Bad Marketing: Bell, Bad Ethics and the “TV Tax”
October 14th, 2009Today I received an e-mail in my inbox from Bell Canada.
Bell has been my cellular telephone provider for over a decade now. I haven’t always been thrilled with their services or hidden fees, but they’ve generally been pretty good about not calling me in the middle of the day to tell me about new features, or try to upgrade my account, or whatnot. Then again, I’ve been fairly firm in the past about telling them that I don’t want such communications. Still, it’s nice to see my wishes honoured.
Today, though, I got an e-mail from Bell, telling me that — heck, I’ll just let you read the thing, with annotations. There are two broad things to discuss here: the ethics of this message, which is full of what are at best half-truths, and the ethics of how it got to my inbox.
Dear Customer,
Help stop your TV fees from increasing.
CTV, Global and the CBC have recently
asked the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to
significantly increase TV taxes.
True so far. Television networks across Canada have taken umbrage to the fact that specialty channels (Food, Showcase, Life, etc.) get money directly from cable companies — money the companies collect from subscribers — but the networks, despite providing tons of content to cable companies, get nothing from the cable providers (except, arguably, greater reach and therefore greater audiences than would be otherwise available to them). So they’ve gone to the CRTC, the federal legislative body for radio and television, to ask them to make the cable companies pay them as well.
The CRTC has been asked to do this by having Bell and the other operators pay
more, which would result in higher fees for you.
Here we leap feet-first into what could at best be called a half-truth, or uncharitably, a flat-out lie. “Which would result in higher fees for you,” specifically. This gets repeated further down the Panic Letter, so we’ll dig into it when they flip it over again.
We don’t think that’s right, you shouldn’t either.
Please don’t tell me what to think, Bell.
So please speak and have your
say (with a link here to a Web site).
This link leads to a page called “Stop the TV Tax,” which uses the same alarmist language to inform people that a “new TV tax” is going to be levied on them. This is, again, a half-truth at best. The page, incidentally, is funneled through a Bell page so that they can keep track of how many hits the “TV Tax” site gets via Bell vs. via Videotron, Rogers, etc.
*This is what’s happening. *
The CRTC has told satellite and cable companies to hand over $100 million a year
as of September 1, 2009. These fees are being passed on to you.
Note that at no point has it been stated that Bell is a satellite company, or that part of this $100 million will come directly from Bell’s coffers. This isn’t dishonesty, per se, but there’s some deliberate obfuscation of what Bell’s stake in this is. Bell’s concern is not for you, the consumer: Bell’s concern is for Bell’s profits. I’m not saying this from a “dark and evil megacorp” perspective but rather a position of practicality: Bell is not writing letters and placing ads and creating Web pages because their CEO is losing sleep about consumer rights.
It’s the last sentence that’s troublesome, and it’s there that we leap into cunning language with both feet. These fees are being passed on to you.
By who?
By Bell.
There is nothing — nothing — in any tabled legislation that says that Bell is required to bill subscribers more as a result of this law. The compression of “The CRTC has told…” and “…passed on to you” is a deliberate conjunction meant to imply that the CRTC is mandating that consumers pay more to cover the additional distribution to local networks, but it is not mandatory.
Bell is, in effect, telling me “If the government makes us share our profits with local networks providing content, we’ll pass those expenses on to you so that our profits” — which are, incidentally, substantial — “won’t be affected, and you should be outraged.”
Well, I’m a bit peeved, yes. But not at the government. At whoever at Bell thought this up.
This money is passing through something called the Local Programming Improvement
Fund (LPIF) – straight to media giants like CTVglobemedia and Canwest Global,
straight to the CBC.
Bell is, of course, a media giant in their own right. They’re working here to position themselves as the “little guy,” which is flat-out bizarre given that they’re probably the most ubiquitous name in telecom across the entire country.
No new local programming, no improvement to anything other than the bottom line
of broadcasters.
I’m working hard on not taking a side in the greater debate itself, and to focus just on this letter — since it was put in front of me, unsolicited, for reasons we’ll discuss later. But as somebody who’s worked in media — newspapers and radio — I know that local content is hemmorraghing money right now, and I strongly suspect that nobody is rolling naked in their vaults of cash a la Scrooge McDuck.
You are now likely paying for this on your TV bill.
Because Bell has chosen to pass the expenses on to us.
You should also know that hot on the heels of that campaign, CTV, Global and the
CBC are now lobbying for even more.Each year, satellite and cable companies pay hundreds of millions of dollars to
broadcasters. We contribute to the CRTC’s operating budget. Although to date
these fees have not been broken out on monthly bills, you need to know they
exist – especially because the TV networks still want more.
