When Duncan Campbell of Regina discovered he would have to specifically request a free preview of PrideVision, he was furious.
He called his local cable company, Access Communications, to complain. “I asked, ‘Why? Why are you treating this channel differently?'” says Campbell. “Content concerns,” the company’s representative told him, over and over again.
Not satisfied, Campbell says he emailed the big wigs. “I will be watching the free-only-if-you-ask-for-it preview of PrideVision very carefully and comparing it to other stations you carry to see what exactly is causing such a ‘content concern’ for you,” he wrote.
Access Communications did not reply to his e-mail, but the company did change its policy almost overnight.
When Campbell called back to ask for the free preview, he was told he no longer had to. Access Communications had added the gay network to its free preview package and removed the extra steps.
“If that’s what everybody else is doing, then that’s what we’re going to do too,” says Rick Fraser, Access Communications’ marketing vice president.