Canada’s creaky broadcast regulator is edging towards giving Canadians more choice in what TV channels they watch, and how they pay for it. It’s proposing that cable and satellite providers be required to offer consumers a fairly cheap basic service, and then let them choose individual channels in a so-called “pick and pay” model.

Those changes are welcome, as far as they go. Cable fees have become one of the biggest bills most consumers face each month. And few things irk consumers as much as being forced to shell out for a pack of channels they don’t want in order to get the few they do.

So the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is on the right track by pushing more choice and greater flexibility. That kind of change can’t come soon enough.

But Canadian cable and satellite customers – and that means the great majority of us – shouldn’t get their hopes too high. The changes are being billed as a dramatic departure from the current system, and they would at least break down the practice of “bundling” channels together – an annoying and costly limitation on consumer choice. But they won’t do away with it altogether.

As always, though, the devil will be in the details. The CRTC proposes a “skinny basic” package of local Canadian channels, with the price capped at $20 to $30 a month. On top of that, customers of Bell, Rogers and other providers would be able to pick and choose other channels for a few dollars each per month.

It sounds tempting – pay for just what you want. But it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll end up paying less.

In fact, where so-called à la carte pricing has been adopted in the United States, consumers typically pay about the same overall because the price of what they want most goes up. The CRTC will have to guard against price-gouging so that viewers don’t just end up with fewer, but more expensive, channels.

In Canada, of course, there’s an extra concern: making sure that enough unique Canadian programming is produced. The CRTC will have to make sure that goal does not disappear in whatever model is eventually adopted. That’s why it sensibly suggests that broadcasters be allowed to count what they spend on programming for online towards what they are required to spend on Canadian programming.

That proposal is an important sign that the CRTC is finally coming to grips with the tornado of change in the world of television. More and more consumers, especially millennials, are “cutting the cord” – doing without cable or satellite entirely. They’re viewing content online, through YouTube, Netflix, Hulu and illegal downloads – threatening the future of cable providers and conventional broadcasters alike.

Under Jean-Pierre Blais, its chairman since 2012, the CRTC is at long last taking all this on board. He has already put the regulator on the side of consumers by killing three-year cellphone contracts and pressing for lower roaming fees. Now it’s good to see the CRTC put forward consumer-friendly proposals for cable and satellite providers.

The CRTC put out its proposals last week and plans to bring in new rules by the end of next year. It’s moving in the right direction, but the agency needs to make sure viewers really do come out ahead in the end.

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