this offer you need to create an account at Mcdpromotion.ca and enter five codes from the game pieces you get when buying participating products at McDonalds. And these 12 digit codes are also available on winning pieces for free food. But I believe the offer ends on November 30th, 2022 so you’d need to enter the necessary codes and activate your trial membership by then.

By the way, a monthly subscription for this streaming service is $5.99 per month or $59.99 per year.

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Goodbye Sweet Bindy

Please be advised that I will be taking a short break from this blog.

Thank you.

Who wants to pay more for basic cable?

Yes, Telus has been charging a 1.5% fee whenever their customers use a credit card since mid-October and now Bell Canada, Cogeco, Eastlink and Sasktel applied to start upping their rates every year “based on the annual consumer price index for the period ending December 31 of the preceding calendar year”, which means everyone will likely be paying way more for something that gets less and less appealing every year.

I currently stream most of the television programs I watch on a Roku television or watch over the air broadcast using a digital antenna and LTE/5G filter so I question the logic of hiking basic cable when most people are cutting the cord and starting to watch the Canadian networks online.

Some of them still charge fees for some of their programming but when it comes to news and weather, these are available free from CBC, Radio Canada, Global, CTV and The Weather Network via their apps, which are available for mobile devices and on smart televisions. And I suspect they will eventually offer advertisement sponsored streaming and time shifting, like CBC and Radio Canada have.

When it comes to comedy and drama that also airs on television, I now find myself watching them on Youtube, Prime Video and Disney+, basically viewing cable as a bonus in a discounted package with cell service, where I occasionally record programs that are unavailable online.

I also binge watch series on Netflix and Prime Video, the latter making Global and multiple other networks available for relatively affordable rates, so I believe these hikes are not conducive to the retaining of subscribers.

Bell just recently upgraded their fibre network, allowing some to download and upload at speeds up to 3 GBPS. And these occurred in multiple cities where over the air broadcasts are strong and readily available to most residents of these cities, so what could stop an independent provider from offering basic cable packages at less than $20.

I suspect most subscribers would be happy paying less for 1080p broadcasts, which is what one finds over the air, and prefer tuning into 4k primarily for films and sports. And Netflix is also still loosing subscribers so I think this hike is not fully thought out.

Is Bell trying to nudge people towards Crave, a streaming service that has just recently dropped prices to attract more subscribers? Who knows. But you have until October 28th, 2022 to comment on the proposal to hike basic cables rates from $25 to $28 “with subsequent yearly adjustments based on inflation“.

Sennheiser (Canada) Inc.

British Pound More Affordable

You may want to consider ordering goods from Great Britain as soon as possible because the British Pound is near parity with the American Dollar and consequently more affordable to Canadians, as you can see from the current exchange rate shown in this graphic:

Alibris U.K, Amazon.co.uk, HMV.com and Musicroom.com are the U.K companies I import from the most and I tend to order CDs, sheet music and film on DVD/Blu-ray from them, the latter being playable only on multi region players, which can be purchased from Amazon Canada and Amazon America.

You should note that some DVD and blu-ray players can play Region 0 discs, some in PAL so consult your player’s manual for details.

Second Prime Day

Amazon Canada just released information in regards to this another Prime Day event for this year, which will occur on October 11th AND 12th. And American residents will also be able to access deals via Amazon.com on the same dates.

Hurricane Fiona in Canada Appeal