O, Canada

CANADA GETS A LA CARTE CABLE

Canadian subscribers are set to pick and pay only for TV services they want, sending jittery broadcasters online and worldwide for new business opportunities. It's been called Canada's Great Cable Unbundling. Plans to allow cable customers to shop a la carte — picking, and paying, only for the channels they want piped into their homes — has triggered a seismic shift in the industry here and could in 2016 see local Canadian operations make bids to become global players.

The recent Canadian TV market gyrations are a prelude to broadcasters in 2016 finding out just how many subscribers will keep their current TV package when skinny basic and pick and pay options become available in March 2016. Starting then, customers will be able to pick and pay for cable and satellite TV channels after purchasing a basic package capped at $25 a month.

The networks have already seen much blood-letting as vertically-integrated media giants cut jobs and costs before March 2016, when the new a la carte regulations come into force. Hamilton, Ontario-based local TV station CHCH on Dec. 11 cut 71 full-time jobs and sharply chopped its local programming output as it filed for bankruptcy protection amid a declining national advertising market.

There's been similar job culls at larger broadcast players Bell, Shaw and Rogers. The cross-industry cost cutting is the latest sign of a broadcast sector feeling the strain of a soft advertising market and cord-cutting as audiences and advertisers increasingly go online to view TV shows, especially on Netflix Canada.