Rogers has brought down the axe on yet another CityTV mailstay, Ed the Sock is out:
In another move that signals changes at Citytv, Ed and Red’s Night Party is being cancelled as of Aug. 31, but according to the man behind the incorrigible sock puppet, Ed the Sock is far from dead.
“There’s no ill will. Things change,” said Steve Kerzner, Ed’s voice and creator. “We just don’t really fit, I guess, as presently constituted, with what they wanted to do with the channel.”
Kerzner says he was told that Citytv’s new corporate parent, Rogers, would like to attract more female viewers. He also says that he’s been feeling restless and wants to branch out and do more than just the late night show.
Toronto Star: Rogers to Ed: Put a sock in it
“In order to fit with where they’re taking the channel, the show (most recently titled Ed and Red’s Night Party) would have to change, and it would have seemed to be selling out. Better to make a new show than alter the one everybody seemed to love.”
London Free Press: Ed the Sock gets the boot from CityTV
At least the headlines weren’t deliberatly false here, just the writers or copy editors working through their foot and sock puns. (“Darn it, Ed the Sock losing his CITY-TV comedy show“)
This is of course after Peter Silverman was given the unceremonious heave-ho and Speaker’s Corner got the axe, Rogers Management seem determined to put the past of CityTV behined them; which suits Big Red fine, but it does little to generate Goodwill in the community. It’s a safe bet that CityTV will no longer be “everywhere” very soon too. I know, change is inevitable; but wathcing CityTV become “Roger’s TV” has not been the most pleasant experience.
Call me when Breakfast TV becomes “Morning with Rogers”.
It Sucks, why I won't use the Roger's DVR.
Published by NiteMayr on June 30, 2008I lived in the States from March 2002 until August 2007. I was a comcast customer for 100% of that time, having free basic cable as part of my rental package at the townhouse. I can’t say I hated Comcast, and in fact I really liked their dual-tuner DVR solution. I tried out the TIVO as a replacement and found it too cumbersome a soultion (after having the Comcast solution for over a year at the time). When I returned to Canada, I lived with my parents out in boonies (Kincardine) where the local Cable company had the same basic hardware and sofware as Comcast, which was great. The software was easy to use, allowed me to set up reminders and search for shows by name. Great, huh? I could set up season passes for shows and be reminded on screen that they were on, pressing the swap button let me swpa between tuners with impunity and both had a good hour long stream in reserve. TV viewing heaven.
The best I can say for the Rogers DVR is that I could pause TV.
I couldn’t search for shows by name, I had to scroll through an alphabetic list of every occurence of a given show, with shows thaty are syndicated in there, we had hundreds of identical listings to scroll through. This took ages.
When I did find a show I wanted to record, I could set it to record a number of occurances, but no season pass and no “record only new shows” option was available, I also had to make sure I was recording it on the channel I wanted to. With newer shows that were also syndicated, this was giant pain in the ass.
Then there is the HD handling, can’t they figure out how to push all NON HD content at 480p or 480i so that we don’t have to have all the damn bars burning my CRT?
Big Red, you need to get in touch with comcast and get your cable hardware in order, this software has been around since before I left Canada in 2002. It’s time to upgrade.