William Watson: Hello, Canada. We’ll survive without HNIC on CBC |
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William Watson: Hello, Canada. We’ll survive without HNIC on CBC
People who want to watch hockey still can. Those who don't won't have to pay taxes to help CBC buy the rights to it
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Old-fashioned over-air TV signals are what economists call a “public good.” One person’s “consumption” of them doesn’t reduce anyone else’s. That makes them unlike a hamburger, say, which is “private good”: the hamburger I eat is denied to you. I put quotation marks around “consumption” because some public goods don’t get consumed. Over-air broadcasts of the first episodes of Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC) are approaching 74 light-years away now, getting close to some of the stars in the Big Dipper. I wonder if Dipperites will recognize them as signs of intelligent life.
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