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What don’t / didn’t you like about Canada?

What don’t / didn’t you like about Canada?

Old Oct 14th 2008, 3:28 am
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Default Re: What don’t / didn’t you like about Canada?

Originally Posted by geedee
Huh? This is what I read...

I watch Coronation Street.

It fits into a 19.5 minute time slot which would make it a 39 minute show. That is bad enough.


I took that to mean 19.5 minutes of programming in a 39 minute period.... or, to round things up, 20 program in 40 minutes.... i.e. 20 ads, therefore 50/50.

Have I misread something?
Unless I'm the one missing something.

Coronation Street is only on for 30 minutes not 39 minutes but the actual show is only 19.5 which by my count leaves 10.5 minutes of adverts not 20.

Closer to 2/3rds show 1/3rd ads.
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Old Oct 14th 2008, 3:38 am
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Default Re: What don’t / didn’t you like about Canada?

Originally Posted by Steve_P
Unless I'm the one missing something.

Coronation Street is only on for 30 minutes not 39 minutes but the actual show is only 19.5 which by my count leaves 10.5 minutes of adverts not 20.

Closer to 2/3rds show 1/3rd ads.
Well, I'm going on what the poster said, not what you believe to be correct! Regardless, 2/3 to 1/3 ratio is crap, feels like 50/50 and however you spin it, you cannot get away from the fact that Canadian TV is absolutely abysmal, can't possibly attract good viewing figures and is a complete waste of money for advertisers as more and more people turn off and drop in... to places like the internet or the pub or actually talking to their loved ones!
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Old Oct 14th 2008, 3:50 am
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Default Re: What don’t / didn’t you like about Canada?

Originally Posted by geedee
...you cannot get away from the fact that Canadian TV is absolutely abysmal, can't possibly attract good viewing figures and is a complete waste of money for advertisers as more and more people turn off and drop in... to places like the internet or the pub or actually talking to their loved ones!
I like to think that it adds to the motivation for doing other things. Even if it is interweb related nonsense.

Pull the plug....you know you want to:

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Old Oct 14th 2008, 3:59 am
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Default Re: What don’t / didn’t you like about Canada?

Originally Posted by Rich_007
I like to think that it adds to the motivation for doing other things. Even if it is interweb related nonsense.

Pull the plug....you know you want to:

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t...ll-Your-TV.jpg
Positive spin! And very true. We've come back in from taking our kids down the "street" to a playday. They had a big (illegal, but nobody listens or cares!!) bonfire in the back garden while the kids went nuts on the swings. We parents discussed all manner of things while sipping beer and wine. We all walked back down a dark country road, listening to nature.... and tv was the absolute last thing on our minds. While I'm mucking about on the net, my wife is reading a book.... crap tv has a lot going for it!
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Old Oct 14th 2008, 4:22 am
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Default Re: What don’t / didn’t you like about Canada?

Originally Posted by Steve_P
Unless I'm the one missing something.

Coronation Street is only on for 30 minutes not 39 minutes but the actual show is only 19.5 which by my count leaves 10.5 minutes of adverts not 20.

Closer to 2/3rds show 1/3rd ads.
exactly
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Old Oct 14th 2008, 4:30 am
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Default Re: What don’t / didn’t you like about Canada?

Originally Posted by geedee
Well, I'm going on what the poster said, not what you believe to be correct! Regardless, 2/3 to 1/3 ratio is crap, feels like 50/50 and however you spin it, you cannot get away from the fact that Canadian TV is absolutely abysmal, can't possibly attract good viewing figures and is a complete waste of money for advertisers as more and more people turn off and drop in... to places like the internet or the pub or actually talking to their loved ones!
I'm not arguing that the ads are not crap and it's not what I believe it is a fact Coronation Street is a 30 minute show week nights.

It sounds more like you are the one spinning things not me.

All I have stated are facts all you have said is it "feels like".
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Old Oct 14th 2008, 4:35 am
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Default Re: What don’t / didn’t you like about Canada?

Originally Posted by Steve_P
I'm not arguing that the ads are not crap and it's not what I believe it is a fact Coronation Street is a 30 minute show week nights.

It sounds more like you are the one spinning things not me.

All I have stated are facts all you have said is it "feels like".
Ok... whatever.
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Old Oct 14th 2008, 4:50 am
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Default Re: What don’t / didn’t you like about Canada?

Originally Posted by geedee
...you cannot get away from the fact that Canadian TV is absolutely abysmal...
Do you mean Canadian produced TV programs or the content of Canadian TV?

Da Vinci's Inquest/City Hall were Canadian series and very good too. BBC standard. The Border is current and very good. Just my opinion, as opposed to fact.

US produced programs, I like: Life; Eli Stone; The Mentalist; Criminal Minds; The Unit; CSIs NY and Miami are enjoyable. "My own worst enemy" got off to a promising start tonight.

