Not content with streaming content? Why not try the library?

It’s quite possible no one on the planet bemoans the demise of black and white television. Who, apart from cinema auteurs and the incurably colour-blind, would want to revert to a two-tone version of the world. Sorry, life does not happen in black and white, just like life did not happen in jerky, sped-up film dating back to the turn of the last century. For example, soldiers did not march off to the First World War in triple time. (Had they known the horrors awaiting them, they may have fled to the woods in realtime haste.)

Colour television was at the time a miraculous innovation; same too for cable TV and the outburst of uncensored creativity it spawned. And PVR was the saviour of humanity, or at least the part of humanity not able or wanting to be front and centre at the very hour their favourite program is broadcast.

All this to say television has undergone a stunning evolution in relatively few years. But arguably the biggest change of all is the emergence of something that isn’t actually television per se, but the proliferation of programming available through the internet. Streaming.

Last week’s edition of The Economist has a feature report on the colossus of streaming, Netflix, the “the tech giant everyone is watching.” It notes that this year alone the company will be spending about $13 billion (USD) on more than 80 feature films. The Economist notes Netflix steers clear of any journalistic content and hence can’t be accused of purveying “fake news.”

Not bad for a company that started out 20 years ago as a mail order DVD rental service. (Some of us shied away from Netflix back then, fearful of being ensnared in negative option billing schemes by the likes of Columbia House record marketers.)

Of course, in Canada, Netflix is more than just about the things people watch and how they watch them. With the federal government making a deal with Netflix to produce more Canadian content, and Quebecers wondering just how much of that content will be in French, there’s a certain political intrigue associated with the service, though not on the twisted scale of House of Cards.

Meanwhile, Quebec is moving ahead with plans to tax services like Netflix (and Amazon) in a bid to recoup some of the revenue - $155 million annually, according to officials - lost to suppliers based outside the country.

Netflix, because of its lack of French content, is nowhere near as popular in Quebec as it is in the rest of the country. Figures for 2017 from the Media Technology Monitor outfit show 22 percent of francophone households subscribe to Netflix; outside Quebec the figure is 44 percent. Still, nearly a quarter of franco households is a surprisingly high percentage, a fact perhaps explained by the availability of French subtitles on English-language productions.

(People in Quebec or elsewhere in Canada seeking content in French have other streaming options, including Videotron’s Illico, and Radio-canada’s Tou.tv.)

While streaming is revolutionizing the consumption of programming content, and folks ponder whether or not to severe the umbilical cable with traditional TV, another phenomenon in digitization has resulted in a pleasant and unintentioned by-product for Quebec fans of English television.

These days just about every DVD of a movie or TV is produced with subtitles, in other languages and for the deaf or hard of hearing. The Quebec City library system has amassed an extraordinarily complete collection of popular Englishlanguage TV and movie titles, including many of the Netflix repertoire, as well as the best of PBS.

All it takes is a free library card and sometimes a bit of patience - chances are you’ll be on the waitlist for the most popular series. There is a modest fee, but then again there’s the healthy walk or bike ride to the library to pick up your reserved “content” when your number is up.

Be forewarned, however, there is sometimes the anomalous situation when an original English-language production is available only with French dubbing and not even English subtitles.

Not ready to sell your TV soul to Netflix or the like? Your local library may be able to satisfy your binge-watching needs.