Can phone guys finally find happiness in TV Land?

CTV’s full return to the BCE fold brings back memories, not all of them fond. BCE’s roots are in telephones and during its first run at the TV network, the buzzword was convergence and thus the need for content. Jean Monty, then BCE president, practically mortgaged the farm to make it happen before making a somewhat inglorious exit. As a condition of the CTV acquisition, the CRTC imposed good funding for news that lasted several years. Before that, the phone bureaucracy created its own content on the web for several years under the Sympatico label -– complete with a huge newsroom downtown, CBC-like executive producers and a number viewer forums – an early go web audience participation. That too got ditched in favour of alliance with MSN. The bottom line is that the phone giant has been groping, trying to survive in a changed world where content is needed to draw eyeballs and a significant number of people have abandoned expensive phone land lines. Can a phone company be happy in TV land? We may find out or there will be more shuffling of assets. The Planet Guys