Fans of WPBS can breath a sigh of relief. According to the WPBS-TV website earlier today, Rogers is not going to be pulling WPBS from its Ottawa lineup afterall.

“We are pleased to be able to share this news with our viewers”, said Tom Hanley, President and General Manager of WPBS-TV.  “Together with Rogers, we have found a solution to continue to deliver programming to our friends in Ottawa through a reliable fibre connection.”

Clearly the backlash was greater than Rogers had anticipated because just a couple of days ago they were saying they were still committed to their plan.

Frankly, this is the best thing Rogers could have done from a public relations point of view because it lets them say “See? You spoke and we listened”, which huge companies like them rarely get to do. I noticed last night that channel 66, which was their Your World This Week promotional channel, is now carrying the Detroit PBS station, which is something I suggested to Rogers when I called them a few days ago. (I don’t know whether this is a permanent change because the cable lineup on the Rogers website still show YWTW as being on 66, but when they’ve promo’d other channels on 66 in the past they didn’t change the tag from YWTW.)

Congratulations to WPBS-TV on remaining part of the Ottawa community! And a tip o’ the hat to Rogers for showing that they still do listen to their customers. And a special tip o’ the hat to everyone who showed their support and complained to Rogers. 🙂

Update: CBC’s coverage of this.

Randall Deneley’s Memo to Rogers: PBS fans are right in today’s Ottawa Citizen is worth reading.

I’m a long-time Rogers customer, having had a Rogers cellphone since September 1991 when they were Cantel and Rogers cable service everwhere I’ve lived and I’m upset. My parents have had Rogers cable since the dawn of time and they’re really upset. Over the years, they’ve been loyal supporters of WPBS and the decision by Rogers to remove WPBS is causing them to start looking at alternative television providers. Sadly, it doesn’t appear that any of the other providers carry WPBS, though a clever company, like StarChoice, should be looking at adding WPBS to its lineup because there’s a chance to pick up a fair number of new customers.

I’m not sure why David Purdy, vice-president of Rogers, seems intent on ignoring his customers, but he is. Perhaps we should be focusing our attention on the members of Rogers’ Board of Directors to get their attention.

It appears that Rogers has started to realize that WPBS viewers in Ottawa are not happy. However, according to a story in today’s Citizen it seems that they think we’re unhappy because we think it will cost us more money.

They’re wrong.

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WordPress 2.8.2 was released a couple of days ago. It resolves an XSS vulnerability. Comment author URLs were not fully sanitized so they could redirect you from the admin panel to somewhere else if a malicious commenter was persistent.

As usual, the upgrade was quick and painless and consisted of backing up the database and clicking the upgrade link.

About a year ago, I wrote a couple of entries about taxi drivers who were whining complaining about having to pay to have cameras installed in their cabs despite the fact that they’ve been allowed to keep the difference between 7% and the current GST rate plus 5¢/fare to help offset the cost. This quickly adds up to the cost of installing one of the systems.

Since then, there have been a number of incidents in which these cameras have helped in the investigation of violence against cab drivers.

The most recent is a cabbie who was attacked by two guys who started arguing with the driver and attacked him when he was dropping them off at the corner of Elgin and Gladstone. According to the CBC, the taxi cab camera helped police identify the two men who subsequently surrendered to police 4 days after the attack took place.

They’re both charged with aggravated assault and one guy is also charged with two counts of breaching probation.

As for the taxi driver, he’s still in the hospital, though he’s in stable condition.

Sounds like the cameras weren’t such a bad idea after all, eh?

Legendary anchorman Walter Cronkite passed away earlier this evening  at the age of 92.

Walter Cronkite was known as “the most trusted man in America”. He reported on major news events like the assassination of President Kennedy, the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon, the Vietnam War, Civil Rights and Watergate with a level of professionalism that most reporters today still aspire to (or they should).

He probably said it the best at the end of his final broadcast on March 6, 1981:

"Old anchormen, you see, don’t fade away, they just keep coming back for more. And that’s the way it is."

Like many people in Ottawa, I have watched WPBS-TV from Watertown, NY,  on Rogers cable over the years. CBC has a story on their website about Rogers’ decision to replace the Watertown public television broadcaster with the PBS station in Detroit, effective August 18th. According to the story, WPBS only learned of this decision when an Ottawa viewer emailed them. WPBS’s website has an urgent message to their viewers about this.

20% of WPBS’ viewers are based in Eastern Ontario and those 20% contribute 70% of the money they raise through their funding drives. So, being pulled from Rogers Ottawa is going to have a serious impact on their fund raising.

According to the customer service rep I talked to at Rogers when I called to voice my feelings, they made this decision based on comments received over the last few years that people want PBS Detroit because it has a digital signal. She also told me that she’s been receiving a lot of calls from people who are unhappy with this decision, which she has been relaying to her management.

I asked if they couldn’t just assign it a new channel slot instead of removing it completely, but all she could say is that she has been passing questions like these upwards. Incidentally, if you have a digital cable box, you already have access to the Detroit PBS station on channel 163.

If you’re upset about this decision, the best thing you can do is let Rogers know ASAP. You can reach them by phone at 1-888-764-3771 or through their website at http://www.rogers.com/contactus. If enough people complain, they might just reconsider their decision.