Thinking about it, that's probably more TV in a week than I used to watch back in England in a week.

We all remember great TV progs from the past, but they weren't all on at the same time. In any given week there were maybe one or two good comedy shows and one or two good drama series; the rest would have primarily been (un)reality TV, chat shows and soaps. Rather like North America really.
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Old Oct 14th 2008, 1:41 pm
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Default Re: What don’t / didn’t you like about Canada?

Things I don't like:

- physical ugliness of the built environment

- urban sprawl, Oshawa to Hamilton is mostly treeless developments of poorly built houses squished together between identical malls

- traffic. I used to be able to average 11mph on the highways in daylight but now that's optimistic

Imagine Milton Keynes going on for a hundred miles. That's the populated areas of Canada. In this context television becomes important, it's something you can "do" without having to look outside.
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Old Oct 14th 2008, 1:58 pm
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Default Re: What don’t / didn’t you like about Canada?

Winter, its a month too long. Very poor local golfing conditions for 6 months of the year.

Bugs. F'in bugs trying to eat me in the spring and early summer.

I could live with a bit more holiday (I get three weeks, plus the stat days), not that I can afford to fly anywhere nice to spend it. Its not a deal breaker though.

Tenuous employment rights. Its no fun to be fired out of the blue with no warning or explanation. "Temporary Lay Offs" are a way of life here for some employers.

Everything else is pretty trivial. Don't like the TV, then read a book, or do something useful with your time.

The plusses still handily outweigh the negatives however I look at it.
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Old Oct 14th 2008, 2:15 pm
  #86  
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Default Re: What don’t / didn’t you like about Canada?

Originally Posted by BristolUK
Do you mean Canadian produced TV programs or the content of Canadian TV?
The formatting and quantity of advertisement breaks makes watching tv painful. We find plenty of good programmes to watch - but we do not watch anything live. At all. The PVR is the only way to go !
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Old Oct 14th 2008, 3:47 pm
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Default Re: What don’t / didn’t you like about Canada?

Originally Posted by dbd33
Things I don't like:
- physical ugliness of the built environment

- urban sprawl, Oshawa to Hamilton is mostly treeless developments of poorly built houses squished together between identical malls

I agree with dbd on this one...although it isn't a Canadian only disease. A lot of the US suffers from this.

In areas that developed post automobile, large lot sizes and sprawling housing estates have developed. People, on the whole, gripe about the length and stress of the work commute, but do little individually to improve the situation. People want their piece of paradise but they won't make a sacrifice (i.e take public transit, limit the number of cars they own, live closer to home) that affects them potentially negatively.

Toronto doesn't have many impediments to growth, so the growth has spread like a plague across previously productive farmland. Granted there are some ravines and river valleys and the lake, but there aren't any mountains, huge swamps, steep valleys etc that stop the McMansions from continuing unabated.
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Old Oct 14th 2008, 3:52 pm
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Default Re: What don’t / didn’t you like about Canada?

Originally Posted by clynnog

Toronto doesn't have many impediments to growth, so the growth has spread like a plague across previously productive farmland. Granted there are some ravines and river valleys and the lake, but there aren't any mountains, huge swamps, steep valleys etc that stop the McMansions from continuing unabated.
You've just described most major Canadian cities unfortunately.

Vancouver has it's physical limits so has spread eastwards into the Fraser Valley. But just about all the others are badly guilty of urban sprawl, Calgary being one of the worst.
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Old Oct 14th 2008, 4:02 pm
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Default Re: What don’t / didn’t you like about Canada?

Originally Posted by Steve_P
badly guilty of urban sprawl, Calgary being one of the worst.
And there is nothing to stop it

I cannot quite believe the growth and spread in the last decade or so. Give it another 10 or 15 years and Cochrane will be one of the NW burbs - with the Bearspaw acreages eaten up and vanished when no-one was looking

I only partially jest!
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Old Oct 14th 2008, 4:08 pm
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Default Re: What don’t / didn’t you like about Canada?

Originally Posted by ann m
And there is nothing to stop it

I cannot quite believe the growth and spread in the last decade or so. Give it another 10 or 15 years and Cochrane will be one of the NW burbs - with the Bearspaw acreages eaten up and vanished when no-one was looking

I only partially jest!
Ann as you may already know I worked at the Springbank Airport for many years.

In the late seventies I think it was, there was a section in the paper that was predicting the physical size of the city into the 21st century.

At that time it was felt that by 2000 Springbank would be in the city with all the acreages gone and replaced with housing areas similar to the ones in the city now, and that Cochrane would be either absorbed by the city or right on the western edge.

A couple of economic slowdowns have slowed that prediction but I think that it will still happen eventually.
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