Again, an odd bit of positioning. Yes, Bell pays licensing fees, as does every other telecom and broadcaster (with the exception of community media, where fees are waived if they meet a “breadth requirement”), which is probably what Bell means by the “CRTC’s operating budget.” Beyond that, though, there’s a murky sense of what they mean by “hundreds of millions of dollars to broadcasters” and “fees have not been broken out on montly bills.”
As far as I can tell, that means that these fees have not been itemized on monthly bills. We don’t know what percentage of our monthly bill is going towards Bell’s licensing fees, because it’s not particularly relevant. We also don’t know what percentage goes towards heating their underground parking garages and what percentage covers business lunches, nor what part of our monthly bill is converted into advertising expenses. But to boldly claim that every cent they pay out to content providers, and for licensing, is not factored into what subscribers pay at the end of the month? Deceptive and baffling.
If the CRTC gives in to the broadcasters’ latest demand and lets local TV
stations charge for their currently free over-the-air local signals, it would
more than double the portion of your Bell TV bill going to government fees – and
into the bank accounts of the broadcasters, like CTV, Global and the CBC.
Again, some dubious language here. “Currently free over-the-air local signals” is a key example of a Catch-22 for whatever flacks (a term I use with love, being a flack myself) wrote this letter. On the one hand, you have to position the enemy as charging for something that — God almighty — they’re giving away to other people. On the other side of the coin, you’ve just told people that a key part of your service is available for free, which is never smart. And again with the “into the bank accounts.” I’ll admit I have a soft spot for local media and think it should be protected and supported, but I think even a neutral observer can recognize that there are actually operating expenses associated with running a television station.
In fact, if the CRTC lets broadcasters have their way, then government-imposed
fees will be just shy of /one *billion* dollars/.It’s time to say enough. Help make it stop. Let the CRTC know what you think
about new TV taxes — have your say.
And then a bunch of links.
There’s a lot wrong with that letter.
First, it basically says this, in paraphrase: “A neutral governmental body decided that we owe money to some other companies. We’re passing that expense directly on to you instead of shouldering it ourselves. Be furious with the government!”
Second, it assumes that the words “tax” coupled with some clunky phrasing will dupe the reader into thinking that Bell is the plucky little guy with the nerve to stand up to the bad, bad government and those nasty, nasty television stations. It’s not up front about its stake in the decision, and greviously misrepresents how and why this will “cost me more.”
Third, it won’t “cost me more.” Note, above, that I said that I’ve been a cell subscriber with Bell for over 10 years. Note also that I didn’t say I was an Internet or satellite TV subscriber. Never have been. Probably never will be.
So why am I getting e-mails from Bell about how the bad, bad government and nasty, nasty television stations are threatening “me” with a “TV tax”?
I’ve given Bell my e-mail address exactly once. In fact, I generated a specific e-mail address to give Bell, which redirects to my main e-mail address, because I can do that sort of thing and because I like to know where my spam is coming from.
I gave Bell that e-mail address when modifying some things on my cell phone account. I also — and I’m very careful about these things — made sure not to give Bell permission to send me “special offers” or “important news” or “offers from third-party affiliates”.
And here I am, getting propaganda — poorly worded propaganda that insults my intelligence — in my inbox.
This is, to my mind, as much of an ethical breach on Bell’s part as the dishonest phrasing in their letter.
The contact information I gave Bell was given to them with the confidence it would be used appropriately: given to them in relation to my cell phone account, for use (presumably) to give me crucial information about said cell phone account.
So why am I getting — again — poorly worded propaganda from an e-mail address provided to Bell for a service I do not subscribe to, wholly unrelated to the service I do subscribe to?
Because somebody at Bell made a decision.
A decision to effectively spam every address they had in their database, regardless of how appropriate it was, with propaganda about a CRTC decision regarding licensing fees for the redistribution of TV network broadcasts via for-profit cable and satellite entities.
So not only am I insulted by this poorly worded propaganda, I also feel violated: I entrusted Bell with contact information to be used appropriately, and it was abused to spam me.
We’re vaultin past the usual grey of marketing ethics here and into something a shade darker: abusing information given for one purpose, to spam people for another.
Poor ethics; also poor marketing. Does this inspire me to trust Bell with my business for things other than my cell phone? No.
Does it inspire me to cancel my cell plan with Bell and move to a provider who uses my contact information appropriately and ethically at the earliest possible opportunity?
Yes.
Update: Within the two days that I was writing this, I have also been sent a text message on my cell phone from Bell. So now we’re compounding the breach of ethics stemming from abusing my e-mail address to abusing a system I am paying them for, doubly so because I pay for texts.
I’m going to do my level best to cancel my Bell contract today.
Long live the “TV tax.”











